All Bran Recipe

[Whitedog]

I ran an Allbran after taking thru a secondary to clear to a translucent opaque Kinda gatorade color. I did notice some very faint splotchy sheen on the surface but the smell didn't seem out of the ordinary, maybe a little sour but not so much as to cause concern. As a matter of fact I was wondering if I was smelling things, so to speak, thats how faint it was. Once I started getting product out of the worm, WHEEEEW, it stank like buttermilk, sour buttermilk. I finally had the nerve to put a little in my mouth and, AHHHHgh, almost threw up. It also had a real dry mouth feel to it, hard to get rid of. It was crystal clear.... I have a mind that it may be a bacterial infection but I don't know!!! Any thoughts?

[rad14701]

Whitedog, are you pot stilling...???

I don't know what to think of the wash... You say it smells and tastes dry, it gives a funky smell with distilling, and the product tastes off... My washes taste dry, usually give off just a bit of fruity a smell as the column comes up to temperature, and produce clear potable spirits in either pot still or reflux mode...

Gatorade color sounds about right - or Mountain Dew... Mine clears fairly well, with over an inch of trub in the bottom of my 25L fermentation vessel, and I rack off as much as possible without pulling trub...

[Whitedog]

Yes, I potstilled this run. Yes it smells like buttermilk. I have done several sugar washes and sugar/grain washes, first time I have encountered this though.... I will just pitch this distillate & try one more time as I am sure it was something in my method, somewhere.... All I can see is I took all I could off the trubb and put it in a glass carbouy and alot of headspace was left for say ~ 3 weeks and, as I mentioned, there was a slight sheen.... I figure I allowed a bacterial infection of some sort. I tore everything down and made a strong sanitizing solution so I could get rid of it, if that was the case. Well, I thought maybe someone might be able to confirm my suspicion or not.... thanks WD

[DCT]

rad
I just got back into town & my ten gallons of allbran is still bubbling pretty strong, is this normal? its been 11 days, my 5 gallon of gerber is also still going but not near as strong, all color is good & smells great...i did put 1 extra cup of sugar in each 5 gallon wash of all bran & had a box of crushed ceral in each, do you think the extra nutrients is keeping this yeast going? should i rack it or let it stop bubbling?
thanks DCT

[WalkingWolf]

That seems like it's gettin a little long but as long as there is bubblin goin on you got yeast workin. We all tend to get a little impatient on the first few ferments. I say just let'm go till they quit. They will quit at some point. Do you have a way of checking the specific gravity??

WW

[DCT]

i have a beer/ wine meter but did not take a sample to start, can i still use the hydrometer?

[DCT]

hydrometer was betewwen 0.990 and 1.000 and taste great, not sweet, has a wheaty beer or wine taste, think its ready? if i rack to 1 gollon milk jug & store in fridge will the bubble stop or will blow up a jug? should i wait longer or start racking? was hoping to run sat or sunday

[LWTCS]

If it's dry then give a good stir to degas.

I recycle our water jugs (only) once to rack the wash .They fit into the fridge very nicely and have a bit of flex. Sometimes pressure does build a bit but no accidents to date.

And they make charging my still a bit easier too.

[DIYhooch]

Great stuff Rad! Is there any update to your recipe posted back on 8th Nov '09 (the one I quoted below). Also just had a question, a fast ferment is pretty unimportant to me, so is leaving out the fertilizer or epsom salts ok?, is that just going to slow down the ferment and not do anything to final product or yield? All I was going to add was boiled yeast (apart from the sugar, allbran and active yeast) should that be fine?

Thanks

Scale up in linear fashion...

Recipe

Per Gallon (4 Liters) of 14.1% ABV wash

* 4 cups sugar (1000 ml, 2 pounds, 1 kilo)
* 1 cup whole All Bran flakes (250 ml)
* 1/2 teaspoon boiled yeast component
* 1/2 teaspoon 20-20-20 fertilizer (substitute 1/4 teaspoon epsom salt if afraid of fertilizer)
* 2 tablespoons yeast (Fleischmann's dry active yeast works fine up to 14.1% with this recipe)

Process

* Invert sugar with an equal volume of water for 30 minutes
* Simmer cereal with double the volume of water for 30 minutes
* Mix the invert sugar, cereal, and boiled yeast component
* Top off fermenter and allow wash to cool to 95F
* Pitch yeast and 20-20-20 and aerate for 1 minute (additional aeration optional)

Notes

* This process yields a fully fermented and cleared wash within 72 hours at 78F/26C
* The wash can be pot stilled for flavor or refluxed for clean neutral spirit
* Not using 20-20-20 or boiled yeast will increase lag time and extend fermentation time
* Full krausen within 15 minutes is not uncommon
* %ABV options by volume (Cups per Gallon) are: 4C/G = 14.1%, 3.5C/G = 12.3%, 3C/G = 10.6%
* Adding more cereal will potentially impart more flavor (experiment with more or less)

That's all... It's just that simple...

