Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

[Jimbo]

Its done. RUN IT. Why would you wait?

[Fills Jars Slowly]

Its done. RUN IT. Why would you wait?

This, from the original recipe:

It will be mostly done in 3-4 days, if you leave it to ferment out dry 5-7 days the yeast will add more fruityness (a good thing). Commercial distillers would like to do this but dont have the time, for economical reasons. Some push to 60+ hours to try and get more fruit. We do have the time

The man says to run it. I will run it

[Jimbo]

haha true, but at 0.999 now, its done. Cake's baked. time to (h)eat it

[Fills Jars Slowly]

Well, that stripping run went just fine. I fed the still 12 gallons of freshly squeezed cloudy wash at 8.8% abv, heated it up slow, and got what is shown below (9.5L @ 37%). I took a sip of the distillate in the hearts of this run about 43% abv, and man, that liquor can be sipped as is by a fool who can't wait. I checked my hydrometer six ways to Sunday, and corrected for temp. That is looking nice.

[Brendan]

I took a sip of the distillate in the hearts of this run about 43% abv, and man, that liquor can be sipped as is by a fool who can't wait.

Wait until you run a slow, second distillation, and age it on oak for 9-12 months

Mind blown

[azza10]

Thanks Jimbo, I've just pu up an an intro post. I'm making notes about cuts and recipes etc, I was just curious about how you make your cuts on this recipe. in my intro I mention the ethyl acetate issue I've had. Because of that I've had a lot of trouble with making cuts and so this is the first run I'm going to put through the pot still that I expect won't have that issue so I was looking for a bit of a baseline for comparison.

Cheers, Azza.

[Jimbo]

Well, that stripping run went just fine. I fed the still 12 gallons of freshly squeezed cloudy wash at 8.8% abv, heated it up slow, and got what is shown below (9.5L @ 37%). I took a sip of the distillate in the hearts of this run about 43% abv, and man, that liquor can be sipped as is by a fool who can't wait. I checked my hydrometer six ways to Sunday, and corrected for temp. That is looking nice.

I like the chart. Engineer? While its not for everyone, I think looking at the numbers, 14 ways to Egypt, adds another layer of understanding at the end of the day to whats going on. I do the same. One of my favorite metrics is when Im all done, I see how many pounds of grain it took per finished bottle of 80 proof. (normalized, as I usually bottle whiskeys at 90). For single malt Im around 4, and for Bourbon Im between 5-6, depending how long I cook the corn and what else is in there. For apple brandy 26-28 lbs of apples.

Cheers, and congrats on a great run.

[Fills Jars Slowly]

One of my favorite metrics is when Im all done, I see how many pounds of grain it took per finished bottle of 80 proof.

Oh, that's cool. It took me 7.3 pounds of total grain for each finished 80 proof fifth on my very first batch. I am sure that 7.3 number will go down with experience, feints thrown in, more sophisticated cuts, and what all. I have low wines for wash #2 and wash #3 will go in the fermentors today, so I will be getting more experience quick!

One thing I wanted to mention, and I will have to wait to see how both finished whiskeys turn out, but the first wash that had the puke thing going on definitely passed some strangeness on to at least the low wines, and possibly the final spirit. I know that now that I have low wines from a clean non-infected run to compare to. Now, here is the thing; This "infected" bourbon after 1 week on oak in jars is starting to be some pretty interesting and incredible stuff. It almost acts a bit like an Islay scotch with complexity that includes things like bicycle inner tube and I don't know what all. It kind of reminds me of a bourbon /scotch hybrid. The charred oak probably brings the bourbon stuff and the youthful heads and tails flavors and "complex" parts remind me of scotch. At any rate, the low wines from my second run smell much cleaner and different than those from my first, and the first made good whiskey that is not boring. I am in high cotton.

[Jimbo]

"interesting, incredible and bicycle inner tube" in the same statement made me laugh. You had a bug in there makin flavors alongside the yeast. Im glad it produced something you like. You might want to keep it seperate just to see how it develops next to the others. 4 months man. keep your mitts off it for 4 months, minimum. Its gotta 'age' and its gotta get oaked up.

cheers.

[Fills Jars Slowly]

4 months will be hard. I think my tactic is to make more than I can possibly drink and surely some will get old. Famous last words.

