Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

[Ajax99]

I have some grain on order and plan on giving this a try next week using the suggested 15.5-gallon ½ barrel BAP cooking pot. My question for any of you that have run this using a ½ barrel cooker - is it big enough to hold 12 gallons of water + the full 30 lbs of grain for the mashing then transferring the entire contents over to a fermentation barrel? Or, is it only big enough to gelatinize the corn (22 lbs corn + 12 gallons water) then transfer to a fermentation barrel for the final malted grain additions? Thank you!

[Twisted Brick]

Great question, Ajax. The max my 1/2bbl keg will hold is 26.5lbs of grain (corn milled to med. meal) and 12.5gal of liquid. I start with 10gal of 205F strike water, add .5gal backset and 1.5gal of refrigerated water to help drop my converted corn to malt temp and finally, pitch 1/2gal of yeast starter. I have to do this because I ferment in the same vessel and from experience, the ensuing grain cap will lift the lid off my keg.

If you will be transferring your mash to a separate fermenter you should be fine. Look for the grain cap to rise a few inches then eventually recede. Couple of items of advice: if you are able, mill your cracked corn to a medium meal and if using backset, you can use less than the 2gal Jimbo recommends. Lastly, many here stick to 2.0-2.25lbs of grain per gallon and achieve the targeted 7-9% final gravity.

Good luck.

[Ajax99]

Twisted,
Thank you for the guidance. I processed my corn this weekend and was able to achieve a fairy fine grind with my Victoria grinder so I may reduce the corn poundage somewhat. However, based on your overall capacity confirmation, I will still exceed the volume of the BAP and will need to transfer to my fermenter after cooking the corn which will work fine as I need to crash the temperature at that point anyway. Interesting though that Jimbo’s original narrative implied that the ½ barrel could accommodate the full grain bill + strike water. Thanks again.

[Twisted Brick]

Excellent, you're on your way!

Force chilling a converted mash, IMO is always a good idea as leaving the mash to cool to pitch temp overnight in the dreaded 'bacteria zone' can be hazardous. Remember that enzymes continue to work throughout the ferment on the larger bits of corn that are harder to reach.

[Homebrewer11777]

Dextrose is corn sugar and interesting idea. It is seen as better for beer brewing by many homebrewers, especially as amount in recipe increases, us said to produce a softer beer without the cidery off flavors you might see with cane sugar. In my homebrewing when using sugar as adjunct at about 5% of the grain bill I don't bother getting corn sugar, can is fine. For larger quantities of sugar like you might see in a belgian triple I'd probably still use cane sugar but go ahead and invert it for fermentability.

A google search of this site finds lots of threads discussing and debating corn sugar vs sucrose (cane or other) and as usual in the couple threads I read did not see immediate consensus when applied to distilled spirits.

One thing to consider when using dextrose instead of sucrose is that sucrose contributes about 10% more gravity points and alcohol potential by weight as compared to dextrose.

[Ajax99]

The following is my log sheet for a recent spirit run of Jimbo’s Easy ½ Barrel Wheated bourbon that I thought I would post as a reference for anyone else trying this recipe. Your results may vary from mine but I followed the recipe very closely and used cracked corn. I had about a ½ quart of white spirit left over after filling my jars and took it over to a neighborhood backyard party and the comments were very complimentary. Very smooth with no burn and no heavy tails taste. The jar was passed around and only lasted about 30 minutes. A few notes:

1. Fermented low and slow at about 70 to 72 degrees F for 6 days.
2. Yeast used was SafSpirit USW-6.
3. Fermented on the grain and did not clear the wash prior to distilling.
4. I am keeping a fair amount of the heads as feints to add to the sugerhead stripping run but will only use once.
5. The tails were very mild so went fairly deep into the tails fractions.