uncle jesse's simple sour mash method

[Black Eye]

4" of corn and all the fixins will fit in a standard 20l fermenting bucket. Might be slightly less that 5 gallons but it works good. If you are using a Home Depot 5 gallon white paint bucket it might be a little light. I usually run my UJSSM in two 20l buckets i bought at the brew store and distill 8-10 gallons at a time.

[canadadry]

ok thanks! http://morebeer.com/products/flaked-mai ... ml#reviews" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow is this an alright purchase for corn?

[Sabatour]

I would see if you have a brew store close and get the bigger bucket - they have like 6 gallons. With the offset of the corn and sugar you will be hard pressed to fit that into a 5 gallon bucket. Plus you should really get a food safe one.

Can get them on the interwebs as well just search fermenter bucket.



Edit: Once you do this with a single bucket and do 4 or 5 generations you will prolly want to run two buckets at once depending on how big your boiler is to get more product to play around with but just stick with the single run this time IMO.

[Jimbo]

I love Morebeer.com, but not for corn at 1.45 a lb. Find a feed store. Cracked corn is $10-$11 for a 50 lb sack. 20 cents a lb.

[thatguy1]

I would see if you have a brew store close and get the bigger bucket - they have like 6 gallons. With the offset of the corn and sugar you will be hard pressed to fit that into a 5 gallon bucket. Plus you should really get a food safe one.

Can get them on the interwebs as well just search fermenter bucket.

I went to my local bakery and told them I'm making wine. They gave me six, 5-gallon buckets that still had icing sugar left in them so I know they are food safe. They were all free Check out your bakery, they just throw these things away everyday.

[thatguy1]

I successfully distilled almost 7L of distillate from my 40L wash. I took a small jar from the middle and am drinking it right now. Tastes pretty good for the first run - much better than Birdwatcher's which had some odd off tastes even when distilled 3 times through a reflux column and it was coming out at 80-90%.

Thanks!

[Moosejuicer]

Has anyone tried changing a sweet feed mash over to Uncle Jesse's Simple sour mash by replacing the spent grain with corn over a few weeks time? If so what was the results ? Hate to start from square one again if not necessary or needed.

[Black Eye]

I hate to say this but I can't remember who's done it, but yes there are a few threads here that have mentioned it.

My theory is... What's there to loose in trying something new. Even if it's not great you still learned something in the process. I find it hard to believe it would be bad.

[Odin]

Just do it Moose ... but after a post in the welcom tread, maybe?

Regards, Odin.

[thatguy1]

Just finished making my 2nd generation of UJSSM and let me tell you, the difference between 1st gen and 2nd gen is night and day. I didn't think it could/would taste this much better, but it does! The first generation tasted "ok", better than the birdwatcher's recipe, but I still had to add coke to the first gen. The 2nd gen, woah doggies, can easily drink this straight and it smells heavily of corn!

Uncle Jesse you sure knew what the hell you were doing when posting this recipe

[firerat]

I'm doing a beer grain piggyback version of UJSSM and I'm looking for a bit of clarification.

For the first ferment and run, I'm going to use about 6 lb of spent grain from an all grain beer brew I'm running then add the 3 gallons of water and 5 lbs of sugar. Pitch yeast and let her fly.

I'll do my first run keeping all that is collected as feints for the next run.

Now, when it comes time to do a second ferment, I plan to use around 30-40% backset along with water and sugar. I don't plan on fermenting on top of the spent grains. Do I need to add more fresh grains or corn? I'd imagine that after being mashed for beer then fermented again for a wash the existing grains are going to be completely spent. At least I'd hope so or I really need to work on my mashing tech. Would using a higher percent of backset add more flavor?

If I'm asking a repetitive or stupid question, please let me know.....

EDIT:

I think I answered my own question....kinda hard to have a "sour" mash without letting something stay in the fermenter to actually "sour". Maybe I'll start this on the spent grain then go to cracked corn......damn hobbies....

[tdrass]

hello folks.

I'm a noob and I have a couple questions.
1, is the backset supposed to have such an overwhelming smell to it? It is really sour and carries over in my product.
2. I'm using an alembic pot still (5 gallon) with a 1300w hot plate that does cycle and my 2nd run only topped out at 75% abv. I ran it really slow like a 5 hr run.

