Scotch Recipe

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bluefish_dist
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Re: Scotch Recipe

Post by bluefish_dist »

I barreled at 120p, but I have read that scotch typically goes in higher. IMHO that is a function of the barrels. I found higher entry proof pulls more oak from the barrel, thus a used barrel needs a higher entry proof for better extraction. I have not done enough runs to verify this, so at this point in time it’s just a theory.
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Re: Scotch Recipe

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As always your input is appreciated. I am using a new 10L barrel. Would like to have a once used bourbon barrel but this is what I could come up with in the size that matched my scale of production. I am going to shoot for 55-60% abv. After tasting the white dog I think I will be running a batch of unpeated barley wash to cut this with. It's a little more peat taste than I was shooting for. Maybe the oak will calm it down. Afraid the peat will cover up any notes I get from the barrel. Still learning. If I get the grain bill right I will run a batch of bourbon and condition a new barrel with a run of it then age the scotch.
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Re: Scotch Recipe

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Doing the largest barley wash today that I have tried so far.50 gallons @2.2# grain per gallon. I am using 15# of milled 2 row malted barley with 5 gallons of strike water at 168* F. Is there any benefit to steep the mash after it passes the iodine test? In the second post on this thread by DerWo he recommends a minimum of two hour rest. My cooking capacity currently is my critical path as my vessel is only 8 gallons. My interest here was turning the cooking process as quickly as possible without missing something on the steeping longer than it took to convert. Any input appreciated.
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Re: Scotch Recipe

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Spent the entire day, and I mean the entire day, yesterday cooking batches and adding to my 44 gallon Brute fermenter. Ended up with a SG of 1.06 after addition of small amount of cooling water. I had not used all the water necessary for a 2.2# per gallon recipe. I had very little head room left in my fermenter and it was still at 98*F at 1am so I left it to cool and was going to pitch the yeast this morning. I did add the Distillavite GN nutrient. When I removed the lid to take temp of wort this morning it was covered with a light sudsy foam. LOTS OF FOAM!!! I was surprised as my last AG barley wash was a very slow fizzy ferment. Not vigorous. I am guessing the nutrient possibly had active yeast?? Anyway I re-hydrated 1gram per liter, 166 grams that Distillamax MW yeast called for and pitched it. Fingers crossed as that was a lot of work.
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Re: Scotch Recipe

Post by cayars »

It's likely natural yeast and nothing I'd worry about.
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Re: Scotch Recipe

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Much gratitude for the response cayars. I think I am going to need to transfer some wort to a couple of 5 gallon fermenters or I will have a molasses/rum type mess.
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Re: Scotch Recipe

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Don't know if this helps or not but what I do with violent ferments (or those I think might be) is to hold back a bit of mash for a day or two to allow for more head room in the fermenter. Once past the "violent period" I'll top it off. Haven't had a mess in a long time.
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Re: Scotch Recipe

Post by still_stirrin »

Down_Home52 wrote: Sat Nov 16, 2019 7:05 am...my 44 gallon Brute fermenter...I am guessing the nutrient possibly had active yeast??..
Probably not the nutrients....rather, the fermenter!

Plastic is very porous at the cellular level. The long plastic fibers form a “mesh-like” semi-solid that easily can allow yeast (single cell structures) to impregnate. Then, when you put a fresh fill of “food” for them in the proper growth environment, they begin to reproduce. Often times, even sanitization processes won’t completely deactivate the yeast “colonies”.

This is just the nature of plastic fermenters. Glass or stainless steel fermenters are always better and less susceptible to spontaneous fermentation.

Of course, you could actually have contracted a “virus” from wild yeast and floral (bacteria). Hopefully not, but possibly.

But, I’m betting on the notion that your fermenter inoculated your wash. After all, 98*F is the human body temperature and that is optimum for most yeast propagation.
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Re: Scotch Recipe

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Yep. I laid with it all day grinding 110 pounds of grain and cooking 15# at a time. It was late and I had the wort down almost to temp to pitch but held off as it was at 98-100*. After pitching this morning at 78* it has a nice froth with big frog eye bubbles.
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Re: Scotch Recipe

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Didn't get the FG I wanted , I was shooting for .995-1.000. Finished at 1.005 but it got there quick, 3 days. Going to do a cleaning run on the pot still and get after it.The last time I ran Scotch I had 3.25 gallons of low wines after strip and had 5 gallons of wash for last strip. I went ahead and added the low wines with the wash for the last run and called it good. After 30 days in a new charred 10L barrel it was, and still is, the best Scotch I have ever tasted. Hope this is as good.
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Re: Scotch Recipe

