Home Distiller

Ran my first scotch AG mash last night. I use two pots, 2.5 gallons in each to heat to strike temp. I went to just over 160F. I use a 10 gallon rubbermaid drink cooler and brew in a bag method. After dumping the strike water and adding the grain my temps dropped to 145F lower than I had hoped so I heated my extra gallon of sparge water to around 165F and dumped it straight in instead of waiting till the end to bring my temps back up. Hindsight, I will warm up my cooler next time before adding the strike water. It was room temp and I'm pretty sure that's what dropped my temp so fast. I closed the lid and let sit for two hours, stirring the grain and agitating bag, kind of like a giant tea bag every 20 minutes. I finished up with exactly 5 gallons of wort clocking in at 1.060 OG. Racked into a no chill cube and I will pitch whiskey yeast tonight. I was surprised that 6 gallons of water only got me 5 gallons of wort, even after letting the bag drain as well as squeezing it out.

Condensed version:
5lbs Peated malt
7lbs Maris Otter
5 Gallons strike water shooting for around 155F after grain addition
1 Gallon sparge water @ 160 used to flood sparge at the end
Ended with 5 gallons @ 1.060 OG
Racked into no chill cube for later fermentation.

Sounds like you did good! Let us know how it turns out, not a scotch fan, but planning to make some eventually for friends.

Antler24 wrote:Sounds like you did good! Let us know how it turns out, not a scotch fan, but planning to make some eventually for friends.

It actually turned out terrible. I just dumped it last night haha. So I think I wen't wrong in two areas. One was I bought bulk grain from my local home brew store. The clerk even said something about not many people buying the peated malt so who knows how old it was. I also asked him for "Whiskey yeast" and he handed me ferm fast whiskey yeast. I should have just ordered fresh malt and used the standard bread yeast, tried and true. It was a bummer because I could tell a decent scotch was in there but there were just some terrible off flavors.

Why did you dump it?

I made a scotch last year that wasn't too far off from the recipe you used. It definitely needs TIME. It's been over a year now and it's just now starting to come around.

Yeah man never dump it. I was gonna dump 2 quarts once, sure glad I didn't they are great now. All else fails run it through again.

+ 1 BayouShine... RaymieDubbs, You could have posted a question before the tossed it. Your talking about a bad smelling and tasting white dog. It needs time on some good charred oak.

Maybe I did mess up. I've done mostly sugar heads so this was new to me. There was also a gray ring in the boiler after the run, looked kind of like a krausen ring. I just didn't feel right about it. Next time I'll save it no matter what.

That funky ring was most probably a result from the protein break when your wash came to a boil. A mess for sure, but nothing to panic over.

RaymieDubbs wrote:..There was also a gray ring in the boiler after the run, looked kind of like a krausen ring...

you'll get that, it's the foam from the beer.
best fix for this is not to look in the boiler after the run

Swedish Pride wrote:

RaymieDubbs wrote:..There was also a gray ring in the boiler after the run, looked kind of like a krausen ring...

you'll get that, it's the foam from the beer.
best fix for this is not to look in the boiler after the run

Well I'm no quitter so we will go for try number two soon. I can't promise I won't look into the boiler though.

I am helping a friend with an Islay style ag scotch. The recipe has 13.2# peated malt and 2.2# of pale malt for a 5 gallons of wort. I enjoy the Islay style but boy howdy that peated malt definitely shone through on the stripping run. Tasted ok though so thinking after a spirit run and some quality time on oak it may be quite good. He just has one of these little mash boil all in one beer making units with a small pot still made for it. It is fine for spirit runs but brutally slow for stripping runs as you can only run the smaller 600w element. When trying to use the full 1600 watts it caused puking. Might try and rewire it a bit to try 1000w as the only choices now are 600w or 1600w. Cheers!

Wild Bill wrote:I am helping a friend with an Islay style ag scotch. The recipe has 13.2# peated malt and 2.2# of pale malt for a 5 gallons of wort. I enjoy the Islay style but boy howdy that peated malt definitely shone through on the stripping run. Tasted ok though so thinking after a spirit run and some quality time on oak it may be quite good. He just has one of these little mash boil all in one beer making units with a small pot still made for it. It is fine for spirit runs but brutally slow for stripping runs as you can only run the smaller 600w element. When trying to use the full 1600 watts it caused puking. Might try and rewire it a bit to try 1000w as the only choices now are 600w or 1600w. Cheers!

Wow I'll say! That's a whole lot of peat in the recipe.
My scotch had 10Lbs peated malt making up only about 10% of the bill (from my memory).
Tasted smoky and smooth after about 18 months in the barrel.

It will be enlightening for sure. I am sure some of the Islay scotch makers malt 100% of the grain bill over peat fires but they have total control over the time and amount of smoke but we have our fingers crossed for a positive outcome.

I find most of my whiskeys are not good as a white. Give it 6-8 months in a barrel and it's completely different.

Running off a 100% medium peated malt today. So far so good. Just ordered more grain for a less peated version as well. Next one will be 30% medium peat. I have one that is getting close to harvesting and its 4% heavy peated malt.

Is there a recommendation of which heavy peated malt for an Ardbeg / Laphroaig / Lagavulin level of Islay peat?

Thanks,
j

Bairds has a heavily peated malt which makes a nice drop

jonnys_spirit wrote:Is there a recommendation of which heavy peated malt for an Ardbeg / Laphroaig / Lagavulin level of Islay peat?Thanks,j

Take a look...
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=69979
Starts off about the flavors in Bourbon/Corn whiskey...but includes malts as well...
... there is more going on with these single malts than just peated malt and back-set...they have a fermentation time of 90 plus hours...I believe there is a bacterial ferment also taking place here, that would account for the high esters and phenols.

Getting back to the op, I dont think 145 is too low for a mash temp. Its a bit lower than I shoot, but its a number Ive seen some craft stillers claim.
Also, that yeast may not be terrible. I can't really keep up with them all, but it's sold by I'd Carlson who claims it is liquor quip brand, who also makes prestige brand essences. What I do know is a very similar yeast sold under the prestige brand name is quite a decent whiskey yeast. I prefer it for corn whiskey, but have used it in malt.

All that to say I don't see any serious flaws you made other than tipping it out.

But if you're doing it again, If use an English ale yeast, fresh malts, and shoot for a mash temp about 147-150.