Hey, I finished up another successful mash today in record time just to see if I could and what price I would pay in efficiency. I near-boiled water, dumped the cracked corn in, and insulated as usual. Then I only let it rest 2 hours, and mix/cooled it down to 150, at which time I dumped the malt in as the mixing continued. The mash settled at 145 and I wrapped it up again and let it sit an hour. I then took a gravity reading: brix = 13 (SG 1.053). Stirred in some of that amylase enzyme formula powder, and let it sit another hour at which time brix = 14.5 (SG 1.059). Stirred again and let sit for one more hour, 3 in all. The gravity at that time was brix = 16 (1.066), the same as I got on my last batch (I am doing 36.5 lbs grain and 12.5 gallons of water plus 2 gallons backset). I then mix/cooled to 85 and aerated, pitched the yeast, and divided into 3 bucket fermenters. The airlocks were going within the hour.

I was pleasantly surprised to get that kind of efficiency with a faster process. This mix/cool setup makes a big difference to the amount of work involved. Don't try this at home, as the lawyers would say. You can't see it in the picture, but that mixer contraption was wired down to the pot and stand and wasn't going anywhere. You can see the inlet and outlet of the wort chiller sticking up over the side of the pot. The mash is really moving around the pot in a hurry. I wondered aloud in my intro thread if pumping boiling water through the wort chiller under this setup would be a decent way to cook the corn too. More work than doing nothing, though.

[Jimbo]

Looks very familiar.... and thats all I gotta say about that.

nice work on the mash. sounds like youre dialing it in quick!

[jetkrazee]

Hi Jimbo, Quick question for you. Will White labs WLP 001 start on it's own in uncle Jesse's no cook recipe? A lot to learn yet....
Thanks

[Jimbo]

I havent made UJ so cant speak specifically to best yeast for that.

But WLP001 is a great yeast. Same yeast as Wyeast 1056 and Safale US-05. Clean, highly attenuative American Ale yeast. My favorite yeast for whiskies and beer. The dry Safale is half the price of the other 2.

[jetkrazee]

Oh ok. I didn't know if I would need to make a starter first or just pitch directly in.

[Jimbo]

Starters are always good to get things going fast. But not necessary if pitched at one packet/vial/smackpak per 5gal

[jetkrazee]

Great! Hey, thanks for the help brother! Cheers....

[DukeBoxer]

Hey Jimbo, I have another quick question. White or red wheat? I went back to square one and bought myself some 6 row and wheat malt. When asked white or red my mind said red but I asked what most people used and they said white so that's what I got. I'm planning on starting the wash tomorrow. I'll let you know how it turns out.

[Jimbo]

I dont know that it matters too much. I think you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference in a bourbon recipe.

Cheers.

[DukeBoxer]

OK thanks!!

[Woodpile]

If you were to get yeast from your all grain batch to save for another batch how might you do that? How long will it keep and how do you store it?

I dont do that baked, because the AG whiskey ferments are not sterile. The malt is never pasteurized in AG fixins, so the bacteria on the malt is still there. Its a race with the yeast. And in a clean environment with fresh clean yeast, the yeast will win. If you keep cycling something with bacteria, the bacteria will proliferate and youre toast.

Beer is boiled after mashing. So the ferment is sterile.

I think I have resolved this issue with the 2x mash method I am adapting. first mash uses all the grains. then it is brought back to a boil. second mash uses enzymes. See post...

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 5#p7173525

It should stay a bit cleaner - but I was not actually concerned about it, anyway.

[Fills Jars Slowly]

One of my favorite metrics is when Im all done, I see how many pounds of grain it took per finished bottle of 80 proof.

Oh, that's cool. It took me 7.3 pounds of total grain for each finished 80 proof fifth on my very first batch. I am sure that 7.3 number will go down with experience, feints thrown in, more sophisticated cuts, and what all. I have low wines for wash #2 and wash #3 will go in the fermentors today, so I will be getting more experience quick!

So, after that first batch that went kind of pukey during ferment due to my lax/slow cooling procedure, I did three more batches using 36.5 pounds of total grain in each. All of these went fine and fermented out in 3 days or so with no sign of infection. I think mashing for a reasonable amount of time (2-3 hours) after gelatinizing the corn and cooling and pitching yeast quickly after mashing solved the infection issue. I was able to gelatinize the corn overnight above 180F, and as long as I cooled it quickly to mash temp and then pitched yeast quickly after mashing and cooling, no infection happened. (If time is at a premium, note that I was also able to get effective gelatinization of the corn in as little as 2-3 hours as well) I used Red Star DADY to ferment these three batches, and was quite pleased with its performance.

