My First Recipe

Many like to post about a first successful ferment (or first all grain mash), or first still built/bought or first good run of the still. Tell us about all of these great times here.
Pics are VERY welcome, we drool over pretty copper 8)

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armor99
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My First Recipe

Post by armor99 »

So... Just about done with cleaning of the Alembic Still. Just a sac alcohol run to go this weekend. So with that out of the way, I will need to turn my attention to a recipe to try. I know I should probably use one of the "tried and true" recipes. But I just feel the need to forge one of my own.

Constructive criticism is welcome, feel free to "save me from myself" should you see anything glaringly wrong here. This first attempt is for an Irish Whisky. I did have a few additional questions.

1. The recipe shown below is from Beer smith, cannot seem to get the numbers to agree with brewers friend. If someone else could take a look and see if this looks right, it would be appreciated.

2. I am using an Anvil 10 gallon kettle/fermentor, but I am calculating just using an 8 gallon batch size. I was warned to leave plenty of headroom in the fermentor.

3. Yeast has not been chosen yet. I am up for suggestions. This will be fermenting inside my house, so around 73 degrees all the time.

4. What would a good "steep" temperature target be for this? I have found calculators for "strike water" temperature, but I was not sure what the target temperature I should be aiming for.

5. Thanks again for the help so many have given both publicly and privately. The recipe below is a combo, of all of those ideas, and what I have have come up with.

6. And yes.. I KNOW I have "cheated" a bit with 4lbs of sugar, but I figured for my first time out, I will take every advantage I can get, and it helped get the ABV to just about 8% ABV.
Recipe.png
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Deplorable
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Re: My First Recipe

Post by Deplorable »

Why not just go 2#/gal and forego the sugar?
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NormandieStill
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Re: My First Recipe

Post by NormandieStill »

I would skip the sugar. You're aiming for flavour and the sugar is going to "dilute" the flavour of the grains. How about you mash in your grains, and if you don't get the SG that you were aiming for, you can always boost with some sugar at that point. If you're aiming for quality, rather than quantity then the slightly lower abv wash is not going to be a problem.

If you've not done any AG before then you want to think through the whole procedure from start to finish a few times to make sure that you're not going to be missing items that will prove essential. The key to mashing is the temperatures, so if you get distracted by a pan that you can't lift because the handles are too hot (for example) then you lose a few degrees while you run around looking for oven gloves and so your efficiency suffers.
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Ben
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Re: My First Recipe

Post by Ben »

Beer smith and brewers friend likely don't agree because your equipment profiles aren't set up the same. A point of extraction efficiency estimate can mess things up.

I agree with the sentiment of leaving out the sugar. Chuck in a little more base malt if you are worried about it. Nothing wrong with fermenting a 1.050.

I would really recommend you do something like a UJSSM for your first run, you have a lot less chicken in the fryer if something doesn't work as planned or you have trouble with your cuts.
:)
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subbrew
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Re: My First Recipe

Post by subbrew »

As for temp I would recommend 148 or so. That will give a fairly dry beer, I would expect a final gravity around 1.008 or even 1.006 although I am not sure with the oats as I have never brewed with them.
armor99
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Re: My First Recipe

Post by armor99 »

I will certainly take the advice of more experienced distillers here. :D So I changed the recipe to the following:
Recipe 2.png
The efficiency I used was 75% (maybe this is too low?), seemed like a good place to start. Other than upping the grain, or lowering the 8 gallons of water, seems like this is about the best I can do. Is 5% ABV ok? I added the distillers malt to help out on the diastatic power. It was pretty marginal without it.
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Ben
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Re: My First Recipe

Post by Ben »

You can get below 1.005 on a ferment fairly easily, just make sure you are mashing around 142°, rather than the normal home brew 150+. Mine normally ferment dry. Don't worry about the oats, they are oily and make a delicious spirit with good mouth feel. You will know your numbers after a few batches, s don't sweat the small stuff.

For your yeast, decide your flavor profile and find something that does it at the temp you have available. Remember a 5-6 gallon batch will be 3-5° higher than ambient at peak. Most of your flavor compounds are produced during the peak of ferment.

Wyeast LAbs - Optimal Temperature.JPG
red star DADY works good at your temps as well.
:)
armor99
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Re: My First Recipe

Post by armor99 »

Ben wrote: Tue Jan 25, 2022 6:07 pm You can get below 1.005 on a ferment fairly easily, just make sure you are mashing around 142°, rather than the normal home brew 150+. Mine normally ferment dry. Don't worry about the oats, they are oily and make a delicious spirit with good mouth feel. You will know your numbers after a few batches, s don't sweat the small stuff.

For your yeast, decide your flavor profile and find something that does it at the temp you have available. Remember a 5-6 gallon batch will be 3-5° higher than ambient at peak. Most of your flavor compounds are produced during the peak of ferment.


Wyeast LAbs - Optimal Temperature.JPG
red star DADY works good at your temps as well.

Thanks so much for the advice. I will remember about the mash in Temp. Always a bit nerve wracking doing something the first time. I did a temp check of the area where this will be fermenting. Always in the mid 70’s. I will look into Red Star Dady. Other suggestions are also welcome. Nice to know I probably should be targeting an ABV of 5-6% and that would be about right.
armor99
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Re: My First Recipe

Post by armor99 »

And one more question that occurred to me this morning. So I was planning on heating up 7 gallons in the kettle, and then sparging with the last gallon. It is a 10 gallon kettle. How much physical displacement will 16 pounds of grain do? Obviously it will raise the water level somewhat, but was not sure how much? Wanted to make sure I was not close to overflowing the kettle while mashing. 😀👍
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Ben
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Re: My First Recipe

Post by Ben »

Beersmith would really help you figure that stuff out if you don't want to do the calculations. Assuming you want a 5 gallon batch it is calling for 24.5qts at mash in at 157° to hit an initial mash temp of 144°, temp is based on my rig and grain temp, not yours. I haven't ever used the anvil system so take my numbers with a grain of salt, but it looks like you want to be around 6 gallons for initial mash in. Then sparge however much you need to, I don't know if you are batch or fly. Should net you a 5 gallon batch around 1.055 depending on your efficiency. On my system with my efficiency it would make 1.060, which is still in the right range. Even if you have a bad go of it you will be at 1.050 so you are golden regardless of the extremes. Don't sweat it, run it, take notes, adjust the next batch. You WILL be doing this again, put it in your head that the first one might have some problems, the next one will be better. I've been doing the beer thing for close to 15 years, I still get a surprise periodically :D
:)
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