The flavor is ok around 70 - 60% abv but the backset carry over starts to come through.
Seems odd. should I start over or keep marching on?

Any help is appreciated.
Thanks

update. my nose doesn't work very well so I had my wife have a smell. she said it smells like apple cider(the backset and the product).
Sounds like i screwed up.

[thatguy1]

I'm a noob too so I'm just going to keep this short and simple and comment on my results.

My backset smelled like a cross between water your boiled corn in, and a bit of yeast. To me, it smelled more like corn water.. to my wife more like yeast. I loved the smell of the backset.

To me, the backset flavor makes the product taste so good!

[F6Hawk]

Has anyone tried changing a sweet feed mash over to Uncle Jesse's Simple sour mash by replacing the spent grain with corn over a few weeks time? If so what was the results ? Hate to start from square one again if not necessary or needed.

Doing it as I type. Each gen, I add only corn to the mix. 4 gens SF, 2 gens into corn only. Good stuff. But nowhere near as good as rice alone...

[firerat]

Has anyone tried changing a sweet feed mash over to Uncle Jesse's Simple sour mash by replacing the spent grain with corn over a few weeks time? If so what was the results ? Hate to start from square one again if not necessary or needed.

Doing it as I type. Each gen, I add only corn to the mix. 4 gens SF, 2 gens into corn only. Good stuff. But nowhere near as good as rice alone...

This is what I was looking for.

I'll start mine piggyback with spent beer grains and just replace with corn.

I can't wait till Saturday!!

[thatguy1]

Ok so far I've tasted this in three different ways:

1. The hearts section of a full heat stripping run (2nd Gen)
2. The hearts section of a low heat and slow spirit run (2nd Gen)
3. The hearts section of a low heat and slow spirit run with Jack Daniel wood chips aged for a few days in the jar at 50% (2nd Gen). Distillate output was limited to a broken stream.

My personal favorite was #1, and #3. I absolutely loved the strong smell of corn in the stripping run. However in the spirit run, the whiskey seemed to have lost a lot of its corn flavor and smell. Also, I liked #3 as the mild JD taste added alot of flavor to the whiskey... it tastes like crown royal after a few days of the chips being in the alcohol.

Anyone have any input on this? Did anyone prefer the stripping run over the spirit run?

PS - My still is a 2" wide, 24" high column with no packing for either spirit or stripping runs. It has a 24" long, 1/2" wide Liebig condenser.

[Da Yooper]

I having a problem with my 4th gen. It's been almost 2 weeks and it's not done. Gens 1-3 were done in 4 days. I have a 6 gal. ferment. The sugar at the start of all the ferments were 12% and 1-3 finished at 0%. The yeast I use is Red Star. I use 1.5 gals. back set each time and add 1 tsp. baking soda to the back set. I added 1.5 tsp. yeast and some crushed cereal after the first week to get gen. 4 going again. The air lock did start to bubble but not near as violent as it should. And now at almost 2 weeks fermenting it's only down to 6%. Not sure what to try next? more nutrients ? I don't have any thing to check PH level thats why I add baking soda to the back set hoping to keep that in check.

[Fastill]

I having a problem with my 4th gen. It's been almost 2 weeks and it's not done. Gens 1-3 were done in 4 days. I have a 6 gal. ferment. The sugar at the start of all the ferments were 12% and 1-3 finished at 0%. The yeast I use is Red Star. I use 1.5 gals. back set each time and add 1 tsp. baking soda to the back set. I added 1.5 tsp. yeast and some crushed cereal after the first week to get gen. 4 going again. The air lock did start to bubble but not near as violent as it should. And now at almost 2 weeks fermenting it's only down to 6%. Not sure what to try next? more nutrients ? I don't have any thing to check PH level thats why I add baking soda to the back set hoping to keep that in check.

Stay away from baking soda and go with calcium carbonate, It's all I ever needed to get UJSSM back on track. Bakng soda can cause other problems in the ferment.

