100% White Winter Wheat Vodka

[Sarsaparilla]

Hi everyone, this is my first post. I've been reading lots of posts on this wonderful forum for over a year now. I'm also only a year into this great new hobby so still learning a lot. Right off the bat, thank you to everyone sharing their experiences. It's fun to read and learn, and now it's time for me to share.

I wanted to do a vodka made only from wheat so I picked up some white winter wheat from the local hobby store and hand ground 5lbs of it. Here's what went into the mash:

5lbs white winter wheat
11.9 liters water
1 tablespoon 5.2 pH stabilizer
1 teaspoon gypsum

And here's my process:
Heated mash to 165 deg F, stabilized water, added gypsum, added wheat, stirred for 2 minutes, covered pot. Came back 20 minutes later, stirred again, covered, let sit for 70 minutes. After 90 minutes I did my starch conversion test which passed, then I cooled the mash to 85 deg F. Originating gravity was 1.054 (factoring in temp correction). Poured mash back and forth between fermentor and pot to airate, then pitched yeast. Covered fermenter 30 minutes after pitching yeast and it was bubbling away pretty good within an hour.

Fermentation lasted 6 days. The temp range during fermentation was 81-84 deg F. The final gravity was 1.013. Ideally, I'd like to get a little closer to 1.000, so I'm not sure what I can do to accomplish that. Should I be adding enzymes? If so, what kind?

I strained the mash and let it settle for 48 hours. 24 would have been better but I couldn't do the beer stripping run the next day.

I've already done the stripping run and will post on that later.

Thanks for any input,
Sarsaparilla

[jake_leg]

Good going - I'm pretty amazed you got that much conversion with no malt. A bit of glucoamylase would help bring the final gravity down. How much alcohol did you get on your stripping run?

[rtalbigr]

I take it you're using malted wheat. As jake_leg suggested gluco will help some, I almost always add some gluco when I pitch my yeast. The gluco will break up the sugar chains and make it easaier for your yeast. One thing you can do to help your yield is insulate and hold your mash at 140-145F as long as your can. Instead of cooling it down just let it cool over night. Even at temps below 140F the enzymes will still be working, just not as efficiently. The longer you can let them work the more sugars you'll get. One more thing, at 165F you're periously close to denaturing your enzymes. When I do single malts I don't let my temps get above 150F. At 165F the enzymes convert faster but they don't do as good a job of breaking up the long sugar chains, so the conversion isn't as complete or efficient. The enzymes for malted grains do their job best if ya keep the temps at 140-150F.

Big R

[Sarsaparilla]

Thanks Jake and Big R!

Yes, I am using malted wheat. Great tip on the gluco. I'll have to get some of that. Interesting idea about holding the mash at 140ish and not heating up too high to begin with. I will try doing exactly that next time and report the results back. You guys are great, thanks so much for the feedback.

Okay, so as I mentioned, I did the stripping run. Filled still, and fired her up at 6:30pm. Started collecting at 8. Let it run at about 1/2 max flow rate and measured % abv throughout so I knew where I was. Also, did some calculations ahead of time to figure out how much I could expect. Was expecting about 1.1 to 1.3 liters. I ended up getting 840ml at 51% abv at 3am finish (long night sleeping in the garage). Probably could have let it run a little longer since the last 100 ml I collected was about 40 % abv, so I think I was pretty close to my target.

I'll probably do a few more mash/fermentation/strips to build up enough for a bigger spirit run.

Sarsaparilla

[dragonfrog]

I do my mashes in the oven overnight - I've got a 20L pot that just fits in the oven. Fill that with crushed grain, cover with water, and turn the oven up to the very lowest point where the power will cycle on (well below the lowest marked temperature on the dial). In my case, that results in the mash staying just under 65 C.

I use a homebrew beer calculator to sanity-check my recipes, and I consistently get much lower finishing gravities than the calculator predicts.