Whiskey photo journal

strangebrew · Post by **strangebrew** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 9:10 pm

Well I thought it would be cool to let some of my non-brewing friends see exactly how whiskey starts out, so I went to town with the digital camera. Here's what I've got so far.

I used 15lbs of the Maris Otter. I will try the pilsner malt next to see what the difference might be.

Got the last 5 lbs of grain loaded in the mill

Here's my mashtun. It's one of those 5 day extreme coolers. These things hold the temp extremely well when kept closed. I have a piece of piece of SS braid in the bottom that i use as a manifold. It slides snugly over a piece of tubing showed into the cooler outlet. The cooler outlet has threads that are the exact same size as water hose so i rigged together some fittings and a plastic valve. I attach another hose to the barb on the valve when sparging. Cheap, easy & works great.

Here's the tun loaded with the crushed grain.

I just added 4 3/4 gallons of 164 deg F water to bring the mash to a resting temp of 152 deg F. I stir this about every 15-20 minutes. I forgot to mention I did preheat the cooler with some warm water to minimize the heat loss.

I just added 3 gallons of almost boiling sparge water and stir like hell to get all of the sugars into solution before sparging.

I added 5lbs cane sugar to the wash and it's about to come to a boil. I boil for about 15 minutes to make sure any nasties are dead and I don't have to worry about any type of infections. My mashing /sparging equipment & area isn't exactly the end all be all of sanitation so boiling for a few is cheap insurance.

This is after a 15 minute boil and chilling for about 20 minutes.

I just put in the carboy and added 2 tbs of distillers yeast rehydrated in 1 cup warm water.

This is about 2 hours later!! That distillers yeast really is bad ass stuff.

This is the next morning. Notice that I have it sitting in a dish pan.

It went nuts and came spewing out of the air lock during the night and all over the carpet, so i put a blow off tube on it.

I'll post the running results and pics of my newly built still when I run it this weekend. I can't wait to finally take that baby on it's maiden voyage!! I feel like a kid at Christmas time.

Captin Moron · Post by **Captin Moron** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 9:35 pm

awsome pics man! the cooler makes a great mashtun

Constructive criticisim: resize images smaller, its uber anoying haveing to scroll sideways to see the pics!

Keep them comming, picture threads are always fun!

strangebrew · Post by **strangebrew** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 5:48 am

Sorry about the wacked out pic sizes & quality earlier. I had to re-upload them at work

where I have a high speed connection.

Big J · Post by **Big J** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 6:22 am

Nice pics, good work. Is it a single malt? Or what's your recipe?

Cheers,
J

strangebrew · Post by **strangebrew** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 7:12 am

Yes it is a single malt. I plan on using the pilsner malt next time & am going to compare the flavor profiles of the 2 different malts.

The wash recipe:

15 lbs Maris Otter 2 row barley
5 lbs cane sugar
distillers yeast
walter

This is not really a "true" single malt whiskey since i kicked up the % ABV with 5 LB cane sugar. I wouldn't call it a "thin mash" whiskey either since I used some much grain for only 6 gallons of wash. Kind of a hybrid I guess. When i use the pilsner malt I don't think I will add any sugar and see what the differences are. I've got so many different ideas / techniques that I want to try. Guess I just have to drink all of the mistakes.

Big J · Post by **Big J** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 7:30 am

strangebrew wrote:I've got so many different ideas / techniques that I want to try. Guess I just have to drink all of the mistakes.

Haha, I know how you feel. Let us know how it turns out, it sure looks and sounds good!

Cheers,
J

Uncle Remus · Post by **Uncle Remus** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 9:11 am

Nice mash report Strange B. My all malt mashing technique is similar, I just do it in a pot instead of a cooler, a real big pot. The last malt mash I made, I toasted and even burnt some of the malt in a fry pan, before grinding. I taste/burnt about half of the grain bill. After mashing I sparged it like you did but in a nylon sack. The toasted flavour really carried through nicely into the distillate, even after 2X distilled.

Let us know how your whiskey turns out. The next time I do a malt mash I'm gonna put about half the grain bill in the smokehouse and spritz it down with water and smoke it with a little applewood maybe.

