This is a second post that is similar to a prior post but has new material/notions regarding my current process. My process is certainly not innovative but it might help others as they start to stumble through the newbie path.
The admonishment for new Home distiller forum members is “read until your eyes bleed” or some such. That is all well and good but begs the question of understanding the basics and relating those basics to the readers life experience. This post is an attempt to provide a notion of a process and associated techniques used by one individual to help the reader flesh out his/her knowledge.
It is NOT a complete guide or "how to" set of directions. Over the past year I have come up with some accommodations or adaptions to my process. You may find them useful for your activity and I thought I would share them in case others might be interested.
Equipment
A word or two about equipment – after all what is a hobby if not a way to spend money for equipment.
Like all food preparation activities, access to clean water and a large sink is essential. In my setup I have a double sink laundry tub with a high centered faucet assembly. Toss out your old laundry faucet and get the high neck equivalent with an extensible spout. Makes carboy filling and cleanup much easier. For those who are interested look at a Moen Arbor Chrome Pulldown Laundry Faucet, 4736 on Amazon.
Get a short hose to go with the faucet – think about the short hoses that are delivered with a new washing machine. Just the right size for washing stuff.
- High neck faucet and hose for cleaning
Distilling mashes are different – both in terms of grain, methods and elapsed time for conversion.
• Many grains, such as corn, rye, and rice are very hard and durable. They will quickly ruin a roller mill. Unlike the grain crushing process for beer, distilling mash grain preparation wants the grain to be as fine as you can reasonably make it.
• You want the crushed grain result to be almost flour like in consistency. The finer the texture the more inter-granular space available for liquification and starch conversion activity. Efficiency of starch conversion goes up as the consistency becomes finer. The typical steeping process for a beer is an hour or so. The typical starch conversion process for a distilling mash (equivalent to steeping) is 8 to 20 hours.
• Most distillers do their fermentation ‘on-grain’. Depending on the process used and equipment available, the fermentation process of the mash ‘goop’ (a non-technical term I use) takes longer and typically continues until the SG of the ‘goop’ reaches 1.000 or possibly lower.)
A picture of a small scale grain crusher is shown. They are available on eBay and other venues for between $150 and $300. Typically, you will have to add an on/off switch and determine a mounting plate for its use. Grind consistency can be easily adjusted. I can crush 25 pounds of grain in about ten minutes. The same grinder can be easily used for beer production by changing the grind consistency.
- Grain grinder -- use outside because of dust
Some grains, especially the un-malted grains, will need help during the mashing process. That process is augmented by the use of malted grains and the computation of Diastatic Power during recipe design. An alternative is the use of enzymes during the mashing process. The enzymes protocol helps the conversion process for grains such as corn, rye and rice. After some initial resistance I started use of enzymes and have not had a failure since. I use three enzymes…
- SEBstar HTL Data Sheet Customer – higher temp enzyme
- SEBAmyl GL Data Sheet Customer – mid range temp enzyme
- ViscoSEB L Data Sheet – adjunt enzyme for ‘difficult’ grains like rye
What I failed to recognize is that the amount of mash needed was no longer 5 or 6 gallons for a recipe. For a respectful distillation run you needed 20 to 30 gallons of mash which gets distilled into 8 to 14 gallons of low wines and that in turn gets distilled into 2 to 4 gallons of spirits ready for ageing. Note that those numbers are gross approximations, and should not be considered as accurate – just approximations.
The elapsed time from start of a recipe to having low wines ready for the still takes a month to six weeks – longer and slower fermentations, squeezing process and then settling time. Waiting for time to pass is essential and cannot be avoided. Haste makes bad stuff. And you need the space for this stuff to happen over time.
As age sets in, lifting 7 gallon fermentation pails and associated mash recipes was at my limit and lifting 20 gallon mash filled containers in the 160# range was not in my ageing wheelhouse. Like a lot of members, my strength is not what it was when I was younger and stronger. Plan for the future with your process. Pumps are essential – more on that latter.
I did initially recognize that my prior equipment for beer/wine fermentation was inadequate – too small for a practical 20 gallon mash. Additionally the narrow neck carboys used for beer and wine production were difficult to use – impossible to pour from and too small for easy cleaning. Those devices were replaced with 7.5 gallon FerMonster carboys with wide mouths – easy to clean and easy for fluid transfer. Since they are essentially transparent, you can observe the trub settling over time. I use some blue painters’ tape to mark the daily progress. But they require more storage space.
