What'd ya'll make today?

Production methods from starch to sugars.

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NZChris
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by NZChris »

I made Feijoa Gin yesterday and we could taste the feijoa when it was fresh off the still. 24 hours later I can't taste Feijoa, either straight or in a G&T. It is very nice gin and I'm sure the feijoas help to make it a nice gin, but their distinctive character disappears into the background overnight This is not the first time I've noticed this phenomenon.
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by Posey0474 »

still_stirrin wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 4:29 am
Posey0474 wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 4:05 am...Grain bill - 60% flaked rye, 35% flaked corn, 5% distillers malt.

No added enzymes, red star distillers yeast...Still had some starch in it when it cooled.

Is there anything you can do to fix that once the wash has cooled?
First off, your recipe would benefit from more malt. 5% is too low for that much flaked grain. Flaked grains have no diastatic power because it is all denatured during the flaking process. So, I’d use 15 - 20% malted barley for conversion power.

You said you thought the strike water was too cool, how warm was it?

I would “dough in” the malted barley at 150*F with a “stiff mash” and then add the flakes a little at a time and keep adding hot water to keep the mash at, or very close to 150*F. When you’ve got all the flakes stirred into the malt and the mash is like “oatmeal”, then you could add the rest of your mash water at 150*F and let it convert.

Be sure to check conversion with the iodine check after an hour, or so.

Finally, get some enzymes (liquid, I recommend). Those will help finish starch conversion for you, even if you’ve moved the mash to the fermenter. They’ll help make it fermentable.
ss
Thanks for the advice. Strike temp was 160, but cooled down to below 150 once it hit the grains. I'll up the malt and did pickup some liquid enzyme.
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by Deplorable »

Helped bottle 43 cases of Port at the winery today, and now I'm stripping 21 gallons of bourbon mash.
20210417_201206.jpg
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by peach travis »

I had a tilt at a highland style whisky this weekend. Grain bill was (all Gladfield malted barley):

- 75% ale malt
- 15% toffee malt
- 5% shepherd's delight
- 5% dark chocolate malt

3:1 water to grain ratio (45L:15kg) single step infusion mash (which mashed at 67/66*C - I was hoping for a touch lower but it's fine). Drew off a bit of the wort to make a starter with 2 x packets of Safale US-05 while the wort cooled overnight. Pitched a healthy slurry into the fermenter at 26*C today and wrapped her up in the cupboard all nice and toasty to ferment on the grain. SG 1061.

Specialty grains are a real unknown for me, so this is the start of my trial and error process chasing the unpeated whisky unicorn. I've already got a couple of smoke/peat bombs ageing that I'm very happy with.
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by Stonecutter »

Grain Bill:
2.5 lbs peated malt
3.5 lbs malted rye
3.5 lbs malted Barley
3.5 lbs flaked corn
6.5 gallons of water
Pinch of citric acid
Reading 1.058
Added 2.5 lbs of regular white sugar (normally I don’t add the sugar but I wanted to give er’ a boost this time around). :shh:
Reading 1.070ish
1-tsp of fermax
1 Packet of Safale us-05
She finished in 8 days
Nice and fruity with a hint of smoke
Racked it
9380C330-7640-4983-9738-7E5F756BD14D.jpeg
I’ll run this in a few days and update.
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by Not sure »

Sbb molasses strips
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by CoogeeBoy »

Rrmuf wrote: Fri Apr 16, 2021 3:58 am
rubberduck71 wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 4:53 pm
Rrmuf wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 7:29 am Kicked off a batch of TFFV after a considerable idle time..... except for sharing and drinking my last batch of Gin. I always have time for that :-)
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by Zeotropic »

I am stripping 20 gallons of all corn and it is smelling good but lacks the wonderful corn smell of my first batch. I need to get better corn.
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by Toxxyc »

Stripped a 20l sugar wash yesterday. Some molasses present, but not a lot. I'm going to be using that backset with some stronger molasses backset to make a new batch of rum wash today. I've got a question.

My still kettle is a converted 50l keg. It's the biggest vessel I have, and my other fermentation vessels are tied up. Can I simply heat up some of the backset with water straight in the kettle, and then add the sugar and molasses, dissolve it in there and then ferment straight in the kettle? I won't be distilling straight from there, but instead when fermentation is complete I'll tap the wash off into buckets, wash the kettle and then pour the wash back for the distillation run. Will that be fine? I'm guessing so, I just want to be sure. I can always ferment in the buckets but I HATE those little bugs I keep attracting. At least the keg's ferrule is only 2", so a lot easier to keep closed off from the atmosphere.
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by Zeotropic »

I got right about 6 gallons of low wines @ about 30%abv from 20 gallons of all corn which is a large improvement over my previous yield of around 4 gallons from the same amount of mash.
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by Rrmuf »

