Back in the swing of things with an all grain

[Blackdirt Cowboy]

So I took a three year hiatus just because of time constraints, but I’m back at it. I’m really new to the hobby and only had three runs under my belt when I had to take a break. I made a small run of Jimbos Wheated bourbon. I liked it enough that I made a large run and have had 5-6 gallons of low wines waiting patiently for three years for me to make another run to have enough low wines to do a spirit run and collect enough to fill my 5 gallon barrel.

I finally got back after it this weekend. I made a 40 gallon wash of the Wheated bourbon. It’s now happily fermenting away. Can’t wait for it to be done so I can run it and get to aging it. Here are the details.

40 gallons of water
5 T gypsum
50 ml lactic acid
80 pounds of cracked corn
18 pounds wheat malt
16 pounds 2 row

I brought the water up to boiling and poured it over the corn and let it steep at 180°F for three hours. Then I brought the temp down to 147° and stirred in the malt. It sat at that temperature for 90 minutes and gave me an OG of 1.062. Then I cooled it down and pitched a healthy yeast starter using fleischmanns bread yeast. It was happily bubbling away within an hour. It’s been about 18 hours since I pitched and it has a grain cap on it now. I plan on squeezing the grain next weekend and running it soon after. Really glad to be back at it.

[hawkwing]

I thought you had to cook the corn to gelatinize it. It must’ve worked ok with the three hour test with 180F water based on your SG.

[Ben]

I thought you had to cook the corn to gelatinize it. It must’ve worked ok with the three hour test with 180F water based on your SG.

3 hours at 180 is cooking it... viewtopic.php?t=16799

[Blackdirt Cowboy]

I thought you had to cook the corn to gelatinize it. It must’ve worked ok with the three hour test with 180F water based on your SG.

Yeah it works great. No worry of scorching the corn at all. It’s been fermenting since Sunday night and the grain cap just fell sometime this afternoon, but it’s still bubbling profusely. Just checked the gravity and it’s at 1.015. I tasted it and it’s mostly sour with a little sweet. Won’t be long and I’ll be squeezing grains.