Larger fermentation pails are essential. Using typical 7 gallon beer/wine fermentation buckets works but for 20 gallon mash that is three buckets and associated work space and lifting and fiddling. HDPE buckets are available – I have settled on 20 gallon buckets. They are available on the used market for $25 to $35 each. Look on Facebook or the equivalent in your area and get the type with the removable lids. The ones that I got were used for drug/spice shipments (metformin and turmeric). They are clean but may present some odors initially. Rinse, sanitize them (Star San) and let them air out.
Assuming 20 gallon capacity is used the weight of the contents will be 160+ pounds -- these larger fermentation pails can not be moved or lifted. Harbor Freight has moving dollies -- $13 each. Small modifications to the dollies provided a sturdy carriage and some rails so the HDPE containers would not slide around. In turn they can be easily moved to a storage location or out of the way and not occupy valuable space in the preparation /distilling area. Instead of several 7 gallon buckets in the work area getting in the way I now have none since they have been moved.
- Example of HDPE fermenters on dollies
Order a bag to fit your fermenter size – in my case 20 gallon and fairly tall. Cost will be about $50 to $60. Put your bag into the fermenter and then you dump your mash pot ‘goop’ into the bag inside the fermenter.
Use of a mesh bag is key so that you do not have to squeeze the fermented result when fermentation is complete. See discussion below.
- Brew bag used in fermenter on hook
After much research, and some initial batch failures, it became clear that for larger fermenters I needed much larger amounts of yeast. Additionally, if the OG of the mash was higher, the selection (brand/type) of yeast needed to be adjusted. BeerSmith has a yeast calculator tool. If you input your mash recipe into the recipe calculator the yeast tool will provide guidance on the number of grams of yeast. DO NOT be stingy. Based on prior mead making experience, I consistently use GoFerm at the time of pitching for everything – beer, mead and grain mash – my view is that it gives the yeast a kick in the pants to start off, especially with higher OG concentrations. And I give my yeast friends a crushed-up vitamin B tablet.
Similar to wine fermentation the distilled mash does not need to ferment in a closed vessel – a loose fitting lid will work, especially if the lag time after pitching is low. Fold over the top of the bag and put the fermenter top on and relax for a week or two as fermentation proceeds.
After OG has reached your goal, probably around 1.000 or so, it is time to extract the liquid and let it settle. I have a system with a locking pulley (see Amazon – about $12) that I can hook to the BrewBag and lift it up above the fermenter. My first attempt was difficult so I added a second pulley and now it is fairly easy to lift. The bag drains, albeit slowly. Give it about 30 minutes.
Now for the squeezing part. Note in the picture below that I have wrapped a wide belt around the BrewBag and have used a handle/pipe to start twisting the belt. As it tightens the belt and does a great job of squeezing the grain. In the picture I have added three ‘belts’ and each is squeezing. After about 10 minutes, you are done. No fuss, no muss, easy-peasy.
- Bag with grains being squeezed
Moving the beer to carboy for settling involves the use of pump.
In my prior post I discussed using a self-priming pump available from MoreBeer for $80. That failed and subsequent use of a more expensive pump also failed because the filter kept getting clogged with debris. My attempts to use self-priming pumps were not successful. Kudos to MoreBeer for taking them back and refunding my money after they learned about the difficulty.
My next approach was to use an aquarium pump – it needs to be submerged (not self-priming). Back to Amazon (Aquarium Submersible Fountain Pump: 30W 550GPH Adjustable Quiet Water Pumps with 7.2ft High Lift for Small Pond | Waterfall) for about $20. The important criteria was the ability to have adequate lift, tolerate an occasional piece of grain and to move the liquid to the settling carboys and finally the distilling pot.
Another important criteria for me was the ability of the pump and hose to fit inside the FerMonster carboy mouth opening (4.4” diameter) and pump the liquid into the distilling pot. I use the pump to transfer the liquid from the fermenter to the FerMonster carboys for settling. See pictures.
- Aquarium pump fits inside FerMonster for pumping
I hope that this post provides some help as you start your distilling activity.