[LWTCS]

FYI DYI,
To date, I have only ever used water,sugar,all bran,yeast with no issues,,,,,,ever.
(edit) wait, may have used a couple of crushed up multi-vites once or twice. No matter.

I am in a warm climate and can start a 20 liter batch at the bigining of the week and by the begining of the following week it is ready for the still.

[rad14701]

What LWTCS said, DIYhooch...

The last batch I did was the simple recipe with water, cereal, sugar, boiled yeast for nutrient, and dry active bakers yeast... The cereal has enough nutrients and you can vary the amount used to suit your needs... More cereal gives more nutrients and more flavor component...

For the batch that is waiting for me now used 20-20-20 instead of boiled yeast and finished in less than 4 full days and was cleared by the 5th day... I'm hoping to run it in the next day or two... This batch also used only 3.5 cups of sugar per gallon because that was all I had on hand, with a potential yield of ~12.1% ABV...

[DIYhooch]

Thanks for the info. I had a few turbo yeast packs left but I am not going to use those anymore and go straight onto the All-Bran recipe. Will cook up 150L (38gal) of it next week, I will let you guys know the results....

Cheers.

[thepatchworkdoll]

Hi there All Bran wash makers. Have any of you guys had problems clearing your wash. 50 litre batch went like a train finished in 4 days. Added Turbo Clear but unfortunately has not cleared wash. Any ideas or comments realy appreciated.
Regards
thepatchworkdoll

[rad14701]

Hi there All Bran wash makers. Have any of you guys had problems clearing your wash. 50 litre batch went like a train finished in 4 days. Added Turbo Clear but unfortunately has not cleared wash. Any ideas or comments realy appreciated.
Regards
thepatchworkdoll

"Clear" is an ambiguous term... We don't mean "clear" as in "see through", like water... Think "clear" as in all of the solids have dropped and the wash is somewhat translucent... With no bubbling and all of the solids settled to the bottom of the fermenter, the was is ready to be racked into your boiler... With All-Bran and Gerber the cleared wash will look like Mountain Dew...

[DIYhooch]

Ok one question: Is 95F (35C) still the recommended temp to pitch the yeast? (sounds a little high, don't want to burn those nice little yeasties, they are so good to me)

I have done up one 25L batch (will have to do the rest tomorrow, ran out of time).
Here are a few things I thought others may find handy (some have been touched on before in this thread but not all in one post):

1 teaspoon = 1tsp
1 tablespoon = 1 tbsp = 3 tsp
16 tbsp = 1 cup
1 tsp active dried yeast = approx 3.1g (depending on moisture content)
so for a 25L batch you need approx 133g (4.69 oz) yeast (since it is usually sold be weight not volume)
White Sugar: 250g = 250ml = 1 Cup

Since a 25L Batch seems like a popular size here is Rad's recipe scaled up for 25L:
26.4 cups white sugar (6.6kg)
6.6 cups All - Bran
3.3 tsp BOILED YEAST (ie murdered yeast )
13.2 tbsp active Yeast

[DIYhooch]

Ok ended up pitching yeast at 89.6F (32C) , just over an hour later and it is going crazy seems more active than any turbo batch I've done, so far so good.

[LWTCS]

Ok one question: Is 95F (35C) still the recommended temp to pitch the yeast? (sounds a little high, don't want to burn those nice little yeasties, they are so good to me)

I have even pitched hotter. At the time I was fare too enthusiastic. Still fermented to completion.

It's harder to whip air into your wash at the higher temps.

I have pitched at 80F and prolly a few degrees on either side of that temp.

I have used a bucket of ice to cool the wash and (not on purpose) got the wash as cold as ice water, pulled my yeast out the fridge and pitched.
Took all night to fire up, but by morining time the air lock was rattling.

[DIYhooch]

I have now cooked up all 6 barrels (took most of the day), all to the same recipe, although the last three I added lemon juice when simmering the sugar to see if it does make a difference to the final product (mainly tried this because I had several lemons lying round). Just sitting around waiting for the temp gauge on each barrel to hit 32C so I can pitch the yeast (I will pitch the last barrel at 35C (95F) to see what, if any, difference it makes).