I had 1/2 gallon of feints from the first run that I put in with one of the stripping runs, so that stripping run yielded a bit more than the others. After the three stripping runs (12 gallons each) I combined the 8.5 gallons of low wines collected for a spirit run. Those measured about 38% abv, and the result of the spirit run was about 18 liters collected at a total abv of 66%. My cut included 10.5 liters at 74%, which I diluted to 60% and put on toasted charred oak in a corny keg converted to hold spirits. So, now I have 3.4 gallons at 60%.

At bottling time, I will probably dilute to 45% for about 22+ fifths of finished whiskey. It would make 25 fifths at 40%. So, the pounds of grain per finished 40% fifth metric for this batch is 36.5 * 3 = 109.5 / 25 = 4.38 lbs of grain per fifth. The feints added from the prior spirit run helped out, but I am happy with my process and the results I am getting.

Thanks a million, Jimbo, for posting the recipe and helping folks to get good results from it.

[Jimbo]

Outstanding! Nice work Jars!

[HighProof]

I'm on my second run of this. Thanks Jimbo for the recipe. It's the first all-grain I've done.

I don't have any really large fermenters, so I did a couple 5 gallon batches to put into 5 gallon bucket fermenters. Both batches used the same grain bill, same procedure, and same yeast (I made a starter, then split it between the two buckets). It's been fermenting since Saturday evening and I went to the basement to check on them yesterday. One of the buckets has a lot of activity on the airlock (multiple bubbles a second). The other, though, is almost not bubbling at all. I tested the gravity with a refractometer on the barely bubbling one and it's only down to about 1.025 (SG was 1.032). Any ideas what's going on? I have another vial of yeast (WLP023), and I'm thinking of pitching that in this evening (with maybe a little yeast nutrient) to see if it starts back up.

[Jimbo]

thats odd. more yeast probably wont help. whats the temp where its fermenting? Try putting that bucket somewhere warmer for another week. A little heat usually jossles the yeast back into activity. That burton ale yeast wont go completely dry, but certainly more than 1.025. Your SG was only 1.032? Should be almost twice that?

[HighProof]

Both buckets are fermenting side-by-side at 68F (hooked up to a temperature controller with a heating element on the outside of the bucket). I'll try bringing it upstairs and see what happens.
I'm not sure why the SG wasn't higher. I wasn't sure what to expect and I didn't have a refractometer when I brewed my last batch. My grain bill was 3lbs wheat, 2lbs barley, 10lbs corn in 5 gallons of water/backset. I *think* I followed the procedure correctly. Can you think of anything that may have kept me from getting a good conversion?

[Jimbo]

Did you cook the corn according to the recipe? That 3 lbs grain per gallon should put you around 1.064. Maybe its higher and your reading was off? Did you aerate it well? Yeast need oxygen to fornicate.

[HighProof]

Corn went in to 205F water and rested for about 6 hours. It was a little over 140F when I added the other grains. I just remembered that I also drew off some of the liquid to measure with a hydrometer. That actually came in at 1.02 (uncorrected for temperature).
I aerated by shaking the buckets for about a minute each. The next morning, they both looked like they took off well and were bubbling similarly.

After the corn rest, the mixture wasn't as thick as I expected. How thick should it be? It was pretty liquidy but I've heard before that corn makes a thick porridge.

[Jimbo]

thats plenty of cooking. cracked corn? how much backset? Malt was milled well? what was the mash temp after you mashed in and stirred well? Did you wrap it up tight? It really needs to be 140-145 for 60-90 min. If it was in the 130's it will take much longer to convert.

[HighProof]

Corn was cracked feed corn. I added around a gallon of backset to each. (One batch got a little less, because the container the backset was in was smaller. Maybe that's a significant difference? I think the one that's stalled is the one that got the smaller amount, but I'm not 100% sure.) Malt seemed milled well. I got it from the local homebrew shop and milled it there. I forgot to record the mash temp after adding the grains. My guess is one was in the 130's but the other was probably in the 140's because it was a little warmer to begin with.) I wrapped up the pots and they sat for 4 hours. Temperature was 130 when I started cooling it.

[HighProof]

I moved my bucket to a warmer area last night, and added some yeast (I had it on hand, and figured it wouldn't hurt). This morning it was bubbling a little more, but not much.
If I get the chance this weekend, I may brew up another 5G batch and see what kind of SG I get out of it. Meanwhile, I'll still strip this stuff and save it to toss in with another batch.