Chocolate Honey Wheat Whiskey

[VAbourbontester]

Posting this here for development tracking and feedback.

Goal is a wheat whiskey with sweet honey and chocolate notes. Recipe is:
Corn: 29%
Wheat: 51%
Barely: 20%
-10% 6 row
-5% Honey Malt
-5% Chocolate Malt

Overall goal of 2.3lbs/gal in 10gal filtered water.

I think next iteration will be lower on the specialty malts because they are very strong and just by smelling the wash now I am guessing they are going to be overpowering the other grains.

I am also using high temp enzymes for additional conversion insurance.

Starting gravity was 1.07 but it wasn’t measured at the calibration temperature and was closer to 1.078 adjusted for temperature. I expect this gravity to change downward in future attempts because the grain to water ratio was higher than listed due to overfilling the pot with water during initial heat up. Hopefully I can get this dialed in, in the next 5-6 attempts. We will see.

[Nanacooks]

Can’t wait to hear how this develops!

[Wildcats]

Sounds great. Let us know how it goes. Should make a nice drop. Have fun and stay safe.

[harold01]

When you run it, sent me a bottle and we can do a taste comparison.
On a fairer note hope this turns out to be something special.

[VAbourbontester]

Follow up. Ran this 10 gallon mash and it went well. Hearts have an earthy sweetness to them (like dark chocolate) which I am happy about but I think there may be improvement to be had from the fermentation temperature side of things. I recently did a distillery tour and tasted their low wines which tasted very similar to mine which was encouraging but one thing I learned was my mash temps may be on the low side. They had their control panel between 85-90f over all of their fermenters. I have read conflicting information here on the optimum fermentation range vs pitching temp but this was enough to make me want to upgrade with a heater for consistency sake. I usually let my ferments go longer in the garage with an old sleeping bag which obviously will lead to temperature swings. Heater is inbound as we speak.

Next batch is going to be an experiment between Fermpro 900 and 927 while backing off of the Barley to 15% and upping the corn to 34%. There wasn’t a lot of honey noted and my guess is the bold flavors of the chocolate are drowning them out so I will adjust the chocolate malt back slightly. Got this aging now and hope to build up a collection soon to assist in blending in the future.

[NormandieStill]

Optimum fermentation temps will be a function of the yeast you're using, the congeners that you're hunting, and the turn-over speed you need. As a hobbyist you can ignore (to some degree) the third one which will let you focus on getting the flavours you want out of your yeast.

For example, ale yeasts tend to run cooler than, say, baker's yeast and will throw off more (or fewer congeners) depending on the temp. Unless you are prepared to commit to a lot of experiments (and beer tasting) you might want to choose a yeast who's flavour profile you like and set your temp to whatever it wants. Controlling temperature during fermentation is generally a good way of getting more consistent results.

[JustinNZ]

I use one of those skinny rubber heat belts with a probe and thermostat to keep my 45L (12 gallon) brews at 26.5C (80F) under a heavy wool blanket and it works a treat. Can be bought cheaply from the usual suspects. This week I realised I could tuck an aging rum under the blanket too, for a bit of body heat.

[Bradster68]

I use mostly bakers for my bourbons and whiskeys. I use a heat mat for seedling trays which I wrap on side of barrel. If really cold also a blanket. A controller keeps it very close to 80.

[TwoSheds]

I use mostly bakers for my bourbons and whiskeys. I use a heat mat for seedling trays which I wrap on side of barrel. If really cold also a blanket. A controller keeps it very close to 80.

Same here. I have a 20x20" heat mat for my 14 gal fermenter and a 20x40 for my 50. With a blanket and inkbird or similar controller either can hold 80-90 degrees without much trouble.

[Bradster68]

I use mostly bakers for my bourbons and whiskeys. I use a heat mat for seedling trays which I wrap on side of barrel. If really cold also a blanket. A controller keeps it very close to 80.

Same here. I have a 20x20" heat mat for my 14 gal fermenter and a 20x40 for my 50. With a blanket and inkbird or similar controller either can hold 80-90 degrees without much trouble.

I couldn't remember the name and I'm relaxing with morning coffee. Barns a long ways away. But it's definitely inkbird. I got em for my water lines from my well in winter. Living on solid rock here so can't Burry anything. They work excellent

[VAbourbontester]

Optimum fermentation temps will be a function of the yeast you're using, the congeners that you're hunting, and the turn-over speed you need. As a hobbyist you can ignore (to some degree) the third one which will let you focus on getting the flavours you want out of your yeast.

For example, ale yeasts tend to run cooler than, say, baker's yeast and will throw off more (or fewer congeners) depending on the temp. Unless you are prepared to commit to a lot of experiments (and beer tasting) you might want to choose a yeast who's flavour profile you like and set your temp to whatever it wants. Controlling temperature during fermentation is generally a good way of getting more consistent results.

Congener formation is something I need to experiment more with. I am still very new but the experimentation aspect of this is very fun. My palate isn’t that developed yet but the first round has a much more cocoa like flavor than the 15% version. Not sure if that is a good or bad thing but will keep an eye on how those flavors change as the whiskey ages.

I just watched a YouTube view with Balcones distillers speaking about co-pitching yeast and how the competition between the yeast strains can create some interesting flavors. Again I think this will require more experimenting with yeast strains to have a backbone yeast I like and one that is additive around the edges and hope they play nice together and with that wash.

I am scaling up my production washes currently and after the next batch I will update this recipe in detail for a Badmo barrel I ordered.