On to my question:
- Does simmering the All-Bran do anything other than break it up?, because it didn't seem to change much visually, or in consistency, after 10mins all the way to 30mins of simmering, so basically what I am asking is do I just cook it enough to turn it into a nice slurry?

One other thing for those buying the "little stick" kind of All-Bran, there are just under 9 1/2 Cups in each 655g box (as is, poured straight out of the box with no crushing).

[ic6n]

Just wanted to say, as a complete noob to the distilling art...

this recipe is excellent, easy, foolproof and great results. (already seems better than some storebought vodka)

all in all very happy! thanks rad.

[cluey]

DIYhooch, I have made about ten washes of this recipe with a few variations. After I did my first one i had the same thought as u about the boiling time. Now all I do is bring it to a boil then shut off the stove and prepare the rest of the wash, it usually takes me 15 minutes before I get to the point of adding the boiled bran and yeast to the wash and it works as well as boiling it 30 minutes. I suggest u try just bringing it to a boil and letting it sit in the pot for 15 minutes before adding it to your fermentor and decide for yourself.

In fact, if you read through the whole thread regarding the Rad's All Brann i believe there have been some that have posted they dont even boil or heat the bran at all just add it to the wash and it has worked. I do the boil because i have found that if u crush up the flakes as small as u can before boiling and then boil it will settle to the bottom by the time it has finished fermenting and be MUCH EASIER TO RACK AND CLEAR. This is especially important to me because I have been adding addtional things such as oatmeal, flaked rye, and corn flakes to the basic recipe to get different flavors and with that much extra material in your wash u can have a hard time/mess when trying to rack if u have big flakes running up ur can or blocking ur sieve.

I have always used the flaked all bran and have never used the sticks u refer to, but i dont imagine it would be too much different.

[DIYhooch]

A bit of an update.

First off thanks cluey for your reply, I will try what you say and just bring the all bran to the boil, adding the yeast to kill it and then let it sit while the sugar simmers away separately. I actually think the sticks break apart even quicker than the flakes, the 'stick type' allbran basically dissolves into tiny particles soon after it is soaked in any liquid hot or cold.

Ok so the first three barrels have now cleared, been racked and strip run, they all finished off at about 12% not the 14% based on how much sugar I added, not sure why but other than that it smelt good and tasted the same, unlike any of the turbos I used I would actually have drunk what was in the fermenter straight. It just got better with the stripping run. I heat the stripping run up fairly fast and run it pretty hard, as it is going through my column still afterwards anyway.

So I ran all three barrels at once, they were all 25L batches but after racking I only got about 20-21L from each barrel (there was a LOT of all-bran etc at the bottom of the fermenters), put it all in my 100L boiler. The foreshots/heads smelt damn good, fruity with only the very slight hint of the 'metho' smell, unlike turbo's which wreak of metho at the start. I collected the first two cups which I will put back into my next strip run, although I really could have just left it at about 1 - 1 1/2 cups, this came off at about 70%. The next gallon of distillate was bliss, I mean I would never have considered drinking the product of my turbo strip run, which smelt and tasted like a bad batch of sake, this on the other hand was absolutely drinkable straight off a fast strip run, I would describe it as vodka with a hint of bourbon type flavor, so I continued to taste right through the strip run (something which I never did before). I tasted but did not drink anything (drinking during runs makes for really bad cutting decisions even on strip runs). Rather than getting into nasty tails early this stayed good, the flavor just became more of a heavy bourbon flavor rather than a really nasty old sock/bad sake flavor the turbo's do. I am not greedy and stop the run as soon as it starts to get nasty, although it wasn't all that nasty at all compared to the tails of the turbo's. The Alc. Vol. % took a nose dive (fairly quickly from 48-50% to 40-42%) right at the same time the flavor started having some nasty undertones, I know people usually do strip runs a lot deeper but as I said when stripping 6 barrels at a time it doesn't really matter.

Can't wait to run it through the column still.

The experience has taught me a few things I will do differently next time:
- aim for 12% not 14% alc/vol
- add about 75% the amount of the All-Bran, as it seemed that about 30% of the all-bran was still its original brown color not the white color the consumed all-bran turns at the end of the ferment.
- pitch yeast at 35degC
- stir the hell out of the wash to get more air into it before pitching the yeast, the last two barrels that I really stirred a lot of air into (some heavy duty whipping by hand with a large stainless steel 'strainer' spoon for about 5 mins) fermented a lot quicker and reached a slightly higher alc/vol at the end.
- just bring all-bran to boil add yeast to kill then turn off, this is for the 'stick type' All-Bran.

