uncle jesse's simple sour mash method

[Dan Call]

Corn is not corn.

Yellow corn is higher in protein and ergo, oils, that effect flavor.

Distillers of old used white corn. Jack Daniels, when he was taught by slaves how to distill, was taught to use white corn, and this was universally understood in the day. Shame that most
use yellow corn today.

White corn is higher in starch content, less protein, ergo, less oil, ego, better flavor. White corn can be had, it's more expensive and harder to find. It can be grown.

This is one of the true bits of distiller wisdom that many miss. Even George Washington, in his day one of the largest distillers on the East Coast, used white Indian corn in his
mostly rye recipe. In 1798-99, the same year he died, his distiller sold 11,000 gallons of his white whiskey per year, an incredible amount in the day which brought in over 60,000
in revenue, a fortune at the time.

Corn is important, water is important.

[Theo]

My UJSSM is on its 3rd generation. I couldn't believe how fast this batch took off I had about 3# of backset & 3 gal of water in the fermenter. I added 3# of sugar & stirred it up. I grabbed a sample to check the SG and it was bubbling already! Elapsed time was under 30 seconds!

The last batch was fermented down to a SG of .998. Woulda thought some yeast had survived, but this was like a piranha attack!

[russrudder]

I'm doing Jesse's sour mash as I'm writing this and I'm getting 80% with a pot still and thumper tastes really good right out of the worm

[BourbonStreet]

I finally got to the fourth generation of UJSSM. Let me tell you, this stuff is getting magical. The heads and tails taste better than the hearts did a couple runs ago. The hearts are smooth as can be.

[05RC51]

Running my second generation(second with backset) right now. This is the second time I've made this, the first I ran to 5 generations and had to stop there due to work schedule problems. I have one of my earlier runs in an oak barrel for a month and it's just getting better.

[Ohio Steeler16]

Just started my 8th gen on this corn,I had some go till 11th which real fell off taste wise,Have 5 gal on the 5 th gen been running them a week a part then blending the two togeter ,some of the most balenced I've made,great tasting and smooth at 80 proof.Love Uncle Jesse's shine

[southern traditions]

Just came in from running a spirit run of UJSSM from my first generation stripping run. I wanted to test out the thumper I added today. All I can say is wow. I pulled off 1500 ML of 70% plus and another 600ML of some of the cleanest 60 & 65% spirits I've seen.

One thing I found interesting is you could definitely tell where the heads starting trailing off and the hearts began. My hearts didn't really start kicking in til the mid 70-75% range.. the higher 75%-78% range you could smell the heads and the stinging bite was unmistakeable...

I've got the 2nd generation in the fermentor and a new 60liter 1st generation going on at the same time...

Martin

[squeezins]

Corn is not corn.

Yellow corn is higher in protein and ergo, oils, that effect flavor.

Distillers of old used white corn. Jack Daniels, when he was taught by slaves how to distill, was taught to use white corn, and this was universally understood in the day. Shame that most
use yellow corn today.

White corn is higher in starch content, less protein, ergo, less oil, ego, better flavor. White corn can be had, it's more expensive and harder to find. It can be grown.

This is one of the true bits of distiller wisdom that many miss. Even George Washington, in his day one of the largest distillers on the East Coast, used white Indian corn in his
mostly rye recipe. In 1798-99, the same year he died, his distiller sold 11,000 gallons of his white whiskey per year, an incredible amount in the day which brought in over 60,000
in revenue, a fortune at the time.

Corn is important, water is important.

A few years ago I started growing my own white corn just for this reason..1/2 acre gives me all I need for the still,to eat and give to the neighbors.

[Ghost]

The one thing I have noticed is that after generation #4 there might be a need to scale back some of the sugar. I have noted some higher SG reading with each gen there after. When just adding 7lbs of sugar back - the ferments take longer as I imagine there are sugars slightly left over in what you cant rack off and what the corn might soak up - just a thought.

[BourbonStreet]

I had the same problem on my fifth generation. The fermentation slowed down a lot, and the temperature dropped. After 4-5 days, the SG was still about 1.05. I added some more yeast, and it helped quite a bit. I ran it a few days later when it hit 1.02, and it tasted great. I've decided to move it closer to a vent to get it warmer.

[EKY Shinner]

Does this produce a product which taste similar to Jack Daniels? To me, Jack Daniels has a taste like mold.

Thanks
Dan

[Stilly]

Does this produce a product which taste similar to Jack Daniels? To me, Jack Daniels has a taste like mold.

