sweetfeed whisky

[salmonskin]

well by volume and taste im pulling 5 ta 6 oz at a time tasting and smellin, at about 1st qt i lose the hot taste of well solvent would be my best discription, hot nasty solvent that lingers after spittin it out, then i made 5 or 6 cuts of 5 or 6 oz is seperate glasses, none of em were really that good to me, then i got into tails deffinate stronger taste as proof went down so i put all those into single glass and kept seperate for next run.
one more thing i start to notice a slight film [oily] on the surface as it moves into tails that also signals a cut off to me
thanks for response

[steve2md]

Sounds like you are close. Try fermenting on the grain instead of straining. It all settles out when the ferment is done anyway. You may get more flavor carry over

[blackedout]

made my first sweet feed mash today. followed the recipe. and had a starting gravity of 1.065. i am going out to see for a little over a week. and when i get back, it will be time to fire up my pot still. I'm excited, it made the house smell a lot like when i brew a malty beer.

[steve2md]

My wife appreciates the smell of sweetfeed much more than when I do a flaked maize sugarhead. That one is pretty rank when you open the bucket, but amazing coming out of the still....

[WNC-PrivateStock]

Everything I cook on my stovetop still seems to come out right around 80 proof. Is this recipe good at that proof...or should I run it twice to try for a higher proof grain alcohol? I actually want to be able to have a smooth sipping whiskey like the UJSM is at 80 proof... but a stronger neutral alcohol like everclear would be wonderful to make for mixed drinks. I've not made this yet...is it good at a lower proof like the sour mash? Or does it need to be high octane?

Suggestions?

I'm thinking maybe run some once for sipping whiskey...and run some a 2nd time for stronger neutral mixing whiskey. Am I thinking correctly?

[rouwhrob21]

I am new to the distilling world but I have done a lot of research on this forum. Thanks to all the people out there who have provided the information! It has really helped me out for not making mistakes. I have ran this recipe about 10 times now and no matter what I try (different SG's, longer ferment times, etc.) I can't seem to get my brew over 150 proof. I have read multiple posts about guys getting anywhere between 150-180 proof but I cant seem to reach that level. Any suggestions?

Also, I have found that this whiskey is very harsh to start. Definitely not something you can drink right out of the still IMO. However, proofing it down to about 110 and letting it oak age for a while really smooths it out. I have 1 gal aging in a medium char white oak barrel. Been tasting about every 3 weeks (been againg about 3 months) and it has really started to smooth out and is very flavorful. My thoughts are if you don't like the recipe to start, let it age a month then come back and make your decision on it because it seems to smooth out very well over time.

[marshrunner757]

You running a pot or reflux? I run a boka and as I'm typing I'm dripping off my 9th pint jar at 180 proof after my forshot collection.

[blackedout]

made my first sweet feed mash today. followed the recipe. and had a starting gravity of 1.065. i am going out to see for a little over a week. and when i get back, it will be time to fire up my pot still. I'm excited, it made the house smell a lot like when i brew a malty beer.

the wash is bubbling away like crazy two days later. Im keeping it in the warmest room in my NJ home. its around 75 degrees F.

[salmonskin]

thanks to steve2md. the reason i havent fermented on the grain is the weather i can bring my carboy in the house , well ive cleaned out spare bed room , bought a couple 10gl buckets and am trying one sweet feed and one golden pond indoors , already the ferment looks better different kinda bubbles well see . thanks for the input also i took the last batch and aged it one week so far on nice toasted oak and cant believe the difference, im learnin.

[Bocephus96]

I just threw together a 12 gal batch yesterday.

Horsemens edge 12% sweet
4 lbs brown sugar (all i had)
10 lbs white sugar
2 packs whiskey yeast w/ag

Maybe I should have taken it easy on the sugar because of the enzymes but, I'll see what happens.
It took off pretty darn fast and strong. Smells great.

I'm new to distilling, so maybe I'm missing something obvious, but how much water so you use with this amount?

[DuckofDeath]

"I just threw together a 12 gal batch yesterday"

[rouwhrob21]

You running a pot or reflux? I run a boka and as I'm typing I'm dripping off my 9th pint jar at 180 proof after my forshot collection.

I am using an 8 gal pot. 3" dia copper column, 18" long (I think) with a 26" leibeg condenser. Does seem to matter if I run this fast, slow, meduim the highest I have been able to achieve for a proof is 145. Don't get me wrong it is some dang powerful hooch but I would like to be able to get some really high proof for making apple pie and experiementing with other high proof flavoreds.