Thats the beauty of this hobby, you can experiment all you want and if you don't want to drink your mistakes you can always recycle them

stil_chillin · Post by **stil_chillin** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 6:02 pm

great pics hope it tastes as good as it looks

Captin Moron · Post by **Captin Moron** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 10:35 pm

strangebrew wrote:Sorry about the wacked out pic sizes & quality earlier. I had to re-upload them at work where I have a high speed connection.

ahhhh much better!

Where do you get your grains? Pilsner...etc?

strangebrew · Post by **strangebrew** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 8:07 am

Captin,

I buy all of my grain through my local home brew shop (The Wine Smith). I think that he orders his stuff thorough Crosby & Baker (something like that i can't remember exactly) I do know however that the supplier is located in Atlanta Ga.

I get all my grain from him because it is way cheaper for me not to have it shipped in from god knowswhere. That and I get a discount because i'm part of our local homebrew club the LA Lagers.

possum · Post by **possum** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 11:39 am

I don't know about the bulk malt my homebrew shop carries, but I use Crosby and Baker distillers yeast (and sometimes other ale yeasts to give varied flavor), and that stuff rocks. High %abv and it goes to town quick with enough nutrients.

Swag · Post by **Swag** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 11:53 am

Thanks for the report SB, nice pictures. I've been doing nothing but sour mash lately but I would like to try your recipe.

sot · Post by **sot** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 12:12 am

Nice set up, hope this isn't too much off topic.

How difficult is making the malt?

The price difference between barley and malted barley is high so I'm guessing there's a bit of magic involved somewhere along the line.

I do remember reading that making beer was part of the housewifes job way back when. (Safer to drink beer than water.) afaik, she didn't buy the malt but made it from grain.

So how come homebrewers don't do their own malt nowadays, is it just economics?

possum · Post by **possum** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 6:48 am

Takes a bit of space to sprout (malt ) a sizeable amount of grain. Then if you want a particular color and flavor, you must toast the malt for just the right amount...too much and it wont convert the sugars you use it with.
If you don't toast it, the sprout uses up all the stored energy to grow the plant. Maybee if you brewed as soon as the sprouting was at the right phase...the whole thing can de done cheaper and with more consistancy in a comercial setting. With much less time spent by the brewer.

I'll make some traditional all corn and home malted corn eventually.
Some others on this board have done thier own malting.I think it was furball. Not sure. GP and Fourway have done corn malting I belive.

furball · Post by **furball** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 6:54 pm

If you do some searches on the site you should see a few topics on malting your own. Saying that, I have done some malting and it wasn't too bad, just a bit time consumming and does require some room to do.
The way I did it was to take the amount of grains you figure out for the mash your interested in making, and place them in a bucket of room temp water and let them steep for 12hrs, dump the water and flush water through the grains a few times( this gets rid of the dirt and debris that may have been stuck to them) fill the bucket with fresh water and steep again for 12 hrs. You do this for several cycles until you see that the grains have rehydrated and are soft, ie- you can pinch it in half with your finger nails. Once you reach that point, drain off the water and place on a cookie sheet or two depending on how much you have made. place it in a dark area at room temp. You want to pile it so that you have a layer about 2-3 inches thick, and let it sit. The reason for this is that they will generate heat as they start to germinat and this will help them grow. Now the tricky part is that atleast once a day they need to be turned and mixed around this is so that they get enough air to keep the germination process going, it also lessens the chance of mold taking place.
After about 3 days you should start to see things popping through the husks of the grains, these are the rootlets. At this time, and probably even before make sure that you don't allow them to dry out, spritz them with water if they feel dry while turning over. A few more days will go by and then you will see the acrospire(main plant shoot) pop out, wait until this shoot gets to be just about as long as the grain( this should be for a majority of the grains, some are going to be smaller some longer). At this point your going to have about the best enzyme developement as your going to have in the grain, and portion of the grain starches will have been converted( you can taste some sweetness). Take the grains and put them in a dehydrator set at 120 deg F. This will stop any further germination and depletion of the starches and sugars, it will also help the enzymes convert more starches before the water concentration gets down to the point that the enzyme can not function. When the grain gets to the point that enough water has evaporated and the grain is hard enough to mill, your done! handle it the way you would any other malt.
Now, if your in the mood for some experimenting, you can smoke the grain after the germination and before the dehydrator for a smokey malt. Or, you take some of the malt after the dehydrator and roast them in a dry skillet, but remember if you do that the temperatures you going to use to caramelize the sugars is going to denature the enzyme and it will not be useful for converting other grains.

Furball