Honey Bear Bourbon

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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

Post by Expat »

Seeing so much talk about cooking corn has got me itchy to get working.

Got my grains cracked last night, and I've now mashed in my corn for a 1/2 barrel batch of this lovely HBB. 10x original recipe (no oats), using the bulk easy mashing method.
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

Post by Durhommer »

Looks like it smells great
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

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Durhommer wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 8:38 am Looks like it smells great
Corn porridge heaven :)

The honey malt has to be my favorite though. Gonna be a day or so before that gets added though.
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

Post by BrewinBrian44 »

Expat,

Hell yeah man! Large batches are the only way. After doing one myself, there’s no going back.
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

Post by ddizzle22 »

Looking really good expat. I finally got enough grains for a 30gallon mash. Just need to run to tractor supply for some rolled oats and some oyster shells. Look forward to trying this recipe and the large batch method.
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

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ddizzle22 wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 12:28 pm Looking really good expat. I finally got enough grains for a 30gallon mash. Just need to run to tractor supply for some rolled oats and some oyster shells. Look forward to trying this recipe and the large batch method.
Thanks dizzle, most of that thanks should go to SCD, as its both his recipe and process :) I'm decently good at following instructions though :lol: :)

Tell ya what though, this is one aggressive ferment! Its rocking like its on the heat lol

Dunno what TSC corn is like where you are but I couldn't dump that crap fast enough; nothing but dust and cob garbage. I found a local feed company which does a really nice crack for about the same price, and that's i'm using here. Note to self, buy more corn so I start the other barrel :)
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

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Expat wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 3:40 pm
ddizzle22 wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 12:28 pm Looking really good expat. I finally got enough grains for a 30gallon mash. Just need to run to tractor supply for some rolled oats and some oyster shells. Look forward to trying this recipe and the large batch method.
Thanks dizzle, most of that thanks should go to SCD, as its both his recipe and process :) I'm decently good at following instructions though :lol: :)

Tell ya what though, this is one aggressive ferment! Its rocking like its on the heat lol

Dunno what TSC corn is like where you are but I couldn't dump that crap fast enough; nothing but dust and cob garbage. I found a local feed company which does a really nice crack for about the same price, and that's i'm using here. Note to self, buy more corn so I start the other barrel :)
Trust me I've run through a bag of TSC corn and will be going to restaurant supply store for cornmeal going forward lol. I believe the rolled oats are what others are using for this recipe so want to grab some of that. Your scaring me I was planning on keeping the 55g barrel on the moving doly but now afraid since it just barley fits.
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

Post by rubberduck71 »

They have rolled oats in big bags @ Restaurant Store also (~$30 US), BUT you may have to become a member to have it shipped there for free. Not all of them have it in stock at any given moment.

That said, membership is fairly inexpensive: $50/year which you could easily blow through in shipping costs alone if you don't have a local grain supply source. They even offer a free 30 day trial membership.
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

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Well, it looks like my current batch of HBB has decided to take a slow path. Running hard from pitch it hit 1.04 and appears to have slowed to a crawl. Barely bubbling and the cap has dropped. Temp is 83ish and the pH is fine, got that sweet and sour taste.

Waiting to see if it'll work out.
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

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Well here’s the verdict....

Ran two 1.5 spirit runs. Half 29% low wines and half fresh wash with my 3” 4 plate rig. Each was about 10 gallons. Essentially the culmination of two 20 gallon batches after straining, using a full 50lb sack of corn meal plus the malts as stated in the original recipe. Moving forward, I’ll only run wash through the plates.

My god, the end of the run was the best part with all the intense graham cracker flavor just before the late tails. I couldn’t help but swallow the stuff it was so good.

At the very end I cranked up the power to collect feints for my next runs. Even those smell like intense grainy sweet honey. I hope they start intensifying that flavor as I keep recycling them into to each run.

I yielded 1.7 gallons of 90% with good quality cuts after blending the jars tonight. Should be able to fill this new 5gal Gibbs barrel soon at this rate! I’m thinking about doing a 62.5% barrel entry, but would love advice on this too. Large batches are the way to go!