[Ghost]

You can only get so high with a pot still. There are a couple of ways to get it higher though, you could do a few runs of the same product over again and this will get you a higher % but less volume each time. Or you could build a thumper, or build a reflux head.

[modified9v]

I double distill my sweet feed in my pot still. I find it's easier to make my cuts and the flavors are better. Personal choice I suppose. Mine comes off at 145 and drops quick the first time and 175 to 165 the second go around.

[bigbuck]

how will this recipe fair out in a 2" boka after it has been stripped???

[kevin 82]

How many grams is your pack of yeast you use? I'm very interested to try this recipe

[kevin 82]

Hey tater how many grams is your pack of yeast for your sweet feed recipe

[Ronnald]

First run, 7 pounds of sugar, 7 pounds of Sweet Feed,5 gallons of water and turbo yeast. result was small amount ( 1/3 gallon) of 70 proof spirit that tasted like old raisins

I use a pot still, so the taste will be different, but I think you may be using too much sweet feed. (Not sure that is the reason for the old raisins taste though). I do something like 3 gallons water, 6 pints of sweet feed (1lb?), and 3lb sugar with a champagne yeast. Tastes good to me.

[marshrunner757]

how will this recipe fair out in a 2" boka after it has been stripped???

I single run mine in my boka. Just a couple copper scrubbers and run at about 8-10 drips per second. Comes over with a clean sweet flavor. On gens 2 and after I add feints from previous run.

[rouwhrob21]

I double distill my sweet feed in my pot still. I find it's easier to make my cuts and the flavors are better. Personal choice I suppose. Mine comes off at 145 and drops quick the first time and 175 to 165 the second go around.

Thanks for the info. I have also only been able to get to 145, tops maybe 147. I'm going to try a spirit run on my next go around to see how it comes out.

[smokindave]

how will this recipe fair out in a 2" boka after it has been stripped???

I run a 2" boka wide open on my stripping runs of about 5 gallons. I will get about 4 full quarts from 75% down to 20% or so. I leave this all together and run with a second batch of the same ( I only run one 6.5 gallon fermenter at a time). On the third run (spirit run), I usually have 8 quarts from the stripping runs, plus the feints from my last spirit run (2 quarts). Last time I had about 10 quarts total. I diluted this down to about 35% with a little water.......although, it is usually pretty close to that already.

When running this, I just toss first 250ml of fores right out of the still without checking anything. I then collect heads separate until the solventy smell is gone, or until about 85%, at least. I will switch to 250ml per quart jar at the start of the hearts.....below 85%, I have found. Usually around 72%, I'll start tasting for tails, and I might switch to smaller collections of 125ml or so.

When I start blending,I am taking pretty consistently from the middle of that run, I get about 2 quarts of 76% ABV average. I dilute to 65% with distilled water. Last time I had 2.5 strong quarts of 65% to put away. I usually put one one some oak cubes, and leave the rest white, just for tasting, and a baseline for my oak aging sampling.

My opinion is that a detuned boka will run pretty high on the ABV, compared to a pot still. My hearts seem to tend toward the higher end of scale. I have tried running my spirit run at 35%, and that seems to help. Might even try a little less just to hit that hearts sweet spot right at 80%-70%.

In general, I would say it tastes pretty neutral this way........a sweetness with a little flavor tang at the end. Pretty smooth though for 65% ABV. Once on some JD chips it will get a nice smooth sweet profile for sipping in a couple weeks. I put some on new charred oak cubes, and it is still in the woody, astringent phase after a month and half, but it is improving. Keep in a warm area, and it will "Age" better.

With packing in the column, I can see this recipe making neutral spirit pretty easily. In fact, I plan to try that at some point. Double distilling some sweetfeed hearts. Or, just running under reflux, to see if I can still get some flavor on a single slower run.

Hope this helps someone......

[jeepkidd]

I just bought a bag of Rolling Acres Sweetfeed from TSC (http://www.tscstores.com/25KG-MR-SWEET-P8390.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow). Haven't opened the bag yet, but plan on starting a small batch tonight.

Keeping my recipe small for learning, I plan to use a 5gal fermenter.

4" Sweet Feed
4lbs sugar

Invert the sugar when I boil 2gal of the water, then pour over feed and stir for 15min, let stand 90min then top up with cool water.
Check for SG of 1.08 and 90 degrees add sugar/water if necessary
sprinkle yeast and cover

I'd like to set it settle out a bit after fermenting, so when I rack off the bucket into my carboy I will put the carboy in my cellar and start my Gen1.5 going with the same grain (add only what I remove) and water/sugar.

