Honey Bear Bourbon

[BrewinBrian44]

TwoSheds.

I used Jimbo’s gumballhead recipe as a base. The original batch of HBB was scaled up to 25 gallons. After squeezing all those grains with my mop wringer, I kept them to the side in a sanitized bucket to save for the sugar head.

After running the HBB, I saved 2 gallons of backset. In my big kettle with a ripple heating element inside, I heated 10 gallons of water to a boil, then dumped in 16lbs sugar to dissolve. After that I dumped in the two gallons of room temp backset then used my mortar mixer drill and wort chiller to rapidly cool everything down. Once I was around 90 degrees, I dumped all the grains back in and stirred them well. I also dumped in the goo that was left behind from the HBB strained grains. For good measure I tossed in two teaspoons of Calcium Carbonate to regulate pH and DAP yeast nutrient. I hooked up a couple heating pads to a temp controller set to 85 degrees.

It fermented very quickly since the grains were chalked full of yeast, as well as the goo from the buckets. 3 days total. I strained everything out again in buckets like the original bourbon batch and cold crashed them in a chest freezer overnight. The next day I racked it all into the still for an 11gal run. I also added all my HBB tails feints since they still had a lot of honey/grain flavor, just a little too much wet socks.

Since I intended to drink this white, I ran it on 4 plates (single run) and took off a bit slower than normal and yielded two quarts of very sweet and flavorful 90% hearts. I was shocked at how much flavor from the original recipe came through. Using the feints and grains really did a lot for it.

It is easily the best sugar product I’ve ever made. I diluted it down to 40% and it’s essentially ready to drink now. All I paid for was 16lbs of sugar and a little electricity. Cheap and very tasty! Also a good way for me to keep my paws off the oak aging all grain batch!

[TwoSheds]

Nice work BB44. Sounds like a great way to get some extra mileage out of nearly everything involved!

I’m still getting a handle on my process but HBB, and maybe your follow-up, are coming up on the list once I have the hang of things.

Thanks for sharing!

[Deplorable]

TwoSheds,
I haven't done any HBB, but I can attest to the quality of a piggyback ferment on spent grains. I recently finished a 25 gallon piggyback ferment on a AG bourbon mash, and after tight cuts got just over two liters of very delicious spirit to sip while my bourbon ages on oak sticks. At 45% right from the jar its smooth, sweet and has great flavor. For just the cost of 35 pounds of sugar, water and yeast, it's a great way to stretch the grains and get some great shine for keeping you out of the cupboards. It's a "must do" if your trying to build up a stash of aging spirits.

[TwoSheds]

...after tight cuts got just over two liters of very delicious spirit to sip while my bourbon ages on oak sticks...

Is it me, or does that seem like a small yield for 35 pounds of sugar? Again, I'm new to this... Lots of feints? Or is the 2 liters just the prime stuff and there's other drinkable product that just isn't quite as good?

[Timothy_W]

...after tight cuts got just over two liters of very delicious spirit to sip while my bourbon ages on oak sticks...

Is it me, or does that seem like a small yield for 35 pounds of sugar? Again, I'm new to this... Lots of feints? Or is the 2 liters just the prime stuff and there's other drinkable product that just isn't quite as good?

Good question. If the result is only 2 liters of the drink, then the losses are very large and do not justify the production costs.

[Deplorable]

Usual yeild off a 25 gallon AG mash is about 1.7 gallons for aging.
I cut tight on the sugarhead. 2 liters at 75% tempered to 45 makes about 3.3 liters. The rest went into the feints keg for a reflux run.

[Twisted Brick]

2 liters at 75% tempered to 45 makes about 3.3 liters.

Let's see... 3.3 liters of 45% translates to .5L for sipping while manning the smoker and four fifths for the cupboard. Works for me.

[Deplorable]

2 liters at 75% tempered to 45 makes about 3.3 liters.

Let's see... 3.3 liters of 45% translates to .5L for sipping while manning the smoker and four fifths for the cupboard. Works for me.

