considering a UJSSM with added grains... opinions?

[joeymac]

I've been doing alot of reading about people supplementing their UJSSM with grains and/or DME to increase the complexity of their drop. I actually did a fair bit of homebrewing beer several years ago, so I'm familiar with mashing and such. So I do find the idea very appealing and fun to supplement my corn-sugarhead UJSSM with added grains. However this "cold mashing" or "simple mashing" the UJSSM uses, is new to me. I'm going on my second generation and one thing I don't understand quite yet with adding unmalted grains directly to a ferment like with a UJSSM is the potential for flavor when compared to more traditional mashing and sparging techniques.

So as I see it, I have a few options I can do to begin incorporating other grains into my UJSSM... I'm just not sure which you all would recommend:

• Include cracked or rolled unmalted grains (barley, oats, wheat, etc) along with the corn in my UJSSM for flavor only. Sugar or DME provides the yeast food. Replace grains a they are "spent" like you do with UJSSM corn.
• Typical mashing of malted grains (barley, oats, wheat, etc) using strike and sparge water to make the wort. Remove grains and pour the wort over the UJSSM corn. Use sugar or DME as needed to bring the SG up to 9% potential ABV. Do not include the malted barley/oats/wheat in the ferment.
• Mash grains with strike and sparge water using a brew bag so that grain can be included in the UJSSM fermenter with the wort. Use sugar or DME as needed to bring the SG up to 9% potential ABV. After fermentation on all the grains is complete, the spent mashed grains in the bag can be easily removed from the UJSSM corn bed.

Basically, here are my questions:
> Will I get more/better flavor from letting unmalted grains sit in the fermenter with my UJSSM corn or will I get better flavor mashing into wort?
> If mashing is the way to go, do I gain any flavor or ABV by putting the already mashed/spent grains in the wash and fermenting on the grain (in a bag for easy removal)?
> For the sugar and additional ABV points, will DME let me avoid the harshness of cane sugar and give me a more rounded fuller taste/mouthfeel?

[Swedish Pride]

lots of folks here love there UJ as is, or with added grains malted or unmalted.
I've yet to see anyone thinking their UJ is better than their AG though...

Since you got the skills and gear for AG, I'd go AG all the way, fermenting on the grain is what most do but some argue that off the grain gives better taste, best way to figure out what you like is to try it

Personally I can not taste the difference.

[joeymac]

lots of folks here love there UJ as is, or with added grains malted or unmalted.
I've yet to see anyone thinking their UJ is better than their AG though...

Since you got the skills and gear for AG, I'd go AG all the way, fermenting on the grain is what most do but some argue that off the grain gives better taste, best way to figure out what you like is to try it

Personally I can not taste the difference.

Well, I like the corn flavor and think I want to keep my UJSSM style corn bed. Cooking corn looks like a giant pain in the ass unlike anything I ever did brewing beer. And at $7 for 50LB it doesn't get any simpler to add that corn flavor than pouring cracked corn straight into a fermenter and skimming off spent corn each genration.

Even at $2-$3 per pound I would want to stay with malted grains and avoid any cooking or malting of grains myself because I have a local brew shop that has everything I could need for malted grains with over 75 to choose from - even whisky/distillers malts. I just wasn't sure if I could get that all grain flavor more easily by using cheap unmalted grains thrown in the fermentor with my ujssm corn or if I should mash malts into a wort. It looks like from your suggestion that the mashed malts method is the right choice and I may even get better flavor fermenting off the grain (BAIB approach). I use BIAB because don't have a mashtun, so pulling the grain bag out of the wash before or after the ferment is the same effort.

The second question I had was about the sugar vs dme to bump my abv up to 9%... sugar is $0.45/LB and DME is $2.50/LB so that price difference is too significant to ignore. At 1.5 LB/gallon in adddition to the mashed grains, DME would be $45 for each 12gallon ferment and about $135 every 3 sourmash generations. I can do 3 ujssm generations with sugar for $20 to get enough low wines for a spirit run. Thats a huge difference... but if DME can eliminate the cane/beef sugar harshness then its something for me to consider.