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Running the 15.5 gallon pot with 10 gallons of wash. Anxious to get this batch run off, ran second time and put in the barrel. I twill take 4 strips and I will use extra wash to dilute low wines for spirit run. Good stuff. Big bourbon run up next.
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Re: Scotch Recipe

Post by Durhommer »

so tonight i tried 100 mls of my month old peated scotch style and im pleased give it another 7 or 8 months on oak and see
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Re: Scotch Recipe

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Durhommer wrote: Sat Nov 23, 2019 3:56 pm so tonight i tried 100 mls of my month old peated scotch style and im pleased give it another 7 or 8 months on oak and see
Durhommer would you share what size barrel you are using or are you using oak in stick/cube form? Reason I ask is that I aged 10L in a medium charred, new oak barrel and at 30 days it had the taste and color of an extremely mature scotch.
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Re: Scotch Recipe

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Down_Home52 wrote: Tue Nov 19, 2019 5:03 am Didn't get the FG I wanted , I was shooting for .995-1.000. Finished at 1.005 but it got there quick, 3 days. Going to do a cleaning run on the pot still and get after it.The last time I ran Scotch I had 3.25 gallons of low wines after strip and had 5 gallons of wash for last strip. I went ahead and added the low wines with the wash for the last run and called it good. After 30 days in a new charred 10L barrel it was, and still is, the best Scotch I have ever tasted. Hope this is as good.
I see that FG a lot too with my AGs. Mine typically finish right around 10 04 with them occasionally going down as far as 10 00 though I can’t explain why those are different. I’m sure there is something I could do different to go lower, but I’m not sure yet what that may be. Other than possibly not getting my money’s worth out of each batch, I’ve not noticed that this is a problem. I do attribute a foamy strip to this, but that is just speculation until I have a few more years to confirm the pattern.

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Re: Scotch Recipe

Post by Durhommer »

2 liter glasstopjar 1.5 liters used toast and char amer white oak from booners bourbon
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Re: Scotch Recipe

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Ran a two 10 gallon strips in 15.5 gallon pot still. Ran down to 40 proof.Running to 40 proof was suggested by another member to capture smokey notes and to have less dilution to do before spirit run. Yield was a little less than a gallon both stripping runs. Ran two 5 gallon stripping runs down to 40 proof in my 7.5 sanke boiler down to 40 proof and the yield was a bit more than three quarts. Almost two full quarts more from 10 gallons than the one 10 gallon run in the bigger pot. Any ideas? Same column. The 7.5 is electric with 2500w element. The 15.5 I am using on propane burner. My thought was going down the road of the electric was slower and prolonged the run????? Makes a huge difference on yield for my scale of operation.
Last edited by Down_Home52 on Mon Nov 25, 2019 6:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Scotch Recipe

Post by cayars »

If it's a stripping run I'd just run it fast down to 5% or 10%. Don't leave usable alcohol in the pot if you don't need to.
Of course it costs money to continue the heat so just track how much longer it would take to run down to both 10% and 5% and then calculate how much more you get and what your energy costs vs cost of ferment is.

If you leave 10% in the pot every stripping run then 1 out of 10 batches you strip is a throw away batch.
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Re: Scotch Recipe

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cayars wrote: Mon Nov 25, 2019 5:54 am If it's a stripping run I'd just run it fast down to 5% or 10%. Don't leave usable alcohol in the pot if you don't need to.
Of course it costs money to continue the heat so just track how much longer it would take to run down to both 10% and 5% and then calculate how much more you get and what your energy costs vs cost of ferment is.

If you leave 10% in the pot every stripping run then 1 out of 10 batches you strip is a throw away batch.
cayars totally agree on cost of energy vs yield. Seems like I am more aware of energy consumption with propane than electricity!! That propane roar and carrying bottles to fill station plays into that. I have about 6-7 gallons of wash left. I will run it down to 10% and then do my spirit run.
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Re: Scotch Recipe

Post by cayars »

Really what probably matters most is how much % is left in the wash/mash and what that costs vs the energy to extract that portion. Shouldn't be hard to calculate. If it's an all grain wash and it takes longer to prepare you have time upfront you want to recover if possible. If a simple sugar was that's easy to prepare then your time is mostly just running the still.

