Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

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8Ball
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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by 8Ball »

Twisted Brick wrote: Mon Apr 11, 2022 9:40 am
8Ball wrote: Mon Apr 11, 2022 7:18 am
Otis, here is a thread that details how I do my step mashes with malted grains. Some notes on actual temps & pH during the step mash. It may give you some added insight with your rye journey.
8Ball, is it your Banjo Pickin' Mint Julep thread? That's a good'n.

Otis, can you share the distillery and rye expression you had that was so yummy?
Twisted: my bad, I forgot to include the link to my American Malt Whiskey : viewtopic.php?f=102&t=81154
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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by OtisT »

Twisted Brick wrote: Mon Apr 11, 2022 9:40 am
Otis, can you share the distillery and rye expression you had that was so yummy?
You bet. Crater Lake Distillery out of Bend Oregon.
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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by Deplorable »

I absolutely would by that just for the label. Good stuff huh? I'll have to see if I can find some in June when I am running around Oregon. Is it hard to find?
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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by Twisted Brick »

Thanks Otis. Looking at their website, the Bendistillery lists four ryes, and you got the rarest of all of 'em. Not sure I have the patience to age a rye for 5 long years.
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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by OtisT »

Deplorable,
I got the bottle at the distillery in Tumalo, just NW of Bend. I’m not sure where else may carry it.

Twisted,
I tried both their 3 year and 5 year all rye and the difference was noticeable. I have a few full Badmo barrels that are over 4 years old and still going. Apparently I don’t have a problem letting things age.
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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by OtisT »

One week of settling and I have about 1/2 clear beer from what I squeezed last weekend. The other third of my ferment is still in the barrel and yet to be squeezed. Too many other priorities right now.
One week of settling.
One week of settling.
I’m concerned an infection may kick in, so I decided to add some CO2 to my barrel and carboys. I just whipped up a small batch of 12 brix sugar water, nutrients and yeast and stuck a small vinyl hose in a mason lid for the top of a CO2 generator.
Feeding CO2 into my ferment barrel
Feeding CO2 into my ferment barrel
Likely another week before I get to round 2 of squeezing. Leaves me plenty of time to make a new vapor disperser for the tip of my thumper spear.

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Last edited by OtisT on Sun Apr 17, 2022 6:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by bluc »

First time i have seen diy co2👍
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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by Wyododge »

Just one more… Why the hell didn’t I think of that from Otis.

That’s just awesome.

Edited because I can’t put 15 words together without a spelling mistake.
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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by Ben »

Brilliant CO2 solution.
:)
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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by TwoSheds »

Nice solution! I have thought about doing something similar with baking soda and vinegar in the jar, but obviously that wouldn't be slow-release... Great idea!
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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by Twisted Brick »

Wyododge wrote: Sat Apr 16, 2022 8:54 pm
Edited because I can’t put 15 words together without a spelling mistake.
Well, it was 10 o'clock on a saturday night... :mrgreen:

Otis, your ingenious trick duly filed for future use.
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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by BrewinBrian44 »

Wow that CO2 trick is pretty clever
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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by OtisT »

I wasn’t sure how much gas this would produce so I searched and found these charts that shows how much CO2 is produced based on the ferment’s sugar content. There was a whole study that came with them and showed all the math. I just kept the charts.

My 1/4 gallon ferment is generating about 5 gallons of CO2. I’m going to make another gallon of ferment to ensure I have a nice thick blanket of CO2 in the barrel.

Conversion: 1 cubic foot is 7.5 gallons.
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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by howie »

good one otis.
one the advantages of beer brewing/drinking is that i have CO2 bottles.
i also use co2 on backset/dunder if i don't fill the cube up or transfer the backset/dunder cold.
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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by OtisT »

I finally got the last 1/3 of the ferment squeezed today. I ended up with about 11 more gallons of slimy rye beer. That gives me 27 gallons of beer total from the 32 gallons ferment.

The beer squeezed two weeks ago has not settled much in the last week. The top of the blue tape is last weeks sediment level.

It will be two or three weeks before I can start to strip this. I made up a small ferment for more CO2 to top off the freshly squeezed bucket of beer.
76C899C1-402A-447F-8E91-43E20D1AF869.jpeg
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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by bitter »

Mmm this will be tasty! Ujssm with some rye is also nice

B
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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by OtisT »

This is new.

I decided to siphon off the clear beer tonight. The car boys have been settling for 5 weeks.
Settled 5 weeks
Settled 5 weeks
Then something interesting happened. I had siphoned off about a liter from the first carboy when it started foaming up like a root beer float. I’ve never seen that before. Can anyone explain this to me?
Foamed up for no apparent reason
Foamed up for no apparent reason
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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by EricTheRed »

Is that not the co2 trapped in the mix? Siphoning off disturbed the equilibrium and it released?
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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by OtisT »

That’s a thing? Lol

OK, I worked it out. On the first carboy that foamed, I used a small auto-siphon that was very slow and the foam did not start for several minutes. On the remaining containers I used a short 1/2” hose. I filled the hose with distilled water for the siphon and quickly drained the remaining clear beer. The foam came from the sediment shortly after I drained the clear beer, within a minute or two. I guess the trick is to drain this stuff fast.