[Still Life]

Well, I like the corn flavor and think I want to keep my UJSSM style corn bed. Cooking corn looks like a giant pain in the ass unlike anything I ever did brewing beer.

It can be. The stirring. The mess. Try a covered double boiler or two or three.
The only spillage is water. Minimal stirring. No scorching.
I was lucky in this regard. The four pots I have for corn managed to fit one in the other for two pair of double boilers.

No longer dread the corn mess and work, and the AG comes out great.

[joeymac]

I see the allure of being able to say "I made this all grain" but I'm just not there yet. Even when I was brewing beers, I chose to do partial mashes with malted grains for mouthfeel and taste and then dme to hit my target gravitates and colors. For home brew beer, a grain/dme partial mash done right is nearly indistinguishable from all grain and usually more reliable/repeatable. Much easier to screw up a true all grain.

I'm only going into my 3rd gen now, but I'm pretty excited to get through my 6th gen of plain UJSSM and fill up my reserves on UJSSM... then I can pervert my 6th gen corn bed and start using malted grains and dme in the wort.

[GrassHopper]

To be.....or not to be, that is the question? It is the ethereal question of hobby every hobby distiller. Whether to do a "Tried and True UJSSM" or to go with an AG.
That my friend depends entirely on your situation. For many of us it was simple. I wanted/needed something right now that I can enjoy. UJSSM provided that. After filling two 20 liter barrels, I decided to step up to AG. It was an eye opener to the complexity of the process to get a final product from the AG process. Not saying it was not good. It was. But it took much more time, effort. Few who have stepped into the world of AG first have immediate success. It requires more effort, more learning and more patience. I have plenty to drink....and it is good! It was because I chose UJSSM to start with. If you choose to experiment with an already "Tried and True recipe" such as UJSSM, then go for it. We can't help when the "shit hits the fan", because we followed the original. Let us know how it turns out. Or, do an AG from the "Tried and True" that has been tested by time and experience and enjoy a really good drink.
This is only an opinion.....we all learn from each other.
Keep in mind that UJSSM is a "Sour Mash" and gets more sour from each gen. You typically don't get that from AG recipes.

Good luck Joey

[joeymac]

To be.....or not to be, that is the question? It is the ethereal question of hobby every hobby distiller. Whether to do a "Tried and True UJSSM" or to go with an AG.
That my friend depends entirely on your situation. For many of us it was simple. I wanted/needed something right now that I can enjoy. UJSSM provided that. After filling two 20 liter barrels, I decided to step up to AG. It was an eye opener to the complexity of the process to get a final product from the AG process. Not saying it was not good. It was. But it took much more time, effort. Few who have stepped into the world of AG first have immediate success. It requires more effort, more learning and more patience. I have plenty to drink....and it is good! It was because I chose UJSSM to start with. If you choose to experiment with an already "Tried and True recipe" such as UJSSM, then go for it. We can't help when the "shit hits the fan", because we followed the original. Let us know how it turns out. Or, do an AG from the "Tried and True" that has been tested by time and experience and enjoy a really good drink.
This is only an opinion.....we all learn from each other.
Keep in mind that UJSSM is a "Sour Mash" and gets more sour from each gen. You typically don't get that from AG recipes.

Good luck Joey

Thanks. So many options, so little time... especially when the true results from an "experiment" sometimes take months to taste and enjoy.

What you describe is exactly my plan. I'm doing plain UJSSM washes right now at about 11 gallons per ferment (planning on starting my 3rd gen tomorrow) and get 2.5gal @ 40% in my strippign runs. My plans are to strip 3-4 generations to collect for each spirit run. So by the time I've finished I finished 6-8 generations I should have two spirit runs completed and (hopefully) near 5 gallons of finished hearts at 120 proof ready for aging.

After that's all done in about a month and a half I've decided to play with making AG washes using malted grains and fermenting on a bed of plain cracked corn... just the same process as my UJSSM ferments except by using AG wort instead of sugar water.