Typically once the pot is boiling the amount of energy used to keep it boiling isn't too much so 10%/20 proof is a reasonable cut off point, but you never know until you crunch some basic numbers. Could be 5% or even 15%.
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Re: Scotch Recipe

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Using a couple of gallons back set for mashing the next run in would reduce loss of alcohol left in pot?? I don't have enough refrigerator space to save all of it. Worth the effort?
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Re: Scotch Recipe

Post by cayars »

Traditional Scotch (as well as Irish) doesn't use backset. Backset/sour mash is used more for Bourbon type whiskeys.

My own anecdotal testing tells me that corn, oat, rye, wheat based mashes can improve flavor with backset while malted barley does not taste as well when using backset. I've love to hear results of others to see if they agree or not.
Last edited by cayars on Wed Dec 11, 2019 6:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Scotch Recipe

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Much gratitude for the feedback. Getting ready to run a bourbon and then will gather supplies for my next batch of scotch. I learn something every time and sharing here enhances the learning. My next scotch I will run fast as suggested down to 20 proof. I am pondering a wood fired set up in the future just for a traditional Appalachian touch. Fuel wouldn't be an issue then!!! Side bar: I make muscadine brandy and my wife likes the wine so I make her wine whilst I am in the process. I stop her portion at 1.010 because she likes it sweet. I racked off a carboy for her and added 5 campden tablets to stop the ferment. I had used a new yeast from Lallemand instead of my normal EC-1118. I noticed the carboy was still working and added 5 more campden tabs dissolved in a little water. The stuff is still working. No worries. It will go in the pot.
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Re: Scotch Recipe

Post by cayars »

I run my single malts down to 5% (out of the still or lower) to get every drop since malted barley is one of the most expensive grains (for me). :)

A dry wine/champagne yeast like EC-1118 isn't a great yeast for use with whiskey's. You don't get the fruity or Esters that other yeasts provide.
Try and Ale yeast (IE US-05), Nottingham or similar type yeast, or even normal DADY (distiller yeast).

EC-1118 is a solid yeast to use for making neutrals/vodkas for the same reason it's not a good whiskey yeast.
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Re: Scotch Recipe

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I was put onto the Lallemand products by bluefish here on the board. Their Distillavite GN nutrient is outstanding and they offer yeasts for fruit wash, malted wash and grain wash. I have been using them and so far like the result. My first single malt run was using US 05. The Lallemand worked off 44 gallons in 4 days to 1.005 FG on the current batch.
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Re: Scotch Recipe

Post by cayars »

Down_Home52 wrote: Wed Dec 11, 2019 6:59 am I was put onto the Lallemand products by bluefish here on the board. Their Distillavite GN nutrient is outstanding and they offer yeasts for fruit wash, malted wash and grain wash. I have been using them and so far like the result. My first single malt run was using US 05. The Lallemand worked off 44 gallons in 4 days to 1.005 FG on the current batch.
Have you run the Lallemand batch yet? How would you compare the taste of final product to that of US-05 or other yeasts you may have tried?
Got a link to the exact yeast you used by any chance?
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Re: Scotch Recipe

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cayars wrote: Fri Dec 20, 2019 2:08 am
Down_Home52 wrote: Wed Dec 11, 2019 6:59 am I was put onto the Lallemand products by bluefish here on the board. Their Distillavite GN nutrient is outstanding and they offer yeasts for fruit wash, malted wash and grain wash. I have been using them and so far like the result. My first single malt run was using US 05. The Lallemand worked off 44 gallons in 4 days to 1.005 FG on the current batch.
Have you run the Lallemand batch yet? How would you compare the taste of final product to that of US-05 or other yeasts you may have tried?
Got a link to the exact yeast you used by any chance?
I apologize for not answering the question n my post. I have been running ncHooch bourbon recipe and have been on that thread and missed this. The Lallemand single malt run was exquisite. I don't know if the yeast had anything to do with the product. I aged it in the same barrel as the US 05 but it was the second use of the barrel. That would have made a slight difference. I will say this I have far outstripped my ability to make and age the single malt with my penchant for enjoying drop. Without a doubt I have not been able to find a bottle on the top shelf of my local package store that can come close to this spirit. It is a ton of work and the grain is expensive once I get it here but the product is fantastic and very, very easy to run vs corn. The secret is to aerate the wash and add an anti-foaming agent before distilling so it doesn't puke. It only happened to me once and a good paint stirrer and drill motor will fix it. I run it through my pot still twice. I do not make cuts on the second run. I keep everything down to the point I have 135-140 proof to go in the barrel. Getting ready to run another batch and I want to fill a 20 liter barrel. That will take some time and the aging is prolonged with a 20 liter vs a 10 liter barrel.
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