Rye bread whiskey

[Odin]

Glad it works for you, Hawkeye!

I feel there is so much taste that I want to do a fractionating run on it. Pretty sure there will be plenty of taste left!

Odin.

[Hawkeye3]

This run is like the Eveready bunny. 1/2 pt jars and #35 is still over 72% and the temp just hit 185 degrees.
Just remembered the qt. and a half of feints I added. That's probably is playing a big part.

[Hawkeye3]

So, after cutting to aging strength (I chose 130 proof) I had 28 pint jars. I left 5 white. In the others I started with very little medium toasted oak chips from Brewhaus and gradually added more to each subsequent jar. When I think there ready I can blend how I like with the different levels of oakiness and if necessary adjust the heavier oaked jars with the ones I left white.
Awesome recipe Odin. I would recommend this recipe to anyone.

[Hawkeye3]

Hello Odin. You said you were not fond of Ketel One but at 4.5 ltrs the bottle does make a nifty container for some ORBR. (Odin's Rye Bread Rye).

[Odin]

Sh*t! That looks pretty, Hawk! As a Dutchman, though, I feel that bottle ... should be in my cabinet!

Congrats on what looks to be a great success!

Going to make some myself in about 2 weeks time. 200 liters fermenting as we speak.

Odin.

[Odin]

I just ran the contents of my new 210 liter fermentation vessel a bit over a week ago. Part of it as a vodka, another part potstill for maximum taste. Here's a picture of my new fermentor and of 15 liters of 59% rye bread hearts ageing on some JD wood.

After stripping that rye bread wash, I used the backset (around 25 liters) of the last strip to start another generation of rye bread. With just 15 kilo's of sugar and 1 kilo of additional rye bread. Didn't fill up the fermentor completely, but it should be enough to give me like 140 to 150 liters of around 6%. Not very much, but since I can strip it to around 35% pretty fast, that's no problem. I find that the lower I go on target abv, the more taste I get over. And a great taste at that.

I tried some of the previous batch last night that was white and even though very young, it was nice to sip.

Odin.

[baron4406]

Haven't been on the board for a long time, nice to see the rye bread recipe by the honorable Odin made it to tried and true. This is one of the very few, if any, recipes that is best enjoyed "white" or lightly aged. I have some that's over a year old and while its very, very good. Oaking it seems to destroy much of that spicy rye flavor, any else notice this?

[Odin]

That's an interesting note there, Baron ... All I can convey is that actually I also drink this rye bread recipe white most of the time. I think I aged some on wood only once and felt that some of the tastes indeed were gone. Now, I contributed that to the char on the wood, filtering out some of the larger molecules for sure. But who knows, maybe this is better white. For sure the rye bread gives so much taste that it does not need anything else. I am oaking some as we speak, Baron (see pictures above) and will let you know what I find. So far, just "nosing" it was great. Lots of vanilla in the smell. Maybe I will do some first tastings in about a week time.

Regards, Odin.

[baron4406]

I can do side by side comparisons to your corn flake bourbon recipe which is also a year old and they are both close in flavor, the rye is slightly more delicate but they are similar. This year found a full jar of very tasty corn recipe i forgot i had with all my still equipment. It was only 50% so I assumed I was just gonna throw it in another batch, but sitting around for a years its pretty drinkable white. I'm under orders from the wife, I gotta get cooking we are almost out of hootch. Only two recipes I'm gonna bother with are your rye break and corn flake recipes. They even blow away all grain. I do all grain every weekend, but its for beer not hootch.

[Odin]

Thanks!

Odin.

[Odin]

I will be adding some Nottingham Ale Yeast prior to starting the next ferment. Should work better at the lower temps we have over here right now. These 4 weeks fermentations are just too long!

Odin.

[eVenom]

Like it was mentioned earlier in this thread I was able to find this bread in ALDI

It was $1.79 for the 500g loaf

here is a picture
http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo- ... st=37d0d34" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Needless to say but I will be trying this recipe out soon!

[Odin]

Make sure it is the real thing that's baked for over 10 hours. Instead of just bread with rye and added mollasses for a dark color.

Odin.

[Loosely]

Hi Odin.

My supermarket had real Dutch pumpernickel, so it must be good! I've got three loaves (500g each) in my fermenter and another one in the freezer for Generation 2. The ferment seems to be going well; looks like it might be ready to distil sometime over Easter weekend.

Couple of questions for you. You mention a few posts back that you're ageing with JD chips. Is that likely to put more of a bourbon taste into the rye, do you think? I was very pleased to find your recipe since I prefer rye to bourbon for cocktails, but when (if) I age it I think I'll be using 'unused' oak.

And what's your recommendation for the amount of yeast to use for a 25 litre wash? I may have missed it, but there doesn't seem to be an actual quantity stated, although you do specify amounts of everything else. I'm using bakers' yeast and took a guess at around 12 tablespoons (should have weighed it). It's bubbling happily, but I'd be interested in how much yeast your experience has taught you to use.

Thanks for a fun recipe.

[Odin]

A gram per liter or a bit less will do the job. Twenty grams should be enough. And yes, JD wood gives over more vanilla. Some say this recipe is best white, btw.

Odin.

[Loosely]

Thanks, Odin. Looking forward to distilling (probably) next weekend. Then I face another decision: do I do a second generation or use the fermenter slush to make rye vodka (which I'd then turn into rye gin)?

