Alrighty... Positive and negative post. We'll start with the positive.
Wow! Great Recipe NC hooch! I appreciate you putting the time in to creat this thread and recipe, and popping in to answer questions from time to time. This was my first AG mash, and while the process did sound a bit intimidating, with the proper research, FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS, more research, having correct ingredients, and some equipment to make things a little easier, i'd say it went off without a hitch. It did take me the better part of a day, but it's not as though that whole time was spent only on this project.
So, first off, i set myself up to do this by using the technique that Brendan uses in his thread "Brendan's All Grain Bourbon Tutorial"
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=46428
Basically, you set up your wort chiller for double duty. I get my boiler full of water and get it boiling, and route it through a small pump, to the wort chiller which is in the mash tun, then route the outlet back to my boiler. So you use the wort chiller to heat/cook your mash. Very very clever idea, and i'm glad i went this direction. The wort chiller does a really great job (50' of 3/8" SS) of spreading out the heat so it heats evenly. I don't think i could scorch this if i tried. I'm getting it all set up in Push connect, so it will be ultra easy to set up and breakdown, and to switch from wort heater to wort chiller when i need to bring it down after mashing. So, I highly recommend Brendan's method, and i think i'll be using this method to do my grain mashing in the future.
The short version(LOL i realized after i wrote this whole post.. that I don't have a short version. This is the best i could do
:
Took 5 pounds of Cracked Corn (i did not mill it further, i don't have a grain mill yet. Could have used the blender or food processor, but i just used it as is this time). Took a gallon of UJSM Backset and a gallon of water and brought to a boil on the stove in a BOP. Added a little gypsum and a little 5.2 pH stabilizer. Once it boiled, i added the corn while i set everything else up. Brought my 8 gal boiler full of water to a boil. Added the presoaked acidified cracked corn and water to the mash tun (a 10 gallon igloo beverage cooler with ball valve installed instead of the spigot. I also made a copper X for the bottom to set the wort chiller on so it wouldn't sit on the very bottom of the cooler). Added a few gallons from my boiler to bring it up to about 6 gallons total.
Right around this time, i set up two pints of water at 110F, added a teaspoon of Go Ferm Protect each and mixed well. Once down to 103F i added a couple tablespoons to each pint of DADY. After 20 min of hydration, i added a 1/2 cup of water to each with about a 1/4 cup of sugar dissolved in it. Set it aside for later. I also separately made a very small size yeast bomb, enough for my 2 ferments later on. (Yeast bomb- Crushed B vitamin, Epsom salt, DAP, Bakers yeast, and yeast energizer) it was a very small yeast bomb, a cup worth(including water) for each of the two ferments.
Got boiler set up to route through the pump through the wort chiller (heater) and used this to keep the mash at around 185-190 for 2 hours. During this time, i ran to the lumber yard across the street and grabbed a 15X15" piece of birch, which i used a jigsaw to cut into a lid for the cooler, but i cut a small groove out of it so it could be used as a lid WITH the wort chiller in it. (the inlet/outlet prevented me from using the igloo cooler lid with the wort chiller in the tun.) The lid looks cool, and it helped to keep the heat in. Glad i did it. So, the mash started to thicken slightly, but not too much as i only had 5# in around 6 gallons of liquid. I found this to be helpful as it wasn't too thick to keep it moving with the drill/paint stirrer. Once i was happy that i'd had the starch released, i added 5# of FLAKED corn. This immediately thickened up the mash significantly. I added a half teaspoon of SebStar HTL, which loosened it up a bit. I kept it around 170 for a half hour, just to ensure all my starch was available. I took the wort chiller out, added 3 more gallons of cool water, and hit it with the stirrer every 15 minutes or so until it hit 160. I then began to add 3# of White Wheat malt, a 1/2 pound at a time over the next hour. This brought it down to 155 or so. I then added 3# of Malted 6 Row barley, lowering the temp to 149.5. I sealed it up with the lid for the cooler. Every 45 minutes i came back and gave it a good mix up. The heat held really really well, and over 4 hours it only dropped to about 145. Tasted very sweet by the end.
Got some "Tincture of Iodine" from walgreens. Took a pint of the mash and strained through a chinois(fine mesh sieve). Iodine test showed all the starch was converted (the iodine when dropped in turned black, then when swirled disappeared) and used the rest of the wort for an Sg Test. 1.06! Very happy with this, i put the wort chiller back in, hooked it up to the same reservoir i use for my condenser, and recirculated for about 45 minutes until i hit about 100 F. Transferred the mash to my two 25L fermenters, topped up with cool water to 23L each, pitched the yeast starter in each one and the mini yeast bomb, added tight fitting lids and airlocks. I wrapped a towel around the fermenters to keep them a bit warmer. That was last night.
By this morning both ferments were going super machine gun hard. 14 hours later the airlocks are still bubbling steadily. Very happy so far. I'll let it ferment to completion, squeeze the grain as best i can, and run two strips. I'll do the same recipe again next week, strip again, and combine all 4 strips to do a spirit run.