Thank you SCD, you are the man! What a great contribution to tried and true. Even busted out some Pink Floyd music while running the still! Haha
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

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Well my first all grain I think was a success. I was super nervous and thought I made one mistake but it all worked out. I had my temp probe in about 2 inches of the water. When it got to 150f added my malt and used my paint mixer drill and that temp jumped up to 160f. Was worried but after was able to get some clear off the top and iodine confirmed no starch. Temp got to 90f and I guess from the corn having wild yeast has already taken off bubbling. My SG was right around 1.062. I pitched my yeast and fingers crossed. Will keep you posted.
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

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ddizzle22 wrote: Mon Mar 01, 2021 3:18 am Well my first all grain I think was a success. I was super nervous and thought I made one mistake but it all worked out. I had my temp probe in about 2 inches of the water. When it got to 150f added my malt and used my paint mixer drill and that temp jumped up to 160f. Was worried but after was able to get some clear off the top and iodine confirmed no starch. Temp got to 90f and I guess from the corn having wild yeast has already taken off bubbling. My SG was right around 1.062. I pitched my yeast and fingers crossed. Will keep you posted.
You're lucky, I hope the yeast colony wins the battle! :thumbup: My first AG was a disaster, left it overnight to finish mashing and cool, when I got up it was working and stinking like shit :sick: :sick: :sick: Butyric infection.

Just checked in on my latest HBB mash. Just over 44 hours since mashing started and it had dropped to 115F, so I dropped in the chiller and brought it down to 99F in about 15 minutes. Got my yeast starter running, pitching in 10 minutes :D I expect to loose a bit more heat before the bakers yeast take off, so it should be just about perfect.
Last edited by Expat on Mon Mar 01, 2021 12:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

Post by NormandieStill »

Next to my desk I have a sack of 25kg of cracked corn, and a box containing all the ingredients I need for my first batch of HBB. And being an inveterate tinkerer I'm currently trying to silver solder two 2" ferrules and one 4" ferrule onto my keg in order to convert to electric heating and have a decent access port and drain. And I think I'd like to try and produce a (relatively) neutral spirit for, amongst other things, taking the edge of new oak sticks for softer ageing of spirits.

All of which means I'm now far too excited. Really looking forward to get cracking on this one.
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

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Well threw the yeast in Monday and the cap dropped last night and seems to be slowing down. Checked SG and is at 1.03 seems odd PH is good as well. You can taste alcohol doesn't really taste sweet. Im hoping drops little more in next day or so. I think close.
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

Post by ShineonCrazyDiamond »

Keep your temps up. Usually around 1.03 I can get a stall (especially in the winter) if it gets too cold. Same for any ferment, really.
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

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ShineonCrazyDiamond wrote: Sat Mar 06, 2021 8:56 am Keep your temps up. Usually around 1.03 I can get a stall (especially in the winter) if it gets too cold. Same for any ferment, really.
Seems to be going still its indoors in basement. Holding right around 80f. I will turn it up a bit but I think just taking a little longer then I expected. Smells good still.
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

Post by ddizzle22 »

Doesn't look like will finish out past 1.03 been a few days and not dropping. I did have a faulty aquarium heater and I'm almost thinking maybe got too hot and killed off yeast so threw in more to see if would drop a little more. If not will run it and chalk up as learning experience on first all grain. PH is still at 5 and since new heater Temps in the low 80f
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

Post by BrewinBrian44 »

Another update:

Since I’m using a 4 plate column, I’ve been told by some members on here I should consider ditching stripping runs and just run fresh wash. They were right.

When I previously ran half low wines and half wash, I thought I was getting a lot of flavor, until I did some fresh wash runs. My god, this stuff is unreal. TONS of grain flavor was coming through in the tails just before the bad stuff.

I find the flute to be a great still for this recipe, it holds down the nasty tails so they can’t contaminate the good tails. I’m finding a lot of the graham cracker flavor is buried deep into the run.

With the way I’ve been running it, after the heads, I can get keeper jars until almost all the alcohol is depleted in the run. The final keep measured 87%, so the run doesn’t take much time since a lot of water is left in the boiler. I don’t know if I’ll ever use the ole pot head again.

