Sake inspired blueberry corn brandy!

[JDTheBeeker]

I had been posting this on Facebook. I decided to consolidate and put it all here for the community.

I have three 5 gallon buckets of blueberry wine with a crazy twist.

9lb cracked corn
1lb oatmeal
18lb frozen blueberries
3tsp citric acid
9gal boiling water
13.5lb sugar

All ingredients split between three 5 gallon fermenters.

Yeast is a mix of Red yeast rice and Chines dry yeast balls and some fleischmanns yeast for higher ABV production.

Yeast will start work right away as the molds convert starches to additional sugars. Instead of converting the corn with malt or amylase enzymes. I have always found if given enough time sake practices have a higher conversion rate of turning corn or rice into sugar.

If fermented dry should be 14.5% ABV.

Poured 3 gallons of boiling water over cracked corn and sugar with the citric acid and left over night. Added whole frozen blueberries the next morning.

I blended the yeast balls and red yeast rice in a blender and used 3 TBS in the mash of each bucket. I also started some more traditional koji with just 1/2 cup of boiled rice and one TBS of the red yeast rice and yeast ball mix so I could physically see if the mixture would properly convert the starch to sugar since I had never used these two yeast/molds specifically. I normally use aspergillus oryzae spores and cultivate koji for my sake brews.

After 24 hours I could not tell if there was a lot of activity so I pitched the fleischmanns yeast. At 48 hours the koji was properly turning to sugar so I divided it into 3 portions and pitched it into the wash as well.

Pictured is the mash at day 11. I spooned out all the blueberries and blended them together to make a pulp and placed back in the buckets.

On day 13 I noticed a pellicle forming so I moved them to the cold shed to slow down the bacteria. Today is day 14 and will probably be ran on the beginning of day 19.

I ended up getting the flu so this sat in my cold shed for another 12 days longer than intended.

Update after stripping 6 gallons fast then combining with the last 3.5 gallons to kinda do a 1.75 times pot distillation.

Ok! It is done! I siphoned the clear wine into the Vevor football column still packed with three rolls of copper mesh. Took about 6 gallons and then ”left it alone and somehow 1 gallon of fast run low wines appeared”. That gallon was mixed back in with about 3.5 gallons of additional clear wine. A bird told me that there was a slower process that collected 14 different fractions and combined a small bit of “50ml” of fraction 3 and kept 8-11 and a few fractions about 100-150ml of fraction 12 and 13.

The rest of the heads and tails combined in with the running low wines and ran to just over 1/2 gallon resulted in 40% ABV low wines!!! Someone should have ran that longer.

The hearts cut was at about 54% ABV. It was cut down to 40% ABV with distilled water. I split the hearts cut between the two pictured bottles and about 8oz additional in a jar. The colored jar was flavored with 80ml of blueberry syrup.

The wine bottles are being left to age.

The taster jar! Oh man. The flavor! So far I’ve mixed it with ginger ale to get a flavor profile. There is that blueberry rush at the front with that tannic blueberry skin bite for sure. It then immediately fades into this savory creamy corn like flavor that is just buttery and smooth. There is an earthy quality like Sake. But the blueberry and corn just work with it. I am genuinely blown away.

[JDTheBeeker]

Added more pictures:

[JDTheBeeker]

Ok new update. After the distillation above I had about 6 gallons of slop. Chunky corn and blueberry pulp. Looking at it in the bucket and it was still bubbling slowly. I think the molds are still breaking down the corn into sugar. With the red yeast rice mold everything was a crazy deep purple and red. I used the 3 gallons or so of backset from the spirit run to use as sparg water. I used a brew-in-a-bag bag inside a stainless straining bucket and got all the liquid out that I could. I now had 6 gallons of milky pink/purple liquid.

The lees and trub had about 2.5-3 gallons of volume. I split it between two 5 gallon buckets. Added one part cracked corn, two parts blueberries and 3 parts sugar. Topped them off with water and will let the mash reactivate for a sour mash run of this stuff.

24 hours later I siphoned off the clear liquid and left the milky yeast filled liquid. Probably had 4 more gallons total. I also had a little over a half gallon of feints that was at 40% ABV from the spirit run. So that was added to the pot. Ran everything just like a spirit run. No stripping. I want full flavor.