CoogeeBoy wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 3:16 pm
Rrmuf wrote: Fri Apr 16, 2021 3:58 am
rubberduck71 wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 4:53 pm
Rrmuf wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 7:29 am Kicked off a batch of TFFV after a considerable idle time..... except for sharing and drinking my last batch of Gin. I always have time for that :-)
Need a new neighbor??? Since you're in such a generous mood!
Always! My circle of friends can always grow. .... We might have cross-border issues to resolve though :think:
Yeah, you can't mail alcohol to USA as I found out to my disgust last Christmas.
.... Too much government ;-)
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by Not sure »

20210420_151438.jpg
I got a spirit run done sbb molasses its airing out now
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by Toxxyc »

Mixed up a molasses wash. Treacle #3 tastes and smells amazing. I get more flavour using less molasses if it's Treacle #3 than if I use other molasses, so I'm really happy with the cheap stuff.

Used a mix of 1:3 treacle : brown sugar for a total potential ABV of just over 10%. Pitched a locally made brewer's yeast used for traditional beers and such, so I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out. Yeast was SUPER cheap (under $1 for 2 x 20g packets) and I pitched them pretty warm. Half an hour later and it's already foaming at the top. Added the yeast nutrient just now as well.
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by oksofar »

[/attachment]
IMG_0207.jpg
Ran another 15 gallon mash through the MileHi yesterday. After conservative cuts, I've got 8 qts (75% ABV) in mason jars, along with charred oak sticks. I little high on the ABV for aging, I know. Last batch at 62% turned out great! I temper it all down to 50% before sipping.
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by Not sure »

Made my cuts on my sbb molasses run came out with a gallon of 152 proof
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by Toxxyc »

I believe oaking at too high an ABV can also lead to extraction of unwanted compounds from the wood, so keep that in mind.
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by Not sure »

Toxxyc wrote: Wed Apr 21, 2021 10:18 pm I believe oaking at too high an ABV can also lead to extraction of unwanted compounds from the wood, so keep that in mind.
Its aging white for now till I can afford another barrel
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by rubberduck71 »

Stripping run on batch #2 (of 3) on Rad's All Bran. After #3 is done tonight, spirit run planned for this weekend!

It will be my first attempt at a "true" neutral. Only batch I've done so far was on some stripped oxidized homemade wine. It has a "hint" of the grapes from the original wash...
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by Stonecutter »

6E2343CA-32C9-4530-B605-72D7F8355DF4.jpeg
Deep within a great run. Plenty of corn flavor mixed with that Smokey peat :lol: . “Getting the Led out”... you know you shook me baby!!
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by Not sure »

Fixed my Turkey fryer and made a 25 gallon batch of wineos wash sg of 1072 using 40 pounds of sugar I'm adding shells and I suspect it will be done in 4to 5 days as usual for this wash when I make it
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by Zeotropic »

I am finally doing a spirit run on some all corn whiskey that I used some infected backset in. So far it smells promising.
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by Toxxyc »

Stripped a rum wash last night. The collection vessel started leaking during the collect (PTFE tape doesn't seem to seal like I hoped) so I have to capture in the only other vessel I had around - an HDPE2 bucket containing some wash I intended to run with the spirit run. So yes, there's about 8 litres of low wines mixed with around 10 litres of rum wash now in that bucket. Going to be doing the spirit run tomorrow. Wasn't my intention but I had no choice, I had rum flowing all over the floor and grabbed the first thing I had on hand.
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by Not sure »

Made a batch of strawberry lemonade for the wife
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by Toxxyc »

Busy doing the spirit run on my rum. Amazing how much easier it is to run everything like it should on a larger still compared to a smaller one. I am currently producing fores and it's amazing to me how it smells and tastes like synthetic rum flavouring, the type you get in rum and raising ice cream. Going to pull around until I get past the sharpest of the bite and then I'll start collecting heads. Running my still REALLY slowly here, and I'm loving it.
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by NZChris »

Toxxyc wrote: Wed Apr 28, 2021 10:17 pm Busy doing the spirit run on my rum. Amazing how much easier it is to run everything like it should on a larger still compared to a smaller one. I am currently producing fores and it's amazing to me how it smells and tastes like synthetic rum flavouring, the type you get in rum and raising ice cream. Going to pull around until I get past the sharpest of the bite and then I'll start collecting heads. Running my still REALLY slowly here, and I'm loving it.
Don't try to cut rum on the fly unless you have records to go by. Some of the early nasty stuff and late nasty stuff, may be needed for a full bodied rum, or should be gotten rid of if you are in a hurry.
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by Toxxyc »

Yeah I'm taking a few cuts along the way, although I have made a few rums before. This is just the first time in my big still. I'm currently deep in the hearts and it's absolutely amazing. I collected through the fores, caught them up in a jar and let the still run for about 5 minutes into the heads before cutting to heads. Heads I cut until I started just losing the bad sharpness, and then did a cut into heads #2 as I like to call it.

