Irish Whisky

[Skid20]

Need a little help here. I’m doing my first Whisky run after successfully completing 4 BW's. I mashed in before memorial weekend and set my fermenter in a temp controlled rm set to 78 degrees with a starting SG of 1.045. Did not get to see the yeast activity in the mash after pitching because I was out of town for 4-days. I checked it when I got home and there was hardly any activity on the surface of the mash and the SG was 1.004.

I boiled the corn using a automatic stirring machine I put together and did an iodine test which showed full conversion. My question(s) is, is it typical for corn mash's to have slow ferments? Should I add more nutrients? I should also add that this was a prepackaged 10 gal kit from spiritcraft and had all the nutrients and enzymes included.

[just sayin]

Skid20,
Corn has all the nutrients you need.
Is your grain bill only corn? Classical Irish whiskey had a grain bill of barley with just enough malted barley to convert the starch from the unmalted barley, as a result of a punitive English tax on malt. Until the EU outlawed the name it was referred to as "PURE" Pot Stilled Irish Whiskey. Red Breast 12 a excelllent example of classic single pot stilled Irish whiskey.
The Irish resisted the Coffey column stills and the production of high proof neutral grain/maize/corn alcohol for years. The Scots adopted the Coffey still with a gusto, they blended the resulting neutral spirits with their "demanding" generally twice distilled single malt scotches to yield a gentler blended spirit that found world wide market appeal.
The Irish distinguished their, generally triple distilled, spirit from the "inferior" spirits from Scotland by adding an "e" to whiskey.
Enough history, good luck with your project! Happy stilling!
Just Sayin'

[der wo]

AG ferments faster than bw normally, because it's mainly easy fermenting glucose not sucrose.
What type of enzymes? 1 package powder or more packages or flasks with different ones? Which brand? Link? Which recipe? Temps?

[skow69]

Why do you think that is slow? How fast did your BWs ferment?

Sounds to me like it's just finishing up. You could wait another day or two and see if it will go any lower, but it might stop right there due to a small amount of unfermentable sugars created in the mash. It's no big deal, and no amount of neuts or yeast will change anything if that is the case. You're only looking at an additional ~0.5% ABV anyway.

I would run it as is and declare success. 6% ABV for your first mash is excellent, IMO. I hope you took good notes so you can repeat it.

Enjoy, Skid. The quality of your drinking is about to improve by a mile.

[bitter]

Also much of the Irish whiskey is tripple distilled. Was law.. might still be?

B

[midlife-u-turn]

My opinion would be to give it a few days unless you're in a big hurry to run it. The yeast may very well be still working on it without much surface activity. I find myself getting concerned over my all grains and with time they have always seemed to work themselves out in the end.

[Skid20]

Thanks to all, I do intend on giving it all the time it needs, at least until I dont see any surface activity. I use a reflux and should get the multiple distallations in one pass. Be the first time making cuts using grains and am real interested in seeing what the taste differance is as it goes from heads to hearts to tails. Just a 10-gallon batch this run but plan on doing a 20-gal run at let it age awhile if all goes well

[Swedish Pride]

Also much of the Irish whiskey is tripple distilled. Was law.. might still be?

B

Nah there is some double stilled stuff, and even some that's peated

Still waiting to see what's Irish in this Whiskey, is the OP Irish or more to the bill than Corn?

[Skid20]

Also much of the Irish whiskey is tripple distilled. Was law.. might still be?

B

Nah there is some double stilled stuff, and even some that's peated

Still waiting to see what's Irish in this Whiskey, is the OP Irish or more to the bill than Corn?

Its corn and barly SP. It is a prepackaged kit from spiritcraft this time. I think I will purchase the items seperatly on the next batch, seems a little spendy in retrospect

[Swedish Pride]

http://www.moonshinestill.com/shop/ingr ... -corn-base" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
this one?
very pricey for sure, but it's all a learning curve right?

Does not really say quantity of barley malt, would you say it's 50-50 barley corn?