[Represto]

I apologise if this has been asked and answered an hundred times in the last 192 pages of this thread. I've yet to read it all...but am working towards that.

I have a 10 gallon ferment going right now. I'd like to be able to siphon it off and reload the mash...but doubt that I'll have time to charge the still in the mean time. Ideally, I'd like to store the alcohol laden beer for a week or two so that I rip through a bulk weekend distillation session. Is this realistic or does the beer not keep well in the mean time between ferment and still?

Thank you kindly.

[Black Eye]

If you rack it into a carboy and keep an air lock on it, you'll be fine. Sometimes I just run 1 5 gallon bucket and do that so I can do a 10 gallon run. Trying to run 20 gallons in a weekend will eat up some time, but hey

[NZChris]

Oxygen is the enemy, so no splashing during racking.

Instead of using an airlock, save the CO2 from your ferments in bags, balloons, kids beach toys, whatever, for purging any headspace after racking. Mylar works best for long term CO2 storage as CO2 passes through most plastics.

Refrigerate.


The easiest option is just to make sure it is well sealed and leave it untouched until your return, but that doesn't get you your extra ferment

[Black Eye]

you can do the same thing with Airlocks. Rack your UJSSM over when it's slowing down. Once you do it a few times it's pretty easy to gage when to do it. It'll finish fermenting out and the CO2 will fill up the head space. It works for beer, and it's worked for the UJSSM, especially if its only sitting for a week

[NZChris]

I like Black Eye's suggestion. If your ferment is already over you can still use it by adding enough sugar to provide the CO2.



If I knew in advance that I wanted to do a double run, I would split the lees into two fermenters and chuck in some extra corn.

[DuckofDeath]

After 7 days or so mine starts to clear and I rack it into carboy's and airlock it and restart the main. So every weekend I have nice cleared mash to run.

[thatguy1]

After 7 days or so mine starts to clear and I rack it into carboy's and airlock it and restart the main. So every weekend I have nice cleared mash to run.

Does it matter if its cleared or not? No color ever gets carried over to my distillate.

[Dnderhead]

" No color ever gets carried over to my distillate."
"clear" does not mean lack of color, its the lack of yeast etc.

[thatguy1]

" No color ever gets carried over to my distillate."
"clear" does not mean lack of color, its the lack of yeast etc.

Does the yeast actually cause any off-flavors in your distillate?

[Odin]

Yes, that's why Dunder talks about clearing the wash meaning getting rid of as much sh*te as possible. Especially yeast.

Regards, Odin.

[6raziel6]

Hi everybody

This is my first post even though i'm reading the forum for about 4 months now and trying to learn as much as possible
In the following days i'm planing to try a UJSM recipe as it seems to be simple and I've read a LOT of positive replies (this will be my first ever distillation attempt).
I will use a simple pot stil (5 gallons ) and even though I've read a lot of this thread i'm not exactly sure i should do this recipe with a simple pot stil (because i need to do a striping run and then a spirit run)

What i intend to do is the following:

Create the first mash(sweet one)
strip run it (throw away the fore-shots (150 ml) and then collect until 20% without cuts)
take what i have left in the still and use as back-set for the next wash (use only 1-1/4 gal of it and throw the rest)
strip again and repeat until i have enough for a spirit run

then charge the still with all the striping runs from the multiple generations of of the mash, and run it slowly
throw the first 150 ml (fore-shots)
take the first cut at 80% (heads) .. next at 70% (hearts) and then .. i don't know exactly how much to let it run, please advise.
keep the hearts as good whisky (to age) and the heads and tails will be kept for a future spirit run (when they will be thrown in, with the rest of the low wines). What will remain in the still after distilation ... is to be thrown (or can be used as back-set for the next mash ?)

am i correct or i'm missing something ? please advise if any of you has done it in 2 runs
Thanks

[NZChris]

All pot stills are different so use numbers you read as guidelines only.

At around 80% and 70% take off small jars, say 200ml, leave them open overnight, then taste them at about 40% and decide whether, or not, to include them.

To taste them, use a teaspoon to make small samples, taste then spit like in wine tasting.

Keep good records and eventually you will have numbers that are really useful for your still.


***and welcome to the forum***