Keep only the best, and don't be the slightest bit greedy, and you'll love the sugarhead off your wheat grains. I've drank nearly two quarts neat since I made this, and it's actually kept me out of all my other booze.

[jonnys_spirit]

2 liters at 75% tempered to 45 makes about 3.3 liters.

Let's see... 3.3 liters of 45% translates to .5L for sipping while manning the smoker and four fifths for the cupboard. Works for me.

I'm doing the math in my head - How long does 0,5l @ 90pf last and is it like a 12hr brisket?

ANSWER: "Honeybear" must be the answer...

[Twisted Brick]

Let's see... 3.3 liters of 45% translates to .5L for sipping while manning the smoker and four fifths for the cupboard. Works for me.

I'm doing the math in my head - How long does 0,5l @ 90pf last and is it like a 12hr brisket?

Lasts longer than it takes to smoke a couple of pork shoulders and a brisket. A little (okay, alot) less if a buddy or two drop in.

[Rudy602]

Hey all, I just though I'd give my quick feedback for this HBB recipe. It's my favorite whisky so far (though only have 8 batches of AG whisky under my belt). In my hands, it was the most delicious and high yielding (less cuts) than my other single malt whisky I tried so far. I aged for 6 months and what a result that is! Big thanks, will repeat this one for sure. I'm not a huge bourbon fan usually but the wheat malt and honey malt contribute so much to the mix. Great stuff honestly.

[NormandieStill]

Aaaaaaand... take 2

After my somewhat traumatic previous attempt at HBB I've been practising AG with enzymes and with beer. Finally managed to clear my schedule and attack an HBB mash again. This time with added wort chiller to get the jump on the wild beasties. First batch I failed to reread my notes properly and had too much water so ended up with an SG of 1.043. Not measured the FG yet as I just finished squeezing the grains after about 7 days and I'd like to let it clear before I stick a hydrometer in it. Will hopefully get batch 2 mashed tomorrow and have this first batch stripped over the weekend. The wash tastes very interesting. I can't wait to actually run this but I think it'll be at least a month before I have the time.

[iwine]

I'm losing my virginity. this is my first all grain Brew. Is it best ferment this one on the Grain ?
Im at 1.045 @ 98F, I'm guessing I have about 17 L of water including grains in my bucket. From what I understand this is a little low. I am going to be using Prestige WD yeast According to the package it does have enzymes in it (amyloglucosidase Enzyme)
As the saying goes measure twice cut once. am I good Good to pitch my yeast?
I have put one drop of iodine teaspoon of wash and it came out clear

I'm just double-checking thanks in advance
iwine

[NormandieStill]

If it's passed an iodine test then pitch! Without knowing how much grain you mashed it's hard to know whether you were efficient and thin (as per my last attempt) or thick and inefficient. In any case, at this point you probably can't easily correct the SG without boiling it down (and killing the enzymes) or adding spraymalt or sugar (and killing the flavours). So pitch your yeast, ferment it out and adjust as necessary on the next batch.

[iwine]

7lbs flaked corn
.5lb Honey malt
1 lb white wheat malt
1 lb red wheat malt
1lb pale malt
in a 5 Imp gallon bucket

that's kind of what I thought. because it's my first one I just wanted to double-check.

[NormandieStill]

That's very roughly what I've run (based on a vague 1lb ~= 500g) and I reckon it needs about 18L of water added to the grains to get you to 1.068 with reasonable efficiency. I would guess that you've got about 14L of water in there if your total volume is 17L which would suggest a problem with efficiency rather than dilution. Temperature corrected your reading is 1.049.

How well did the temperature hold during mashing? And during the original corn gelling phase? It could be that you got good starch conversion, but didn't get enough of the starch out of the corn at the start. You really want to get the water as hot as possible before adding the corn and then you want to insulate the hell out of it (if you're somewhere unheated) to keep it hot as long as possible.