[Skid20]

http://www.moonshinestill.com/shop/ingr ... -corn-base
this one?
very pricey for sure, but it's all a learning curve right?

Does not really say quantity of barley malt, would you say it's 50-50 barley corn?

That's what I figured, learn the process and then duplicate. I could buy from the liquor store but I'd miss out on the fun doing it myself, I really enjoy the whole process of it all. I would say its closer to 75/25 corn to barley, nothing on the packaging guess that must be a trade secret...

[Swedish Pride]

should turn out a nice burboun.
next step to really learn the process i go to to one of the tried and true, happy stilling!

[Skid20]

Hey Swidish Pride, what is the relavance of a starting and ending SG other than determining what the ABV is? Ive seen some reciepes where it wants you to adjust to a starting SG but I dont undersatnd why thtas neccessary. Thnaks

[skow69]

Do you mean they want you to dilute the mash to around 1.055 SG, give or take? There is a popular theory that high gravity washes produce inferior product, cuz the yeast get pissed off about having to live in a high alcohol environment. Most of us aim for around 8% ABV. So sometimes it makes sense to mash a heavy grain bill, and then sparge or dilute it enough to keep the yeast happy. I do that a lot.

[Swedish Pride]

What Skow said , couldn't have put it nearly as good as that myself

[Skid20]

No Skow, Im not adjusting, but with your explanation I see why I should. My mash started at 1.045 and ended at 1.014. Not quite 8 abv but close enough. I don't think the starches were fully converted. By what I have read it should gel, mine never got to what I would call gell, but more a thick watery paste. ended up with 10gal of liquid to run. That will happen this week sometime. tough to find time with my daughter getting married next month.

[der wo]

My mash started at 1.045 and ended at 1.014. Not quite 8 abv but close enough.

If you measured this with a hydrometer, you only have 4%.

[Skid20]

My mash started at 1.045 and ended at 1.014. Not quite 8 abv but close enough.

If you measured this with a hydrometer, you only have 4%.

I use a refractometer Derwo and get 5.4% using the conversion calculator you pointed me to. I ran it this weekend and pulled about a 1/2 gal out of it. I have it resting on charred oak now.

[der wo]

My mash started at 1.045 and ended at 1.014. Not quite 8 abv but close enough.

If you measured this with a hydrometer, you only have 4%.

I use a refractometer Derwo and get 5.4% using the conversion calculator you pointed me to. I ran it this weekend and pulled about a 1/2 gal out of it. I have it resting on charred oak now.

So your real FG was 1.003. Perhaps you should always mention your refractometer, when posting FG numbers. Or post the calculated real FG. 1.014 would be a failure, 1.003 is ok.
1/2 gal? From what boiler charge? Single run? Potstill? ABV?

[Skid20]

My mash started at 1.045 and ended at 1.014. Not quite 8 abv but close enough.

If you measured this with a hydrometer, you only have 4%.

I use a refractometer Derwo and get 5.4% using the conversion calculator you pointed me to. I ran it this weekend and pulled about a 1/2 gal out of it. I have it resting on charred oak now.

So your real FG was 1.003. Perhaps you should always mention your refractometer, when posting FG numbers. Or post the calculated real FG. 1.014 would be a failure, 1.003 is ok.
1/2 gal? From what boiler charge? Single run? Potstill? ABV?

Or not at all... This is my first corn run and not sure if it makes a difference on where the SG starts, so I thought it might spur a comment by posting. I dont quite understand how to measure SG using a hydrometer. Read the many post on it here several times but I must be dense. I will however post corrected numbers only in the future. As for the charge Derwoo, it was about 13 gal by the time I got it cleaned up enough to not have any floaters. I have a 7-plate 4-inch modular tower and ran 3-plates with the water to the delphamater (sp) turned off to reduce or elemenate the reflux in the tower and only cooled the condenser. I use a parriot and monitored the output throughout the run. I stopped collecting the tails when it dropped below 20%

[der wo]

So you got only 1/2gal on oak from 13gal mash?