For by 3rd ferment of the grain I will use backset from my 1st run.


My changes are very minor from what was posted in the pages before, but as always I'd be happy to hear any tips/tricks which can make my product better.

[smokindave]

Two parts granulated sucrose and one part water simmered for five to seven minutes will convert a modest portion to inverted sugar. If you add a little citric acid or some lemon juice, it will speed it up.....I usually add a teaspoon of citric acid.

4lbs of sugar in 2 gallons of water should work just fine. Sounds like he is adding the rest of the water later on after it "cooks" with the sweetfeed.

For a 5 gallon batch of sweetfeed though, you are going to want more sugar in the mix......I have done it without it being inverted, and it still works fine. I usually go with 6 lbs of sugar, with 4" of sweetfeed......I usually top my fermenter up to 5.5 gallons.....and it is usually in the 1070 range for starting gravity.

[jeepkidd]

My little fermenter is actually 5gal, so I figure 4gal will be all I can put in it without it boiling over, which would make my sugar about right.... hmmm... I'm being too damn cheap aren't I... I'll buy a bigger bucket.

[smokindave]

True, you don't want to top that 5gal bucket all the way up, or it will spill or foam over. Your starting gravity might be a little low, but that is not a big deal. Best way to figure this out is to use the calc from the parent site.

4 gallons with 4 lbs of sugar, will only get you about 7%, and you will get a lot less than 4 gallons of wash.....that grain displaces and soaks up a lot of that 4 gallons.

http://homedistiller.org/calcs/sugar_sg

[jeepkidd]

I added the step of checking SG and adding sugar/water as needed to hit 1.08. I know what the calc says, but figured the molasses might bump it a bit, and it is easier for me to add sugar then dilute in a full fermenter.

My still holds 8gal, so I'll look for an 8gal bucket as my 'little' fermenter. The goal is to rack off 23l from the fermenter to fill a carboy so it can settle before I run it.

23l = 6gal

8gal fermenter filled to 7gal will leave me a gallon of space for grain and sludge that I leave behind while making sure I have enough to top up the carboy so air won't get to the product as it settles.

My little batches went from 4gal to 7gal over the last 2hrs. I'll have to stop reading soon or I'll be using my 15gal fermenter

hmmmm... (thinking about how nicely a double batch in the 15gal would fit into 2 carboys)

[bigbuck]

i have a stripping head for my keg,was planning on stripping about 15 gal of wash to run it in reflux on my colum,would this be a sufficent method? as i run each strip i was going to add my low wines to the next strip with the final product being run in my packed colum,somebody please stop me if this sounds incorrect,i am looking to make a netural product with a sugar wash later,i have everything on hand to make sweetfeed and wanted to play with the boka as this will be the first time running one,i must say all the info posted on here was most helpful in building a colum,thanks to everyone

[Odin]

To further enhance taste on your SF, this might be interesting reading:

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 34&t=36241

Odin.

[njscofflaw]

sweetfeed recipes always made me do a double take, you know, given that whole livestock purpose thing (not that I haven't found FAR stranger recipes in my travels on this site). I went to a local feed supplier blackstrap molasses and looked around for a bit to mentally tally what was could be purchased for my "non-farmer interests". Saw they had a sweet feed 4-in-1 mix for $1.00 per pound. While I got a bag to start scooping, the woman behind the counter mentions that they also have 50 lb bags available for $13.00. DONE.

Looking forward to starting some of this as soon as one of my 8 gallon fermenters free up. The stuff smells wonderful.

[jeepkidd]

I opened up the Rolling Acres - MR Sweet Horse Feed

Attached are the label and a picture of the feed.

feed pic

feed tag

Tag is hard to read, it says:

Guaranteed Analysis
Crude Protien 12%
Crude Fat 3%
Crude Fibre 9%
Calcium 5.9%
Phosphorus 0.6%
Sodium 0.37%
Vitamin A - 12,500 IU/kg
Vitamin D 2,900IU/kg
Vitamin E 80IU/kg

Ingredients: Rolled Corn, Rolled Barley, Whole Oats, Molasses, Wheat Shorts, Canola meal, Soyameal, Corn Distillers Dried Grains, Limestone, Dicalcium Phosphate, Salt, Pellet Binder, Trace Mineral and Vitamin Premix

There are a few pellets in there, very few though and it smells great... I thought about putting it in my cereal bowl this morning