After the ferment completes, after i squeeze the grain, i think i'll do a piggyback UJSM style with sugar and the used grain. I'm sure there's some good grain flavor left, even though no potential alcohol. UJSM makes a damn fine drop.. i'm SUPER excited to see the results of this AG. I'm so excited i plan to make as much bourbon as i can until i get so tired of making it i can't stand it. I don't really drink THAT much, which is the good part. I'll stockpile gallons and gallons (on top of my Pugi Rum, UJSM, Panella rum, Neutral infusions) and it will all just keep getting better with time. Hopefully i can stock up enough that i have plenty of it ten years from now. How fucking cool would it be to have my own home made charred oak Bourbon? LOVE this hobby!
The only thing i will do different next time, is to increase my grain bill. I may try to do all cracked corn(no flaked, it's about 4X price) next time. Haven't decided yet, and haven't decided if i'll try to grind the corn further. My understanding is the finer the grind the higher potential efficiency (which can be a very big difference with AG. It's much more time and effort than Sugarhead, not that that is a bad thing). But, with finer grind, comes more difficulty in straining the wort/wash from the grain. So, i'll probably try this same recipe with Cracked corn, ground cracked corn, corn meal, and flaked corn, and see which i'm most happy with, taking all factors into account.
So, this was my experience, went well for me, because, in my opinion, i did my homework, had the right tools for the job, listened to the members here and followed instructions. Now on to the less positive part of my post... I just want to get this off my chest. Hope i'm not too far out of bounds.
This thread seriously could have been half as many pages. Every single fucking page has the SAME QUESTIONS!!! Do i mill the barley? What kind of barley? How much abv is enough? Why does my ferment stink? Is my alcohol all evaporating out of the airlock, i see gas escaping? My SG is low(even though there are 7 posts that say 5% is about average for AG), how much sugar do i add? Uh.. once you add sugar ITS NOT AG. ALL GRAIN MEANS ALL GRAIN. Seriously? If some of the people who posted in this thread on page 14, 17, 20 etc etc, had just READ THROUGH ALL THE PAGES of the thread.. the answers are all there. How stupid is it for people to ask a question when the answer is LITERALLY 3 posts before. I swear some people just post without reading anything.. maybe without reading even the OP. I just find it a little ridiculous in this thread how many instances there are of folks asking the same questions over and over. Yes.. i'm new to this too. I haven't been distilling or fermenting that long. Yes, this is my first all grain. But i put in the time, put in the effort, did the research. I think if there is one motto for HD it is...
DONT expect to be Spoon fed the answers!! Yes, they will spoon feed you. There are some members who are very generous with their time. But to just spoon feed the answer to you won't teach you to fish. The spirit of HD is to go out and seek and learn the knowledge for yourself. To me, the goal here is to teach people to think for themself. The answers to so so so many questions are all here on HD... you just have to look. It really makes me chuckle how many members signature here is a link to Cranky's spoon feeding thread. I think many of us have figured out that a good third of the people who post here just really enjoy being fed with a spoon in someone else's hand. No thank you sir.. my hands work. I can hold the spoon myself. I do not need someone to feed me the information. People have gotten so lazy these days.. We don't even need to get our asses up out of our chair to find the answers, they are all their on the internet, but somehow that STILL isn't enough for some folks. They don't even want to look... they just want to have someone point them to exactly where they need to go. Here's the thing... while you go and look for the answer to your question.. you're going to stumble upon so many other interesting things. Answers to questions you didn't know you had yet. Recipes, techniques, equipment, and ingredients that are so exciting and fascinating to learn about.. but.. if you don't go looking for your answers yourself, you're never going to stumble into that knowledge. You may get the answer to your question, with little to no effort of your own. But nothing more. Heh.. you should see how many tabs i have open on my browser. Every time i see an interesting link or thread i open it in a new tab, and then come back to it later. Then that tab leads to more and more tabs. HD is the most beautiful awesome side of the internet. It's not all "fake news", facebook wankers and porn. Heh, i'm sure a few of us are old enough to remember the time before the internet. good god we were like cavemen! how did we survive! You have to buy a magazine or a VHS tape for Porn!? What!?
I do not mean to call anyone out directly, or to offend anyone. I too am a noob, i too am still learning(and always will be). I just urge all to stay hungry, stay thirsty for knowledge, and never stop drinking it up. There is no such thing as a bad question. But don't sell yourself short. Put in the work and effort and time and you will be rewarded. You will get out what you put in, nothing more nothing less. Don't slack, don't half ass it. Strive to do your very best and push and challenge yourself. My goal isn't to be good, and sure as hell not "good enough". My goal is to be Great!
Ok.. rant over. NCHooch, membership, i humbly apologize for going off on this tangent in your awesome recipe thread. I just felt strongly compelled by this thread in particular to speak up, and hopefully, just maybe, what i said will ring true with at least just one person. If you don't agree, or don't believe me, i strongly encourage you to read this thread from page 1 to 29. See for yourself.
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