Thanks Rad!

[rad14701]

Great information, DIYhooch and cluey...

[Aquaneo]

Well like many of you as it seams, i have left the turbo for Rads recipe. I have been using just regular traditional Flisheman's dry active yeast but notice I can get a cheaper 1 lb brick of the instant variant. Does anyone know if there is any difference in the final product if "instant" yeast is used? I'm not at all against saving a couple bucks.

[rad14701]

Well like many of you as it seams, i have left the turbo for Rads recipe. I have been using just regular traditional Flisheman's dry active yeast but notice I can get a cheaper 1 lb brick of the instant variant. Does anyone know if there is any difference in the final product if "instant" yeast is used? I'm not at all against saving a couple bucks.

I buy my Fleischmann's Dry Active Yeast at Sam's Club and pay ~$4.16 for 2 - 1 lb bricks...

[Aquaneo]

I don't think we have a Sam's in Canada at least I haven't seen or heard of one before. I take it the instant stuff isn't the way to go?

[LWTCS]

Instant??
Dry active yeast is in the recipe as it is a snap to source. Some snobs may prefer an ale or distillers yeast. But then some snobs are far too snoby for this recipe any way

[Aquaneo]

http://www.breadworldcanada.com/product ... es_ty.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
http://www.breadworldcanada.com/product ... s_qry.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

they might be called something different in other countries but here is pics of the 2 available

[cluey]

Aquaneo the yeast u had links to are fine to use. In fact, the first link u had to regular fleschmanns dry yeast is the same that i use, except I can buy it in bulk at a Gordons Food Store (a distributor to commercial restruants, bakeries etc. that lets ordinary customers come in to buy also). I just got a 2 pound package for 4.69. I have never used the quick rise yeast in ur second link buy i doubt it would produce much different results than the regular in brewing. In fact, It might be interesting to use both side by side and see IF you see any difference.

[cluey]

This is in response to Rad's question about yields achieved. I made a spirit run of my fake whiskey wannabe based on this recipe yesterday (6.25 gallons of 40%), and a run of the original tried and true recipe for neutral today (5.5 gal of 43%). I had taken off a half cup of foreshots in each of my strip runs of both. I took an additonal half cup off in each of my spirit runs.

With the whiskey wannabe I collected 11.5 quarts. All but the last quart collected at 150 160 proof. I collected the start of the run in two pint jarts, the middle I collected in 9 quart jars, and the end of the run I collected in 4 pint jars, and after sitting with tissue over them for a day and tasting them, (I will let sit a couple more days before i make up my mind for sure) I think i will throw back the first pint and last 2, maybe three, of the last pints into my feints jar. The aroma and taste are great, best I have ever done. In fact, I am suspecting that the flavor and aroma may be hiding some of the heads and tails that we are so used to. maybe they are being masked by the brann's (and other adjuncts) use.

My second run of neutrual which i just finished yielded 7.5 quarts of 90 -93% abv and 2 pints of a lesser abv. I had collected 2 pints in the front and 2 pints in the back of the run, and after tasting them i am heavily leaning to just throwing the first and last pints into the feints jar.

The useable yeilds seem to be as good as can be hoped for. The only thing i am wondering is if in fact we have less of the undesirable stuff or if the undesireable stuff is still in there but is being disguised by the somewhat heavier (?) aroma of the brann flakes. Probably cant tell until i either drink too much or someone does a chemical anaylis of the product. But the only really empirical evidence that has been stated by more then one person, and i have experienced it myself, is the temps. The temps hold steady using both a pot still (which i ran my wannbe whiskey through) and reflux (which i ran the spirit run of the neutral through) and when they drop at the end they drop really quick.

[Aquaneo]

Aquaneo the yeast u had links to are fine to use. In fact, the first link u had to regular fleschmanns dry yeast is the same that i use, except I can buy it in bulk at a Gordons Food Store (a distributor to commercial restruants, bakeries etc. that lets ordinary customers come in to buy also). I just got a 2 pound package for 4.69. I have never used the quick rise yeast in ur second link buy i doubt it would produce much different results than the regular in brewing. In fact, It might be interesting to use both side by side and see IF you see any difference.

I might give it a try, thanks Cluey. I should mention to other Cannuks out there that I found the regular dry active yeast in 2 lbs bricks at Costco for 5.69 and 20 kg bags of sugar for 16.89. Hope this helps someone out.