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Ok, so I think I may have experienced my first bad ferment.

I just finished my 5th generation of UJSSM. Collective of of 1.07 to 1.075 - the standard for my batches. All ran dry to just under .099.

Stripping runs went well.

The whole spirit run had a medicinal taste while it was running. Sorta like perfume. I was running my slow rate on my pot still, everything routine for me at this point. It was kinda like heads through the whole run, but I was not running nearly fast enough for that type of smearing. I kept going, and right about the time the tails come around, I did my finger test and bam! All I could think was soap. Gagging soap throat full. Holy hell.

I still aired out and took very discriminating cuts, ignoring the bitter aftertaste. Diluted, the wife says taste like watered down Bacardi.

Yuk. Not my beloved whiskey, that's for sure.

So what do you think? Too many esters? My gut is telling me that the ferment may have gotten a little high. Every time I have checked it, it is consistent at 71. But perhaps the summer approaching, some days might have crept it up a bit. I have a yeast bed that is a US-05 and red star mix. I made a starter on generation 1, and has served me well. Clean, but a hint hint of fruity. Anyways.

I may make SPD OUT of it, and hope the sugar and dilution will clean it up.

Good luck with your effort to clean this up! In your mind you will always taste it. You would probably be best to rack this one up for a loss. Dont add it back to anything else as feints. Maybe dilute and rerun it before anything else.
Ga Flatwoods

ga flatwoods wrote:Good luck with your effort to clean this up! In your mind you will always taste it. You would probably be best to rack this one up for a loss. Dont add it back to anything else as feints. Maybe dilute and rerun it before anything else.
Ga Flatwoods

Thank's for your support G .

So as it turns out, it wasn't the end of the world. I still threw the faints out, didn't want to compress that! But I decided it was the best time to experiment with nuclear aging, as I had been hesitant with all my good stuff .

I tried simple oak aging first. 3 runs, and I bottled. Turns out, the esters aren't horrible after a few days and couple nukes. It's still not my best, but there really ain't nothing wrong with it.

Just to recalibrate, I pulled some of my favorite craft bourbon and crown royal out for side by side, and it's still better than either one of those.

I am now giving a nuked Firepiss a go, with high expectations. My first real aged whiskey won't be done till the holidays, so this " mess up " was really a great way to get me to experiment.

And some people might even shoot for this type of base whiskey, it just had some really unusual taste of the still. My normal runs are just always so clean. But even now the white dog is chilled out.