The easy answer, which is probably what I'll do, is both. Run a second gen of the rye then use the slush from that to make vodka/gin. It's good to work these hard questions out!

[Odin]

You can also, by using some backset and a little extra rye bread, just start up generation 2 of the whiskey. And use a fractionating column as your "weapon of choice" in case you want to make a vodka.

Odin.

[eVenom]

Make sure it is the real thing that's baked for over 10 hours. Instead of just bread with rye and added mollasses for a dark color.

Odin.

Sadly there is no way to tell how long it was baked from reading the label on the package. But here is the ingredients list:
Whole Kernel Rye, Water, Wholemeal Rye Four, Salt, Malt Extract, Oat Fiber, Yeast

On the label it says Authentic German Imported from Germany so I hope its the right thing

its dark brown like mahogany wood slightly darker on the edges, dense, hard, could probably be used as blocks to build houses but hopefully better to make hooch

Ill try it in a couple of weeks and report back!

[Odin]

Sounds good!

Odin.

[LBHD]

Got 7ish gallons of this goin' in the fermenter -

Current plan is to strip the wash, use the backset to melt another 10lb of sugar and another 500g loaf of bread, add water to cool, and then add back on top of the fermenter trub. Then strip round 2 and combine the low wines for a single ~3-4 gallon spirit run.

May take me a couple weeks for the update-

[LBHD]

Ended up with 4.5 gal spirit run at ~35% ABV. Collected just under 15 pints at a steady fast drip throughout the run. Jar 15 was very very cloudy and carboardy, jar 14 was kind of cloudy but had a lot of rye spice. Makes me wish I had collected in smaller jars around the end as the flavor was good in the tails.

Cuts were easy as the heads were VERY headsy! All the way down to jar 7 or 8 they were very noticeable, then they disappeared. Tails were tasty so I kept a bit of early tails. Ended up with less after cuts than I had hoped as the heads went way into the run- not sure if I was tasting heads or the "sugar bite" from stressed yeast, but I left it out of the final product. Next round I will try and be a bit more careful with my ferment and see where it gets me.

I kept about a pint out of the blend to play with nuking/ JD chips. The rest is bulk aging on chips in the closet, will check in a couple weeks. Unaged portion that I kept is really good, so shouldn't take too long.. but I will be patient.

[brick]

Cheers to all, and thanks for providing a source of useful information about my favorite hobby. I'm a novice distiller, and I apologize if anything I write offends the experts on this forum.
This rye bread whiskey recipe is truly fantastic. I've made it a few times and I love to enjoy it unoaked. It's spicy and delicious, and the grain flavor really carries through a simple pot distillation.
I recently did an experiment in which I added 4 loaves of Mestemacher rye bread (ground up in my Corona grain mill) to the standard UJSSM recipe. The cracked corn and rye combination turned out really nice. I might have to try a corn flakes and rye bread combination soon.
Special thanks to Odin.

[Odin]

You are welcome! I am affraid the rye bread will overpower the cornflakes easily. My best advice if you want to try how much of each ... first make cornflakes, then make rye bread. Combine them and see what percentage of each is best to your liking.

Odin.

[brick]

Thanks for the advice,Odin.
I'll try to determine the optimal rye bread/ corn flakes whiskey ratio to suit my taste.
To reiterate my previous post, I am amazed at the depth of flavor of the rye bread whiskey.
I've yet to try a batch of All Bran or Gerber, but all these cereal-based washes seem to be quite popular even among the more experienced home distillers.

[Odin]

As a beginning distiller you may want to try multiple recipes, so you can decide what's best to your liking!

Odin.

[aceswired]

Planning to try this out. My bro-in-law has been begging me to try rye. For those of us who aren't having any luck finding the right rye bread locally, is Mestemacher Bread Whole Rye (http://www.amazon.com/Mestemacher-Bread ... +Whole+Rye" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow) still the preferred choice online, or has anyone uncovered any better options?

[Odin]

This variety is the best:

http://www.hollandproducten.com/product ... 500-g.html&" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Not sure you can source it in North America though.

I am making a new batch of rye bread whiskey. Three batches actually. Two times a bit over a gallon on Am. white oak I got from Holybear. The wood was toasted at 220 degrees C for 80 minutes, wrapped in alufoil. The third batch has some JD wood smoking blocks in them. Here's a pic ...

Regards, Odin.

[aceswired]

Ooh that's perty. I'll dig around. Anyone in the US have luck finding that bread?

[chambersranch]

Here in the usa we call it pumpernickel rye bread. It's hard and all rye.

[Hound Dog]

I finally got around to making some of this. I used the real German rye bricks found at Aldie supermarket. I used one box of Millville cornflakes and 2 and a half bricks of rye bread (I say bricks because it is dense unlike any of the fluffy bread we are used to here in the States), 25 lbs of sugar, 17 or so gallons of water 1/2 cup of Red Star bakers yeast and a bit of calcium to keep the ph even per fermenter. Two fermenters racked into 5 gallon buckets and left in the cold garage to clear.

I racked the first three buckets into the boiler for a striping run last week and got 3.5 gallons out of it. I threw that back in the boiler today and topped it off with wash. I ran this at a moderate pace on the pot still though the worm. It came off surprisingly smooth. Even the tails seemed mild.

I put a half gallon on light charred oak sticks, another half gallon on plain oak sticks and the rest I am holding onto as white for now. If this is as good as I think it will be after mellowing a bit it will be my first successful run on the pot still. I usually use it to strip and then use my LM to clean things up.