Home Distiller

Thanks for the nfo.

I Interviewed 6 different distillers @ 6 different distilleries in Scotland last year and drank the raw spirits - before they went in the barrel - @ two of them.

The bottom line is mashing 100% malted barley is damn easy & makes a fine product.

Mashing barley is definitely very easy, very clean/sanitary, and makes a good product. That's the great thing about sparging, that without solids you can move your wort around with a pump. The one thing I dislike about homebrewing with cereal grains (when fermenting on the grain) is the mess of straining/pressing, cooling a hot mash (I just leave it but it would be nice to be able to chill it rapidly like my counterflow chiller does with beer wort), and transferring the mash from a mashing vessel to a fermenter.

That said, the question here is about making something completely different from malt whiskey, and yes, doing a step mash with enzymes, lactic souring at 137F, boiling to sanitize, pitching yeast, then doing a larger step mash with enzymes and pitching the yeasted mash into the larger mash (and then straining after fermentation) sounds a lot more complicated than "mash-in & sparge," but my liquor shelf will look a lot cooler with a single malt whiskey and a rich, complex 100% rye whiskey that comes from sour mashing.

Apologies for pontificating, but I really think this process is worthwhile and I hate to see it pooh-poohed. Besides, I just made slants specifically to farm my Tennessee Whiskey Yeast and my Lactobacillus delbrueckii bacterial strain, and I'm making a temp-controlled water bath for my 137F bacterial ferment, so I'm invested in the process!

Eworthin, how's the yeast farming going? I'd love to see how you make your rye whiskey, I'm getting off the sugar train and going all-grain, I've never done a true all-grain without tossing some sugar in "just-in-case".

Cheers
Brosephus

Working my way off the sugar train too. Baby steps.