[iwine]

After doing a little more research And listening to your advice.
I had bought enough to do two batches and when I check the grain size I think the grains were not cracked enough (Two large) All the grain seem to be in half or thirds. I'm going to run the second set of grains through a mill again to make them quite a bit smaller . I'm thinking about twice the size of cornmeal.
I had put the flaked corn in right after boiling and the rest of the grains I put in at about 156 degrees. within two hours I was down to 135 I'm thinking I might have to insulate my bucket a little more.. so all in all I'm suspecting that it's a couple of small errors they kept my sg down.
I just checked my sg It's almost done I'm at 1.005 I'll run it Monday and see what happens
Chime in if you think there's anything that I've missed.
thanks for the advice

PS I have a heating pad all throw it underneath on the next batch to keep the temperature up for longer

[ShineonCrazyDiamond]

You sound like you recognized a couple small adjustments to make, and I like your approach. You're on the right train. Almost there

[iwine]

Damn all I can say is damn this is a fine drop. My virginity is broken. I now see why this recipe made it to tried-and-true. I see a lot more all grain in my future . Although my yield was low I was very impressed and I don't impress easily. I will stick to small batches for the next few before I move to larger batches to perfect my mashing process. thanks for the help And tips

[Corn Cracker]

I couldn't take it any longer, i picked up grain for a 15g run last Saturday and got it mashed and ferminting on Sunday. Monday, i made a 10g sugar head with the rest of the spent gains that didn't go in the 5g ferminters. I now have 25 gallons of mash, wrapped in up in sleeping bags in the guest bathtub, Everything is ferminting good though, I'm excited about this one!

[ddizzle22]

I need to my ass in gear and free up a day to do a spirit run. I have roughly 10gallons of low wines to spirit run but need to find sometime. This recipe is by far the best and I haven't even aged in a barrel yet.

[Expat]

I need to my ass in gear and free up a day to do a spirit run. I have roughly 10gallons of low wines to spirit run but need to find sometime. This recipe is by far the best and I haven't even aged in a barrel yet.

Ah, was wondering where you had landed. Sooner you get it in on the oak, the sooner you're drinking it

[fzbwfk9r]

Well, I thought I had to try this
So put in my order for supplies, using flaked corn
made one mistake. 16oz honey malt vs 8oz. And I got about 16 Liters of wort. cooling as I type.

6lb ground corn (OiO)
1lb honey malt (Gambrinus)
1lb white wheat malt (Briess)
1lb red wheat malt (Briess)
1lb 2row pale ale barley malt (CMC)
1lb quick cooking oats

22 Liters of water heated to 147F
mashed in (using BIAB) gave it a good stir
checked temp: 144F bumped it up to 147F and wrapped it up
90 Min Saccharification. temp dropped to 142F
checked SG 1.078 murky, but VERY sweet!

Set it outside to cool -23C right now....

once cool, gonna toss in my yeast starter, and put on my DIY blowoff tube/airlock

so far so good

ETA: cooled it down, tossed in yeast, set it on my heat pad, wrapped it up and in 18 hours, she's bubbling nicely
I unwrapped it and turned off the heat. Gonna let this perk at 60F.

[tombombadil]

I'm half way done stripping about 70g of a very similar recipe.

Corn, oats, white wheat malt, honey malt, and be-256 yeast.
Since I'm missing the red wheat malt and the pale malt I'm calling it "Oats & Honey Bourbon" in my notes.

I did it in two mashes, about 35 gallons each.
75#'s of grain and 35g water each.

One mash has been cooked, mashed, fermented and stripped.
I did a spirit run on about 8 gallons of low wines, pretty tasty stuff right off the spout.
Low wines were about 25% and likker is about 60%. Worked out about perfectly for a barrel fill.
The other one is waiting on me to strip it, should be able to get to it soon.

I'm hoping to get enough likker to fill a 5g barrel and top it off once or twice over 12-18 months.
Then I'll use most of the feints for a reflux run and hopefully get some likker for apple pie, blueberry panty dropper etc...
If I come up short I'll go ahead with a 3rd mash

Thanks for sharing this recipe!