Heads #2 I'll probably use to blend with, as it's where the sharpness disappears but there's still some warmth in the booze. I collected there until the deep hearts started, which is where I'm at now. Rich, creamy, smooth and absolutely divine. I caught a few ml in a small glass and topped it up with cola (that's how I like to judge my rum) and I think I'm on the money here.

It's got that distinctive rum molasses flavour, with absolutely no off flavours where I'm at now. There's a very, very faint oak note that I pick up only because I oaked half of the low wines. I had some over-toasted oak sticks that dried out too much in the oven and I figured I'll just dump them in the low wines I collected a few weeks ago. I'm really glad I didn't use those sticks in the final product because they didn't do the low wines any good in terms of flavour, and literally just gave it a wood flavour. I'm glad some of that wood carried over into the final product though, and I love it.

Oh yes, and I also collected around 12 to 15 litres of wash that I am running in the still with this spirit run. Apparently boosts the molasses flavour - and I have to say I think it's working.

I've got around 3 litres of good hearts here that I can't wait to oak. That'll happen probably tomorrow as I want it to stand and air for a bit.

This is a lekker hobby. I love rum. I can't wait to make more.

Back to the topic - I found a home distilling shop near my office that sells Treacle 3 molasses for ZAR 140 for a 25kg bucket. That's like USD9~10 or something like that for a 25kg bucket of molasses. I'm SO picking one up soon to make a lot more of this sweet goodness.
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by Toxxyc »

OK I'm officially through the richest of the heads. I made a few cuts and even before letting them air, I just combined them all into a big jar already, because they all smell and taste amazing. I ended up with around 1 litre of pure heads, around 750ml of secondary heads, 5 litres of pure hearts at 72% ABV and I'm now collecting tails. I just did around 700ml of tails and I'll continue to collect until my wash runs out. That's all going straight into the feints jar for a future run.

I'll be oaking these hearts at 60% ABV so I'll water it down a bit. I've got plans using virgin American oak, medium + toast (gives amazing flavour) and some spices down the road. As I have to have some ready for a competition in less than 2 months' time, I'll pour off enough for the competition beforehand, which will get spiced with my recipe before being bottled. I also want to use glycerine (will test a small sample first) to see if it'll help the young spirit along a bit. If it does, great. If it doesn't, I'll leave it out completely.

Now to let the still finish it's job, and then to let the jars air for a bit before blending this coming weekend!
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by Rrmuf »

Neutrals Spirit Run: I think I have the hang of this refluxing thing.
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by Toxxyc »

NZChris wrote: Wed Apr 28, 2021 11:13 pmSome of the early nasty stuff and late nasty stuff, may be needed for a full bodied rum, or should be gotten rid of if you are in a hurry.
This is brilliant advice. I think I just reached the end of my run for today. The ABV took a rapid dip during the last jar I took, but the flavour suddenly picked up again. Between the hearts and this last jar were a few that smelled funky and tasted a tiny bit stale, but this one I'm collecting now is suddenly rich and almost sweet. Yes, it's turning cloudy, but there's flavour there. I'll see if I can use this somehow. Thanks for this. I've heard people talking about it before, but as a predominantly all-grain distiller I've never seen it myself. With whisky I have never found gold in the tails, so after the hearts I tend to just get a big-ass jar (or tap straight into the feints jar) as all that remains is dank.
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Re: What'd ya'll make today?

Post by NZChris »

Toxxyc wrote: Thu Apr 29, 2021 4:34 am
NZChris wrote: Wed Apr 28, 2021 11:13 pmSome of the early nasty stuff and late nasty stuff, may be needed for a full bodied rum, or should be gotten rid of if you are in a hurry.
This is brilliant advice. I think I just reached the end of my run for today. The ABV took a rapid dip during the last jar I took, but the flavour suddenly picked up again. Between the hearts and this last jar were a few that smelled funky and tasted a tiny bit stale, but this one I'm collecting now is suddenly rich and almost sweet. Yes, it's turning cloudy, but there's flavour there. I'll see if I can use this somehow. Thanks for this. I've heard people talking about it before, but as a predominantly all-grain distiller I've never seen it myself. With whisky I have never found gold in the tails, so after the hearts I tend to just get a big-ass jar (or tap straight into the feints jar) as all that remains is dank.
What type of still are you running? Including a cloudy jar from a pot still usually results in cloudy end product after aging and proofing, which is fine as long as you don't mind. I don't. If you want to impress your friends in the near future, including cloudy jars in your heart cut is probably not going to go down well with them.
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