Hello there, I just posted my welcome message here:
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 27&t=46536. It has a picture and description of my still and tells a bit about me. I just tried this wheated bourbon recipe for my first go at distilling. Some folks might advise against all grain the first time, but I don't reckon I would listen to them
I have been brewing all grain for some time and am well acquainted with mashing procedures, pH management, etc.
As I pondered the recipe my figuring led me to think that I might have a hard time recovering 12 gallons of wash to strip given the original recipe quantities. I also wanted to plan for poor efficiency in the mash, this being my first rodeo with a cracked corn heavy mash bill. Long story short, I decided to scale up the recipe a bit and used 36.5 pounds of grain total and 14.5 gallons of water ( gypsum added and pH adjusted to 5.5 with lactic acid). I near-boiled the water in my 20 gallon extra-big-ass pot, stirred in the corn around 10PM, wrapped in blankets and let sit overnight. The next morning the temps were still in the mid 170s, and the corn was gelatinized. I pointed a fan at the pot stirring intermittently until the mash was in the mid 140s, added the milled wheat and barley malt, and threw in some of the Amylase Enzyme Formula powder that you can get at the brew store (what the heck, get all the conversion we can, right?). I wrapped it back up and waited about 4 hours, then removed the insulation, pointed a fan at the pot, and stirred intermittently to cool down from 140. It took a long time to cool down (8 hours?), and I ended up dumping it into 3 HDPE fermentation buckets and pitching a right smart quantity of WLP005 British ale yeast grown up in a stepped starter when the wash was in the low 80s. In all, it was something like 24 hours between wetting the corn and pitching the yeast. I could reduce that time by actively chilling the mash to cool to pitching temps, I guess. I chill wort all the time when making beer. Have not seen it as much in reading about distilling.
Anyhoo, the mash was very effective and I had 17+ gallons of glop at 1.069 in my three buckets. The airlocks (OK, so I am a brewer) took off right away and bubbled happily for the next 3.5 days. The fermentation smelled heavenly, of sweet corn and fruity esters and malt. On day 4 the primary fermentation was clearly winding down, and I decided to take a gravity reading to see how much attenuation had occurred so far. My intention was to let it go 6 or 7 days as it is also my experience that yeast will clean up some byproducts if left to go a bit longer after the bulk of fermentation is done. Well, when I opened up the fermentor and harvested enough glop to get a sample from, I got a distinctive tang of acid/puke aroma along with the nice smells. This is definitely an infection according to my experience, and since the gravity reading indicated the wash was below 1.01 (about 8% abv), I decided to run it right away in the hopes that it would work out ok.
I strained the glop through mesh bags, squeezing all I could from the grains, and ended up with a still charge of 12.5 gallons, cloudy with yeast and smelling a little of vomit.
I ran this through the still, discarding the first 6 ounces, and was left with 9.25 quarts at a total abv of 37% according to my proof hydrometer. The stripping run started at about 57% abv, according to my parrot, and ended with the distillate coming out at about 18% abv. I ramped up temps pretty slow due to the yeasty wash, and I ran at a collection rate of about 2-3 liters per hour over most of the run.
Here is where my quandary is. I have never made “moonshine” before, or had any of anyone else’s that I recall, so I don’t know what these low wines should smell or taste like. I would not call them nasty, but there is definitely a lot of smell/flavor not only of corn, but something a bit more reeky. The closest I can peg it is kind of a mid to lower shelf tequila aroma. It also reminds me of some new make type stuff I had at a craft distillery years ago, with almost a turpentine, acetone bent to it. Maybe it is just heads and tails. Maybe it is distillate of puke infested wash. At any rate, I will be running it again to see what the final product is like, and I will definitely be forging ahead attempting to ferment without infection.
I plan to try to chill the mash faster and shorten the time before pitching the yeast. Any other pointers would be appreciated, as well as opinions as to the fate of my first low wines. With my 15.5 gallon boiler can I run the 9+ quarts of 37% low wines alone in a spirit run, or do I need more volume? If I have a subsequent non-infected wash I kind of hate to mix it with this...
Thanks for reading the length post!
Thanks for your help 
Stunk up the whole house!! I tried to heat back to over 200 but the smell was just getting worse and it was boiling even harder. I got temp back p to 170(oven) but had to quit trying and bring it outside!! Not a big deal to throw away only a couple of bucks and corn and some time and maybe a good lesson. 