Really enjoying making this stuff, if you can’t tell haha. Thanks again SCD!
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

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So a few days ago I mashed in my first batch of HBB. Which went fairly well with a few caveats. I made a 25l batch, all grains were run once through my corona mill at it's finest setting. I boiled the water and poured it into my towel-wrapped mash tun when it hit about 96°C. But I did it rather slowly and added the worn / oats / melanoidin at the same time to reduce clumping. I think this cooled the water a little, although it was still in excess of 88°C when I was done. Stuck on a lid, and waited, stirring every hour or so. It took about 2 1/2 hours to drop to 68°C (Actually a little low, I might have been better pitching the malts at closer to 70°C) when I pitched the malts and mixed again. Then I went to bed.

The following morning the temperature was still in the high 50s, so I removed the towels, gave it a quick mix, and left it to cool. It took nearly 24hours to cool to yeast pitching temps. So I'll be building a wort chiller with some left-overs because 25l of wort sat around in the kitchen with the kids running around is not a great idea!

I took a sample when it was still at around 30°C and cooled it for the SG. 1.057. This seemed a little low so I re-read a bunch of the thread and realised that I'd probably overdone the water. Based on comments here I should probably have used about 19l of water rather than the ~22l that I used. I will probably also double grind the corn next time to get a finer flour.

When I came to throw the yeast in, my mash had already started bubbling. Never mind, says I, and pitched the packet of US-05 that I had planned on using by sprinkling on top. This was all on the 25th May.

Today I popped the lid on the fermenter which seemed to have calmed down and found a thick cap of grain on top of which floated what appeared to be the yeast that I had pitched (a white blob with little bumps that look it exactly like the granules of dry yeast). I carefully siphoned and strained a small sample and tested it and I now have an OG of 1.062. Which would suggest that some wild beastie ran for a while, while the grains continued to give up their sugars and is now running out of steam. As a precautionary measure I'll pitch a decent handful of baker's yeast to take over. I tasted some and it's got a certain acidity (almost lemony) and there is a definite sweetness as well as a really nice mouthfeel. It does leave a funny prickle at the back of the mouth though.

Got another two batches of this to prep so by the time I come to my first spirit run I might have run the gamut of all the stuff I can get wrong! :-)
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

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Yeah, IMO a chiller is critical equipment to batch grain mashing; waiting the temp to drop gives the nasties a chance to breed. Ice works so long as you're careful with your volumes, but not easier as running a coil for 10 minutes.
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

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NormandieStill wrote: Thu Apr 29, 2021 5:27 am As a precautionary measure I'll pitch a decent handful of baker's yeast to take over.
So long as your wild bugs didn't lower the pH too badly, you should be OK (it might even give you something interesting!), but it always helps to have a strong yeast culture in place to overpower them. I like to dump high-gravity mashes like HBB onto the yeast cake left over from a batch of beer. There's almost no lag time at all before everything bubbling up a storm!
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

Post by Wiley1 »

They good news is I started my first all grain and went with the Honey Bear Bourbon. I thought I had read through everything enough times that I was ready (and now for the noob part) I let it cool too much so I added some more hot water. Now I think my bucket is too full. I only have about 1-1/2" (2.5cm) to the top. How much head room is safe? Would it be better to split it into two 5 gal buckets or just scoop some out and call it a lesson?

I have really enjoyed learning from everyone on this site.I probably spend way too much time reading. I even read all 67 pages of the All Bran thread. Thanks
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

Post by Wiley1 »

So I took a little less than a quart out of the bucket and it gave me a couple inches of room so hopefully that will be good. Just in case it isn't I put it in the bathtub.

I am excited to see how this turns out.
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

Post by Dr Griz »

Wiley1 wrote: Mon May 03, 2021 6:44 pm Just in case it isn't I put it in the bathtub.
Better safe than sorry! :D

I find that blow off usually depends on temp and how robust your yeast is. But a blowoff tube can buy you some piece of mind...
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

Post by NormandieStill »

A quick update: From the slight vomit smell and that prickle in the mouth the initial beasties seem to have included something that makes butyric acid. It's not very strong so they clearly never got a foothold, but it's there.