Thanks
Dan

Dan, they are not going to taste the same. JD is all grain, maple charcoal filtered. UJSSM is a sugar head. I don't drink JD but when I have tried it, Mold was not the taste that came to mind. UJSSM is one of the best sugar head recipes around, give it a try.

cheers and welcome
stilly

[BourbonStreet]

UJSSM doesn't taste like Jack, thankfully! I'm not a big fan of JD, either. When I'm not drinking homemade, I've always been a Dickel drinker.

[gobucks85]

Im using a megahome electric still. What would u recomend me do? I do five gallon mash and it holds a gallon per run. Should I reuse the old used mash. Ive tried that with other runs and recipes and it comes out way lower.

[Durace11]

Gobucks, you want to do one of two options, siphon off all your wash into another container and add back in plain water to hold the yeast while you run or just take only what you need and when you get to the last siphon then add back in water and build your next ferment. Your biggest problem is going to be saving the backset from that little distiller. You'll probably need to do some sort of shell game with all the containers you are going to need to move this stuff around. Also, don't fill it all the way full, go for like 3/4 to the line on the inside or it can foam over big time. probably would help to have a few 1 gallon jugs to make batch setups ready to run.

[scottyg354]

Trying to ferment what would be my third run on this batch and cannot seem to get it going. Temp is around 70-75 degrees. I used to packages of Lavalin EC-1118 and I am getting nothing been trying for about a week and a half with no luck. Should I just start over or do you guys have any pointers?

[Ghost]

Check the PH - I have had a similar problem and that could be the problem. Amazon has PH meters pretty cheap and accurate to.

[scottyg354]

Does this produce a product which taste similar to Jack Daniels? To me, Jack Daniels has a taste like mold.

Thanks
Dan

Dan, they are not going to taste the same. JD is all grain, maple charcoal filtered. UJSSM is a sugar head. I don't drink JD but when I have tried it, Mold was not the taste that came to mind. UJSSM is one of the best sugar head recipes around, give it a try.

cheers and welcome
stilly

On my second run, I threw in a whole pack of medium charred oak chunks into a pint of this. A month and a half later, it is tasting nice. Almost reminds me of Hudson 4 grain or baby bourbon. It's really nice. IMHO though Tuthilltown (Hudson) makes some fine aged (their flavor is what I aim for when oaking) and unaged whiskeys. Sucks that if I want them I have too drive 2-3 hours into New York State/New York City to get some.

[Uncle Jesse]

UJSSM doesn't taste like Jack, thankfully! I'm not a big fan of JD, either. When I'm not drinking homemade, I've always been a Dickel drinker.

Same here. JD gives me a headache after a single shot. I've tried every Jack Daniels product and they're all crap. They have to charcoal filter to remove some of the nasty off-odors, I'm sure. I've never been tempted to charcoal filter. I take too much pride and care with my cuts to want to remove any of the nose!

And I too prefer George Dickel. A decent Tennessee whiskey, especially for the low cost!

[Uncle Jesse]

ok i ditched the turbo yeast and bought bread yeast. the problem now is that im 1/4 tsp too short. im making 10 gal, will this be detrimental to the fermentation process? help would be greatly appreciated.

Been a while since this was posted, but... no it will not matter. It may take a tad longer to get going, but by the time the yeast starts multiplying, you're going to have millions of yeast in there doing their job. This isn't like a beer mash where you might get off flavors if you don't get a nice strong ferment going fast.

I don't use turbo yeast. EVER. It's just too picky about temps and I always get off flavors. IF you do use it, you better be extremely careful about your fermentation temperatures. And I mean very careful.

I've always used regular Fleischmann's bread yeast, except for a while when I used Whyte Labs Tennessee whiskey yeast. Not sure how available that stuff is but it worked. But it didn't work so well as to make me abandon Fleischmann's...

I've used distillers yeast a few times but again, I don't see the advantage.

[BourbonStreet]

Trying to ferment what would be my third run on this batch and cannot seem to get it going. Temp is around 70-75 degrees. I used to packages of Lavalin EC-1118 and I am getting nothing been trying for about a week and a half with no luck. Should I just start over or do you guys have any pointers?

The same thing just happened to me! I'm on the sixth generation. I pitched more yeast, and it didn't help. I then got some pH test strips, calcium carbonate, and DAP. My wash was way too acidic. I got it back to around 5, and threw in some DAP. The "gurgles" are back!