Right before first drops I slowed to the slowest burner speed and just dripped the forshots cut for 3oz. Then switched to 4 oz jars for collecting heads. Jars 1-3 had that acetone, nail polish character with a lot of stinging bite. Jar 4 had an interesting berry/floral component with little to no nail polish flavor so I set it aside.

Jar 5 was headsy and had some kinda funk/dirty wheat kinda thing going. Jar 6 for about 2 oz the flavor disappears and it cleans up. But I remember Jessy from still-it calling that a trap. The next 4oz had a bitter, astringent grossness with some dirty funk. I collected another 4 oz after that cleaned up and then I finally switched to hearts cut on jar 9. Took about 6 oz and it was at 63% ABV. The next 6 oz at 61%. I took about 12oz on jar 11 and that was 56%. 6oz of jar 12 was at 52%. Then 6 oz of jar 13 was 48%. Jar 14 started a collection but only 50-75ml in and it started tasting bitter and gym sock like.

So my cut was 25% jar 4, jars 9-12 and 75% of jar 13. Resulting hearts cuts was at 57.5% ABV at just over 1/4 gallon. I messed up my measuring and math and over proofed with distilled water to 35% ABV. So I had two 750ml bottles and another 6-7 oz over that.

This cut is soooooo good. Same flavor profile as the last cut if not even cleaner. It’s so smooth. Just a soft, delicate floral, berry explosion of flavor. It’s like a blueberry cheesecake parfait. Kinda has that fermented cream cheese kinda taste but heavy on whipped cream and berries. Omg it’s so good.

Finally ran out the feints to just under a gallon from the pot. Mixed all my non keeper heads and tails in the feints. We now have a strong backbone for bolstering the next run. I may just strip the sour mash run. Then do another whole 15 gallon batch. Maybe smaller and re-do the run again. I know I’m going to need a stock of this stuff.

[JDTheBeeker]

Ok had to re-distill this one last time.

Lesson learned. If I’m only running 3-4 gallons, I need to do at least two stripping runs at that volume with 7-12% ABV wash. Then do a spirit run. After all the tasting and such of the two spirit runs I did, I just combined everything including 2 gallons of feints, 1/2 gallon of saved backset from the two prior runs, 1/2 gallon of some 12% ABV blueberry passion fruit mead that had this awful corn nut flavor that would not age out and 3 small 12oz bottles of commercial Sake. I also blended this wash with 6lb of blueberries. Filtered it off the blueberry pulp after 24 hours. And threw a handful of blueberries in the column since it has a nice internal screen to keep them there like a gin basket.

Ran a new spirit run with my cuts as such:

Jar 1: 80.8% ABV 8oz
Jars 2-9: Head fractions. 31oz
Jar 10: 80.7% ABV 8oz The beginning of hearts. Maybe 1oz of this is slightly headsy
Jar 11: 80.0% ABV 8oz
Jar 12: 79.1% ABV 8oz
Jar 13: 78.6% ABV 8oz
Jar 14: 78.1% ABV 11oz
Jar 15: 75.2% ABV 10oz
Jar 16: ??.?% ABV 4oz
Had to switch. Jar 17 is fruit salad with whipped cream! Lots of berry.
Jar 17: 73.7% ABV 15oz
Jar 18: 71.5% ABV 15oz sweet corn fresh off the cob
Jar 19: 69.3% ABV 15oz
Jar 20: 62.5% ABV 10oz has corn nut flavor
Jar 21: 56.9% ABV 16 oz honey notes? Still some corn nut

All ABV taken with a 3 part glass set and temperature corrected. The final blend was at 73% ABV

The volumes listed are not exact. The 8 oz jars are filled closer to 6oz. But you get how tight the cuts are and approximately the ratios from jar to jar.

I went for a very clean cut. Used 2/3rd of jar 10. Just 4oz from it. Used jars 11-19. Did not want that grungy corn nut, just starting to be like gym socks flavor from the mead. So cut out jars 20 & 21.

Ran the still down to 4% ABV off the spout. Had a little over a gallon collected that reads 24% ABV feints. I have not combined heads and tails into that.

One bottle proofed to 50% ABV
One bottle added 225ml of blueberry syrup. Placed 50% ABV over that which should bring it down to about 35% ABV
The rest of the bottles and jar are at 40% ABV

Tasting notes to follow.