I ended up with 12 gallons of clear beer and about 14 gallons of sediment that I poured most of into a small fermenter to settle some more. I need to strip in two batches so I hope to get more clear beer settled out A week from now.

Some good news. I tested SG and it is now at 10 04. It was at 10 14 five weeks ago when the fermenter’s airlock had stopped bubbling for days. 6%

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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by Ben »

Fermenting rye off the grain seems the way to go.

Any tasting notes?
:)
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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by OtisT »

More good news. It only took one day for the carboy that foamed up to settle back to a respectable amount. Looks like about half is clear beer now. Brings my total to 14 gallons, so time to prepare for two 7 gallons steam strips of the clear beer.
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I plan to steam strip the 12ish gallons of sediment also, but I will keep that batch separate going forward.

Ben,
It tastes nice. A bit sour up front with a thick grain taste, and a sweet finish. It’s pretty thick and coats your mouth. I didn’t get any spicy taste from it. I’m new to rye, so I’m not sure what’s normal. Can’t wait to smell this stuff heating up. :D

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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by Ben »

Sounds right on. Weirdly I don't like the smell off the still, the low wines smell funky to me, even running through 2 plates on a still there is in an initial funk, I can't do a one and done on it. I don't like the smell of the fermented product either, but the mash is one of my favorite brewing smells. The real reward is the spirit run off the funky low wines, its one of the best smells on earth. The smell and taste is hard to chase down on rye, it seems to change fast over the first few months. I just filled a 10l barrel last night, I love the adventure, and am looking forward to what comes out the other side. The most recent batch smelled/tasted real different from what had been sitting in a carboy for the last 3 months, but what was in the carboy didn't/smell or taste like I remember.

I am hoping to find some unmalted rye this year, I think the malted character is quite different.

If you have the ability to steam strip why are you going to so much effort with the clearing?
:)
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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by hawkwing »

Did you have any foaming issues while distilling?

In the future would this benefit from using backset?
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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by OtisT »

Ben wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 4:33 am If you have the ability to steam strip why are you going to so much effort with the clearing?
I’m just trying not to cut corners on this batch. The steam strip is to avoid a scorch.

More than a few have written about being able to taste the difference in a final product that is made from clear beer vs dirty, so I’m running with that. I’m going to test that out by also processing the 12 gallons of sediment in a separate batch and see if I can tell the difference.
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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by OtisT »

hawkwing wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 4:35 am Did you have any foaming issues while distilling?

In the future would this benefit from using backset?
I should have said I was fixin to steam strip that beer, because I have not gotten to it yet. Soon, I hope.

Backset would definitely have helped this batch by getting my PH in line for the enzymes. I am planning to save a fair amount of backset from this all rye. It should be useful.
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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by OtisT »

First steam stripping run under my belt
First of four

Start
10 gallons of water in the 15 gallon boiler
7 gallons of wash in the 15 gallon thumper

End
6 gallons of water in the boilers
8 gallons of rye backset
3 gallons of 28% low wines

The first gallon smelled a little sour up front then very sweet and a bit fruity
The second gallon, normal middlings with a bit of tails. Just a touch of oil film.
The third gallon, Normal tails. The tails don’t seem real strong in this rye.

The amount I collected surprised the hell out of me. I either did some math wrong or I measured something wrong along the way, but I was not expecting this much. A pleasant surprise.

Run details
Boiler - 10 gallons of water took 45 minutes to come to a boil at 5500w
Thumper - 7 gallons of wash took 55 minutes to come to a boil at 3500w
Collection - 90 minutes to collect 3 gallons at 5500w

I did not hear any loud vapor collapse bangs like I hear when first heating up a thumper with beer in the boiler. Hmmmm?

I was worried about puking so I started collecting slow at 3500w. After a quart and no problems I upped it to 4500w. No problems with the next quart so I raised it to 5500w for the remainder of the run. No pukes, but at 5500w the thumper did have a steady vibration going the entire run.

I have not boiled water in some time, so it was a good opportunity to calibrate my dial thermometer. It was reading 2 degrees F low.

My thumper rig
I had to make a part and buy a part to make this work. This was to connect my stainless equipment to my copper thumper equipment. The rest is just my modular gear I move around.
43E03B05-FDEB-4CBE-9F2F-7AEB1F546383.jpeg
Hopefully I can get the rest of these runs in later this weekend.

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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by tombombadil »

Their site does say their rye isn't spicy like other other rye. I'm very curious to see how this one comes out.
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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by OtisT »

Second strip of the clear beer done at 5500w from start to finish. No foam or puke issues running it at full power.
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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by Ben »

Dang, that makes one of us. My last batch would puke at anything over 30% (1560w). Good on ya.
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Re: Unmalted All Rye Whiskey

Post by Twisted Brick »

OtisT wrote: Sat May 21, 2022 1:00 pm Second strip of the clear beer done at 5500w from start to finish. No foam or puke issues running it at full power.
Gotta point to your patient step of clearing that contributed to this, yes?

Nice job.
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