Here about hydrometers:
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 61&t=42746
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 15&t=57187
and alcoholmeters:
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... =2&t=57227

[ShineonCrazyDiamond]

How did you cook the corn, and what was the mash temp?

1.014 would be a failure

Whoa, friend. I wouldn't say failure, and it's all grain, so not the highest final ever. Could be better, I agree.

And 1.003 is a home run in all grain world. We'll see what the mash temp was.

[der wo]

It was a package with everything you need like the grains, pH-strips, instructions. And liquid enzymes.
At first he reached a SG of only 1.045 (but a good iodine test), but then the FG of 1.003 is surprisingly good. Perhaps the enzymes fixed the problems while fermentation? Yes, the missing details are confusing in this thread. Like his 1/2 gal distillate from 13gal mash. His first AG and overtaxing with our information. Next time everything will be clearer.
With fine milled grains, low temp long rests and premashing I normally reach 1.000 or less even with only 20% malt in the grain bill.

[Skid20]

the starting SG was 1.045 like I said in the beginning. The FG was 1.013. I started the process in a 15 gal cooker with an auto stir system I put together, I added 5gal of water and preheated to 100 deg, slowly added grains while mixing the whole time. brought the temp up to 175/180 and held it for 3 hours until the iodin test showed full conversion. turned of their off the heat but continued to stir for 30 min. Not sure if this matters but did it anyway. Yes, I had a 1/2 gal after cuts. is this good Bad??? Hell I don't know... Im new at this and will accept all the help I can get. Added a pic of my cook setup

[der wo]

Very simple recipe. But without knowing the exact ingredients, everything I could write was speculating.

Did you distill it with a potstill? Only few members here do single potstill runs, I never did. The normal procedure is double distilling:
-First run: From 13gal 5.4% to 3gal 23-24%
-Second run: depending on cuts. But of course you get more than 1/2gal.

Why did you stop after 1/2 gal? How do you decide your cuts?

[Skid20]

I have a reflux still as I mentioned above and was very conservitive with my cuts to avoid smearing as I am new to grains. I will be adding these back in these back in to my next all grain mash in the fermenter now.

By the way Derwo my fractometer has an SG scale along with a Brix scale. Why is it necessary to adjust the SG number througha calculation?

[der wo]

By the way Derwo my fractometer has an SG scale along with a Brix scale. Why is it necessary to adjust the SG number througha calculation?

A hydrometer measures the specific gravity (SG). Water is 1.000, sugar rises the specific gravity, alcohol lowers it.
A refractometer measures the refraction, regardless of wether the scale is brix or SG, it is not a measurement of gravity. Only the scale refers to a gravity, brix is calculated into SG. The problem: Here BOTH, sugar and alcohol, RISE the refraction (alcohol a bit less than sugar).
So with both instruments you will read off the same starting gravity, but a different final gravity. And when talking about gravity, the measurement of the hydrometer is valid.
So either correct the final gravity numbers or write always, that it's a refractometer measurement. Or you get misleading answers.

[Skid20]

Thanks for the education, much appreciated

[Skid20]

I'm fermenting a new Irish whisky grain bill (store Bought) but am using some lessons learned from my first attempt. I preheated the water this time to 150 deg before adding in the grain. This seemed to help the liquefaction of the corn. Ran the temp up to 180 added enzymes and held. Iodine tested at 2 hours and it showed full conversion, put let it cook another hour just for good measure. Used cheese cloth over a 35gal fermenter to strain, this worked pretty good this time but am thinking about trying one of those boil in a bag setups. It’s still pretty messy. After straining I added water and 1-lb of sugar to bring it up to 15-gal with a PH of 5 and an SG of 1.08. Started my yeast in a 1/2 gal jar with a bit of wort, pitched it after it got a good head, then pitched the rest an hour later. After two days I pitched anoter5 grams of baker’s yeast. I did this because on my first run it stalled out after 4-days. This one has been running strong for 10-days and still going. I tested the SG just for fun and it’s at 1.012. My ferment room is temp controlled and held at 80 deg F.