yeast suggestion for all grain scotch?

[jnco_hippie]

Making a batch of all grain scotch for my soon to be father-in-law. He drinks scotch exclusively, so he knows the beverage. He is also a man of few words, so I would like to impress him.

Recipe:
5 gallon batch fermented in 8 gallon vessel
Ferment on grains

4 lb 2 row barley
8 lb 6 row barley
1 lb peated barley
2 lb smoked barley
2 lb light dried malt extract
OG 1.075 to 1.085

Target final gravity 1.000 or lower...

Would like to ferment out to 10% or 13% prior to distillation.

We run a brew supply shop so we have just about any yeast you can name. I usually do my high booze with distiller yeast or champagne, but my usual drink is sugar cane based. Since this recipe will be barley based im wondering if I will need a more select strain to get my 12% since my sugars are different.

What will get me down to 1.000 or .995??

Using a pot still with a liebig.

[heartcut]

For barley malt I've gotten excellent results with Safale S-04 (more neutral) and S-05 (more esthers).

[jnco_hippie]

That is unfortunate...

Those might be the only yeasts we dont have righr now. Next order is not due for two weeks, so perhaps there is another suggestion?

I have super distiller yeast (not turbo) we have lots of red star choices, lalvin and danstar, nearly every strain of white labs (minus whiskey strain) we have white labs super high gravity yeast (wlp099)


Anything above look good?

[heartcut]

WLP002 is a good choice, not from my experience but from tasting other's product. Nice background, lets the malt come through. The super high gravity will give a lot of high boiling point stuff, if you're staying under 14% ale yeast should be good. White Labs liquid will probably need a starter or 4 packs per 5 gal.

[Jimbo]

For barley malt I've gotten excellent results with Safale S-04 (more neutral) and S-05 (more esthers).

Youve got them 2 backwards heartcut. S05 is a very clean fermenting yeast, high attenutation. One of my go to's. ferments out my AG whiskeys to below 1.000 and gives me very clean ale's when Im trying to bring out a particular flavor from a grain or hop. When I want a slightly sweeter english style with more esters I use US-04 or other specialty english yeasts, which are very similar in character to the S04.

I really like the US-05 a lot. I use a lot of different yeasts, my yeast fridge in the pic below, but always come back to 05.

http://homedistiller.org/forum/download ... p?id=18405

[heartcut]

True, US-05 is dryer for beer, but distilled, I find US-04 to be more neutral and the higher flocculation makes for a cleaner distillation. They both make good "Scotch" in Texas.

Safale US-05
Total Esters 40ppm
Total Superior Alcohols 269ppm
Residual Sugars 11g/L

Safale S-04
Total Esters 37ppm
Total Superior Alcohols 363ppm
Residual Sugars 18g/L

[jnco_hippie]

I thought WLP002 would die off at 9%
.
Should I drop the 2 lb of Dried malt extract and go for additional 3 lb of 6 row? I am told that malt grain can go higher in fermentability than extract, which is fixed at 75%.

Otherwise same recipe with english or dry english white labs can get me to 13% ?

I guess im more worried about the low end, the last 25 points. How do I access and use those less accessable long chanin and carmelized sugars to get to .000 or .995
.

[smithmd4]

Mash temp is the key to simple sugar chains, but it takes longer.

We were talking to a Belgian brewer last year who made an all malt Tripel, which normally has a significant portion of sugar added to it. He mashed at 140* for 2+ hrs, which resulted in fermenting out crazy low. Using my 10 gallon cooler mash tun, I would start it at 143 and let it go for 2 hrs to keep it above 138 the whole time. I have not tried it yet so I don't know what it would do to my efficiency.

[fixin2]

Why don't you try some Nottingham. It's a fairly neutral yeast and isn't it very similar to US-05? I tried some in a sweet feed mash and everyone liked the end result. It should ferment out in 3-4 days also.

[Jimbo]

That WLP002 is a great english strain. High floculation (settles out fast and hard to the bottom). It does throw a lot of fruity esters, typical english style, but makes a great beer. Never used it for whiskey but its very similar to US-04 and heartcut says below that makes a great whiskey. WLP002, WLP023 and US04 are my go to's for english styles, all very similar. I will be trying them in a whiskey soon. You can compare them all here. http://morebeer.com/category/beer-yeast-nutrients.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

NOTE, the advice it gives for pitching some of these is to pitch low temp, low 60's, and let the wort rise to the high 60's. Its easy to be lazy when you mash at 140's, to get the temp down to below 100 and throw the yeast in. But youre stressing your yeast. Some of us are assholes on here about stressing your yeast, posting multiple places about it. You want to ease em in and pamper those babies. They really will puke in your drink if you stress em out.

Notingham is good too. Its highly floculent and attenuative (settles and ferments dry) and is tolerant to cold (50's) so good for cold basements. Studying the yeasts at a site like morebeer above is good learning for our art too.

To some other comments below. You cannot ferment the long chains, caramelized sugars etc. They are what make a beer sweet. Wasted in a still. Mash in the mid 140's to maximize beta amylase enzymes which only make maltose. You ll still have some alpha amylase working, but it will be sluggish at that temp and not making too many mixed chains, preferring 150's. Malt extract is already mashed for you. No idea what temp, but since its intended for beer they probably mash at 152-155 to make a 'typical' beer sugar chain mix.

[Brewing bob]

For barley malt I've gotten excellent results with Safale S-04 (more neutral) and S-05 (more esthers).

Hi all,
Ive mashed a grain, then added malt extract, fermented out (defo), then ran it in a turbo 500, the finished spirit smells really bad, any thoughts please??, thanks

[Jimbo]

Pretty slim on the info, what grain, what gravity, what yeast, what temp, how much extract when, what was your take, how did you cut it