That said, this is the longest ferment I think I've ever run. It's almost a week since I pitched a good quantity of bakers yeast and while there's some activity, I just took another sample and filtered out the grains; 1.054 , pH ~4 (I don't have a pH meter but my litmus paper seems pretty close to 4) and a temp of 21C. I've not really done anything with this ferment that I haven't done with others except that it's my first "big" AG. I've done two previous AG light beers (to test the setup) which both fermented out fine in about a week. I've done 3 batches of sugar wash with bakers yeast at the same temps, so I don't think it's that. Is 4 a critically low pH for my yeast? I have some calcium carbonate powder I can use to pull the pH back up if needs be.
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

Post by BlueSasquatch »

Have had 3 liters of Honey Bear in a small oak barrel for 5 months now. Sampled a couple spoonful, and it's just excellent. However It looked a bit low so I decided to top it off with some white dog honey bear that I had leftover, put damn near 32 ounces in it. Which seems waaay to high to be angels share, thats just about 30% of the barrel volume. It's gotta be some sort of leak? Brand new barrel, soaked it in water prior to filling it. It sits in plain view the whole time and the towel I've got under it is never wet nor stained brown. Is this 30% just to be expected with the smaller barrels?
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

Post by Tummydoc »

Not unusual, discouraging isnt it. Doubt you have a leak. You've got a high ratio of surface area to volume. Bigger barrels have less pecent loss, but also age slower.
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

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So this is officially my most problematic ferment ever! The mash seemed to go OK. Iodine test was clear so logically I have a reasonable amount of fermentable sugars. After my last post I added some calcium carbonate, rehydrated 20g of bakers yeast in some clear wort from the top of the ferment (which started foaming nicely and building up volume) and pitched it. Took a look today and it's now got some nice looking lactobacillus plaques on the surface and the SG is now 1.052 (so within the margin of error caused by temperature and floaty bits.)

Currently I have what appears to be a reasonable start for a dunder pit, but not a very successful ferment. Still sitting at 22.5C. I suspect the pH is being dragged ever downwards by the lacto infection it's currently somewhere between 4 and 5 (possibly closer to 4, pH strips aren't very accurate when it comes to fractions). I wouldn't expect the pH to have been fatal to my yeast though. And they really don't seem to manage to hold on. Everything was cleaned and rinsed before starting using exactly the same procedure as I use for all my ferments.

Right now I'm seriously considering pouring it through a BIAB bag into a large pot, squeezing the liquid out of the grains. And then boiling the crap out of it for at least 5 mins to kill eveything off. Then (since it's hot) I'll give it a whack with some alpha and gluco amylase. Then cooling, aerating and repitching yeast. Seriously. It's been going for 2 1/2 weeks and unless the grains are giving up serious sugars still, it's managed to take the SG from 1.057 to 1.052.

I live in a hard water area and I did nothing to control pH on my recent TPW sugar washes, nor have I on any of the country wines I've made over the last few years. If anyone can think of anything I've not tried (I have no heating equipment for my fermenter, but it's inside the house in a reasonably stable environment I've not managed a ferment temperature before because I've never needed to).
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

Post by subbrew »

Normandie,

Are you using a different yeast than in the sugar washes? Bakers yeast would be a bit slow at room temp. Since you have done wine I assume if you are using a refractometer for sugar measurement you know to correct it once alcohol is present.

Did you have good aeration at the start? It all sounds to me like you just did not get a good yeast reproduction stage to get the yeast population up.

If you decided to start over, rather than boil, take the temp up to 155 F and hold for 15 minutes. That will kill the lacto and yeast but it will not boil off any ethanol already produced. Then aerate well and pitch a big starter. A few days before heating the main batch I would pull some wort off the top, heat it, and get my starter going in that to acclimate the yeast.

Edit, looked back and see you pitched US -05. I use that for beer all the time at 19C so it should be happy enough.
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Re: Honey Bear Bourbon

Post by NormandieStill »

It's had US-05 and bakers. I used bakers for my sugar washes, run at the same temps and they were fine. Aeration is where I have a doubt, but my mash tun is an inverted 30l keg and the wort poured out of the bottom. I had figured that the splashing around when I poured into the fermentor would be enough but now I have some doubts. I'll follow your suggestion and pull a sample tomorrow to make a starter. I use a glass hydrometer (not upgraded to one of them fancy refractometers yet), and I filter the bits out of the sample to ensure that it's not interfering with the reading.

I buy my yeast in 250g packets from the local flour mill and I was at one point wondering about just dumping an entire packet in and skipping the whole propagation stage!

I guess I get to try a gumbalhead with the grains. I can race them to see who gets dry first! :-)
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