Home Distiller

That's what I ended up doing, soaked corn in boiled water first, then after it cooled for a few hours I heated it back up using steam. The knocking noise was not a problem with hot corn mash. Overall it worked well and I was able to improve my extraction efficiency. I did have a little trouble with ...

Here's my copy. steam_tree.jpg steam_wand.jpg I just finished soldering it up and did a quick test with water in the cooking kettle. Everything seemed to work great, no leaks or anything, but once it gets going it makes this really loud hammering/popping sound. Is that due to the stainless mesh used...

@shady, what did you use for the 2 inch triclamp flange here? Did you solder to a disc cut out of copper sheet?

@der wo - I buy 2 row in bulk for beer brewing, so I just use that and make sure I have 40 dp for the entire grain bill, as I read that a 60 minute conversion is possible as long as you have more than 35 dp or so. When I mash I add the barley and rye at 145-150 and insulate, then let it drop overnig...

@jb ferment temp was temp controlled starting at 67f and slowly increased to 70f. Just checked it and it's at 68, probably just because the house is cold and it's about finished fermenting.

I read at Williams brewing that BRY-97 has 73-77% attenuation. 1.080-1.014 is 82.5% attenuation. Do these things apply to beer but not whiskey mashes for some reason?

Maybe. I wanted to use US-05 but the brew shop was out of stock. Just looked and US-05 is rated low to medium alcohol tolerance so that actually might have been a worse choice.

I've got a bourbon mash (12lb cracked corn, 4lb 2-row, 1lb rye, final vol 6gal) that started at 1.080 and it looks like it's going to finish fermenting around 1.014 (8.7% abv). Yeast used was BRY-97 dry ale yeast. I've read a bunch of people here saying they get around or below 1.000. Is that what p...

I tried using backset from this batch in the next and it totally smelled like puke. I wonder if that was due to unfermented sugar as well. Does backset normally smell like puke?

I think for my next batch I'm going to split it and boil half, run a little experiment.

Interesting! Do you think removing the protein from solution via hot break during the boil has any negative effect on the wash or ferment for whiskey? I agree that denaturing enzymes shouldn't be a problem with a proper conversation and iodine test to confirm, but maybe there are other things that c...

Heated to 175f , rest 45 minutes. Heated to 200f, rest 45 minutes. Stirred often. C how did you do this? I have never been able to heat the corn/water mix up to 200 degrees. It turns to oatmeal and just burns the bottom. adding the corn to boiling water, chopping the heat, and insulating is what I'...

Wow, lots of replies. Thanks for the help guys. @OBX Phantom - I believe I converted the starch that was there to sugar (iodine test), but I got poor starch extraction from the corn. I've been able to greatly improve the efficiency in later mashes. @woodshed - some changes in equipment recently have...

I made my first batch based on NCHooch's Carolina bourbon recipe from the Tried and True Recipe forum section. I used 8lb cracked corn, 4lb 2-row, and 1lb malted rye. I'm from a beer brewing background, so I used a false-bottomed mash tun to separate grains from wash after mashing and did a post-mas...

Tried this method out and had some problems. Here are my notes: 12lb cracked corn + 1 lb 2-row + 2 gal boiling backset + 1 gal water in cooler for 2 days. 5 gal water + 2 tsp gypsum to a boil, stirred in corn/backset mixture. Brought temp to 150f. Add 1lb 2-row and rested 30 minutes. Heated to 175f ...

I've been lurking on here for a while, but I've got some questions so it's time to register. My wife bought me a pot still column with liebig condenser that fits on a beer keg, and I've made 3 batches of NCHooch's Carolina bourbon recipe so far, with a fair amount of success. I've been brewing beer ...