Home Distiller

OK, I have to call this one on myself. I've read everything in the required reading section and have almost a year of regular whiskey-making under my belt. My standard recipe is 10 lbs. of cracked corn and 5 lbs. of scratch mix in 8 gallons of water done with the pintoshine method. Virtually every whiskey recipe I've seen includes rye in some small percentage, so I decided to try adding a little rye to a batch of whiskey. I bought a 40 pound bag of rye grass seed and added 2 lbs. of that in place of 2 lbs. of scratch mix.

Obviously, it didn't take long to do some further research to discover that rye grass and cereal rye and two different things. It took some digging on other sites and this site to confirm that. So I have 4 quarts of whiskey made with rye grass seed. It's been on wood for about 6 weeks and I got into the first jar last night. It does have a spicy kick to it, but obviously not the taste I was looking for. So I'll be drinking this weird whiskey for a while.

Fortunately, I have 8 chickens, so I've been spreading that seed outside to make fodder. The seed won't go to waste.

Live and learn.

I think that is kind of cool, I was stating at some rye grass just this very afternoon wondering if anyone ever made whiskey out of it.

A lot of people use the seed so i guess its ok? I like the organic river rye on amazon. Its pricey but high quality so 10% in your mash gives it a nice rye spice

You ain't been watching the moonshiners show have ya? I see that's what those idiots use. On a side note I know a guy who loves this type of whisky, i been meaning to try a snort of his as he claims it's damn good!

I have planted lots of rye grass for deer. Rye grass looks like a smaller version of rye grain. Remember this, everything you feed a chicken gets planted in there poop. Your gonna look outside come fall and wonder where all this green grass come from! lol!

Who else has used rye grass seed. Fess up. Does it, well taste like cereal rye?

I have to agree hilltop, grass seed just doesnt seem to be a good option to me. It must work because a lot of people do it but i do know that the high quality cereal works very well.
And yeah i havent learned a damn thing from "moonshiners" either. I hate to think of how many people watched that show and tried to base their first still project on it. Almost a 100% guaranteed failure for sure.

Appalachian spirits wrote:I have to agree hilltop, grass seed just doesnt seem to be a good option to me. It must work because a lot of people do it but i do know that the high quality cereal works very well.
And yeah i havent learned a damn thing from "moonshiners" either. I hate to think of how many people watched that show and tried to base their first still project on it. Almost a 100% guaranteed failure for sure.

The stills on it are legit, it's little things like the gauges that show 220 degrees that show it's fake. Josh's steamer rig is an expensive show enough still and Chicos doubler rig sure is pretty. Any trained monkey can run a still, the art is in the mash.

I think one can brew with any seed since they pretty much all have at least some starch/sugar to fuel germination. But cereal rye has a lot more available for brewing - a side by side look at the grass and cereal rye seeds makes that obvious. The cereal rye seed is much fatter. The following article compares the two different species without mention of OUR particular interests.
http://ryegrasscovercrop.com/portfolio-view/arggrowin/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
Interestingly, I had no idea both are used for winter cover. Here in Texas many commercial properties use rye grass to keep their lawns green and purty instead of ugly brown.

i too made the mistake of buying a 40 lb bag of rye seed. i thought it wasnt the right stuff but i got excited when i found the rye there cuz im tired of ordering every damn thing online. i havent found any brew shops near me and have checked farmers markets and the only thing i can find around here is tractor supply corn, cant even get the good all grain sweet feed here. i need to find a local place to get some white corn and other grains cuz shipping costs are redic. Plenty of fields in PA idk why its so hard to find?

Did anyone use the rye seed? was it worth using or should i just return it and get the cereal rye?
Thanks,

STUDY BUDDY wrote:Did anyone use the rye seed? was it worth using or should i just return it and get the cereal rye?

Ideally swap it, but if I had trouble finding the real deal and had a bag of rye seed that wasn't treated to ward off pests, I'd knock up a small UJSSM style sugar head to check out the flavor before I fed it to the chooks. The ratio of flavor to starch is much higher than for rye, plus info on the diastatic power might be hard to find, hence my sugar head suggestion.

DP of degrees lintner will only matter if you plan on malting it and that might be a bit crazy without any way to know how good it is unless you plan on malting all of it in which case it will be ok. If you are using barley malt or enzymes then the only thing in question is how much starch there is and they will be enough to feed the plant until it gets leaves so it should be fine. The sugar head will give you a clue to the flavour but it may be pretty insipid like a single grain UJ is.

Fall rye.
Not ryegrass
In southern quebecistan its hard to get this winter
Shortage they say
So i got rye flour
40 dollars for 50lbs
A bit steep but no milling
Squezzing a 35 gallon bentstick mash now
Now problems so far

STUDY BUDDY wrote:Plenty of fields in PA idk why its so hard to find?

What part of PA? There is a farmer over near Bedford who has many varieties of corn, including g white.

Rye can be hard to find.
I found some last year but even so it wasn’t very plump, about 20% less conversion by weight.

It’s pricey, but I do think for most of us home brew bags of rye malt are probably best way to go.
Clean and processed for the job.