[augiecrazy8]

A few questions as my first UJSSM is finishing up fermentation on gen 1, which seemed to go MUCH slower than my rum recipes in the past. The directions specifically say to put the ingredients into the fermenter in the order in which they are provided. Meaning water first, corn, sugar & top with water (if needed) followed by yeast. I used some warm-ish water first, about 3 gallons (trying to get some extra flavor from the corn), then added corn. I then dissolved the sugar on the stove top with 2 gallons of rolling boil water. This is a newbie assuming that this would be a better method than dumping a bag of sugar into luke warm water and asking the yeast to eat it.

Again, stressing the newbie aspect, would this ultimately have any real effect on the fermentation, final wash, or the final distillate? I'm assuming not, but you know what happens when you assume!

[Greg1234]

I am on my 4th gen right now and enjoy the recipe very much out of 3 gals per cycle i was able to save at least one for later. This stuff is soo good, stopped drinking anything else, but that bring my question: sometimes when dilute it too much can smell lightly yeast. Is that normal or I just pulled one of gens too early? What I do I add faints to wash every time, stuff I drink is not mor than one month old

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

[BourbonStreet]

And I too prefer George Dickel. A decent Tennessee whiskey, especially for the low cost!

I've toured their distillery. Diageo owns them now, but lets them do things the way they always have. They still double distill, with a stripping and a spirit run. In fact, they still use the original column and potstill from 1958!

Again, stressing the newbie aspect, would this ultimately have any real effect on the fermentation, final wash, or the final distillate? I'm assuming not, but you know what happens when you assume!

Dissolving the sugar should help somewhat. My first batch fermented a bit slow, too. The next few were fairly quick, though. I did dissolve the sugar in the backset for those. I can't think of much else to speed it up, besides adding DAP, or insulating the fermenter. The yeast will do what they want.

[augiecrazy8]

Thanks BourbonStreet. I checked the pH, made sure the water was at the correct temp before pitching the yeast, figured the only thing I didn't do was follow the directions EXACTLY. I kept reading about how quick the ferment went for other folks. My airlock was hardly bubbling at all, but when the fermenter was opened up, I could see the bubbling and it smelled/tasted exactly as I had expected. Gravity readings showed that the sugar was getting eaten up too. Maybe my fermenting bucket isn't 100% airtight or something. Hoping to let it clear a little and run it Sunday.

[watoom]

Hi All,

My second gen of UJSSM has almost finished fermenting and would just like some advice, the first gen I used Alcotek 48 turbo about half a packet as it was all I had and had read somewhere using half the packet would be better but for the second gen I pitched some bakers yeast about 2 tbl spoons worth will this be an issue? off flavours etc?

After running the second gen should I start again with just the bakers yeast using the backset from this run?

Cheers

Garth

[Slowninja]

Only reason you may have off flavors is from the turbo yeast in the first ferment.

[watoom]

Only reason you may have off flavors is from the turbo yeast in the first ferment.

I haven't tasted the first run except for periodically during the first run (was just seeing if i could taste the difference between heads/hearts/tails as this is my first time, what i think was hearts tasted pretty good)as I am going to run it again with the second run.

Would it be worth adding the hot backset to the next gen to kill the current yeast then pitch again with bakers yeast? would the dead yeast produce off flavours or just provide nutrients for the new yeast?

Cheers

[condo33]

Successfully ran my first wash of UJSSM in the Potstill this morning. 1:45 mins total run. It was a stripping run really, but I made 200ml cuts to start to train my nose, mouth, and touch. Kept me busy that's for sure. The fores (200ml) were tossed but I measured them at 70%ABV. The next 200 was 65%, 60, 58, 55 etc down to 20% ABV where I shut her down. The ABV was not corrected for temps and I'm sure the distillate got hotter as the run went on, so they may be a little off, but used that as a guide.

Collected a total of 3600mls from a 4 gal batch of wash. The last bottle I nearly filled and it was a little cloudy.
Letting them air for a day or two and will see how well I can separate the cuts. I'm thinking I have a ways to go.

Returned 25% backset to the fermenters after adding and desolving the sugar and letting it cool. Have two 5 gal ferments on the 2nd gen now. Going to strip run them till the 4th gen and then do a spirit run with that last wash. Plan on adding some JD chips in the end to age and mellow. So far so good!

[yankeeclear]

It was a stripping run really, but I made 200ml cuts to start to train my nose, mouth, and touch. Kept me busy that's for sure.

Atta-boy!