[Tirefryer426]

About a year back I posted about an off flavor I was getting running this recipe. Wanted to post an update on what I tried and where I landed.
The conclusion we came to was that I was potentially scorching since I'm using an electric still. I wasn't running on grain, but I did still have some sediment after straining. So I started cold crashing and racking to make sure I was running as clear as I could. The run I did with zero sediment tasted the same after my stripping run as the way I would have normally done it. So I feel like I can rule scorching out.
So I started doing 3 mashes side by side where I'd change 1 thing each time.
First round I tried 3 different yeasts. Flavor still there.
Second round I did 3 different types of water. De Ionized, tap, and distilled. I normally use tap water, but I have a water softener. So I wanted to rule that out. Flavor was still there, but a hair less noticeable on the de ionized water.
Then I started making adjustments to how I was running the still on my stripping runs.
Bring up to temp slowly with the cap off. Put the pedal down after fores come off. Run it as hard as it'll go. In the middle. Really nothing made a difference there either.
The still could be the culprit - but I've run other stuff on it and thats all been fine. I built it, but it was appropriately cleaned, had its vinegar run, sacrificial run, and plenty of other runs through it at this point.

Only thing I can possibly come up with that I haven't tried is varying my fermentation temperature. I've been running fleischmans and DADY at 83 degrees F with a pitch temp of just shy of 90 generally. My fermentations don't seem to be a problem, everything runs as expected. I don't think I'm stressing the yeast - but maybe I am? I just sprinkle dry yeast in after I aerate and toss a handful of crushed shells in.

Either that, or its just the grain bill and my lack of experience. I aged 2.5 gallons in new charred oak barrel for about 7.5 months. That flavor I was getting faded out pretty well. Only thing I'm really curious about is that if I try and proof it down, it starts to taste real watery at a pretty high proof. I can't go under 100 proof with it. It really likes to be closer to 115. When I did my cuts, I really took the middle of my spirit runs where I liked the flavor. I went in the barrel at 125 proof without tempering down, and I didn't add any additional tails or anything into the cut.

What proof are you folks tempering down to? I'll say that I do like what came out, but I'm not madly in love with it. If this is too far in the weeds I can post this over in the appropriate subs, I just thought i'd keep it here since its recipe specific.

[Sporacle]

For mine, running as hard as it will go might be the issue, I have a 2 inch pot that will strip at 8l an hour, I start my spirit run with drips, then about a litre an hour, then when I'm past the point on my calcs I try to collect at about 2 litres an hour max

[n_plains_drifter]

For mine, running as hard as it will go might be the issue, I have a 2 inch pot that will strip at 8l an hour, I start my spirit run with drips, then about a litre an hour, then when I'm past the point on my calcs I try to collect at about 2 litres an hour max

Sporacle - define 'past the point on your calcs'??? You talking after you think you've moved into hearts from heads?

TIA, Drifter

[Sporacle]

Basically, it's a mark where I figure the transition point will be very roughly. From previous runs I have an idea of rough volumes for heads, hearts and tails. Simply its a point that should be well into hearts based on volume and I taste back from that point toward my heads to find my cut point.

[n_plains_drifter]

Perfect thanks. I figured all of those transition points out with 'The Neverending UJSSM Project' (TM). I could pretty much tell where my heads transitioned into hearts by head temps.

I too am running a 2" pot on propane. I'm not sure what my max throughput is, but I'm on liebig so I not have the knockdown power you have. Are you running a shotgun?

And in the interests of not taking this too far OT, I picked up my grains yesterday, and now need to get a HBB mash underway.

[Sporacle]

Perfect thanks. I figured all of those transition points out with 'The Neverending UJSSM Project' (TM). I could pretty much tell where my heads transitioned into hearts by head temps.

I too am running a 2" pot on propane. I'm not sure what my max throughput is, but I'm on liebig so I not have the knockdown power you have. Are you running a shotgun?

And in the interests of not taking this too far OT, I picked up my grains yesterday, and now need to get a HBB mash underway.

Drifter I've got a 900mm inch over half liebig and it's run on a pond pump from a 1000l ICB so my flow is a bit low, 8L an hour at 4000w is right on its limit, well my limit of comfort anyway. I do have a 500mm 2 inch shotgun with 4 1/2 inch tube but have not got around to giving it a final clean, it may make my stripping runs a bit more comfortable though