What'd ya'll make today?

[Deplorable]

Happily, today was the end of my season. Last batch of UJ/rye. I put up 5 gal of rum and around 6 or 7 of various whiskys on oak, all at 62abv. Time to clean it up and pack it away. SWMBO gets her garage back. On a sad note, the American IPA I made 2 weeks back caught a cold has to be dumped. The Tallow tree mead was a big success, tho’.
Y’all enjoy. I know I will.

Mine is just starting. I'm stripping the last of a 2nd generation SBB wash now and just put yeast on generation 3 to finish this project, then back at the AG whiskies.

[shadylane]

Sampled someone's failed Chicha "corn beer" before and after distilling.
Calling it a failure isn't right, it had alcohol but was sour and kinda nasty.
After distilling it was very drinkable, flavors of sweet corn and buttered popcorn.
But there's still a "wang" from the green malt roots and shoots.

[Deplorable]

Sunday Run day. Spirit run on the 2nd generation of SBB rum. One more fermenter full of wash to finish before getting to work on my stocks of grains.
I may start another single malt this week if I get time to toast some of the 2 row I've got stashed.

[tombombadil]

Long day today.
I finally did a feints vodka run.
Also racked the recently made wine and put it away.

I'm realizing I've got way more booze made them I'll probably ever be able to drink.

I really need to start giving it away.

[Deplorable]

Long day today.
I finally did a feints vodka run.
Also racked the recently made wine and put it away.

I'm realizing I've got way more booze made them I'll probably ever be able to drink.

I really need to start giving it away.

I give away a lot of stuff I make with my neutral. My brown spirits are shared liberally, but it's rare that I give any full bottles away. I take bottles to parties and share with friends who stop by for a visit around the fire.

[squigglefunk]

Ground up about 130 lbs of corn and barley, the one pic with the corn in my hand is one pass through the mill with whole corn, first time using this mill and it worked great. I reground the bag of fine cracked corn I had, the whole corn smelled a whole lot better, wow! I am never going back to cracked corn lol. The 2 row barley smelled amazing as well, I have 170 more lbs of that to make an "Irish" whiskey.

all went in one 35 gallon and one 45 gallon stainless mash pots. Used HTL and GL enzymes in addition to the malted barley

yeast was bakers, starting gravity was about 1.055 which is fine for me, I don't try and push the beer too high honestly.

this will all be going into my stripping still and then a spirit run in my smaller 18 gallon still.

[zach]

the one pic with the corn in my hand is one pass through the mill with whole corn, first time using this mill and it worked great. I reground the bag of fine cracked corn I had, the whole corn smelled a whole lot better,

Thanks for sharing! I purchased the same mill this last summer have been happy with it so far. I haven't tried corn yet, but will purchase whole corn based on your report.

[squigglefunk]

Thanks for sharing! I purchased the same mill this last summer have been happy with it so far. I haven't tried corn yet, but will purchase whole corn based on your report.

the whole corn seemed to grind faster than the fine cracked corn. It is LOUD as a mofo tho lol. Basically like an angle grinder over a trash can. No issues at all with the corn, no over heating or anything, buzzed right through it. 50 lbs about fills the trash can on the one I got ( i think 60L?)

I am going to try rice through it as well.

[The Booze Pipe]

45 gallons of Teds Fast Fermenting Vodka down the hole! This will be my last ever (excpet for some one-off thing for some reason) sugar wash. I'm moving onto YLAY from here, way easier and WAY cheaper.

[MooseMan]

Did a 15 gal run of YLAY bourbon today. A combination of strips of different grain bills.
1. All corn with just a kilo of oats
2. Corn with 6 kilo of "malt loaf" that I got for free
3. Corn with 3 kilo of rye bread that I got for free
Plus feints from last 2 YLAY runs added up to just under 15gal.

Got just a little under 3 gal of hearts plus quite a large feints cut both ends.

Used the hot PC exit water to setup 2 more YLAY ferments, this time with a full sack of crimped barley in 2x 75L fermenters.

Also pressed my last 40L of hedgerow red of the year, pressed cake put into the freezer for when I get bored over Xmas and I'll make a nice rosé out of it.

And I had a good mate over for the day to sit and chat shit with whilst running, as a bonus.

All in all, a very fruitful day!

[Deplorable]

Final spirit run of SBB.
To be completely honest I shouldn't have made this at all.
I haven't had a Coke in over a decade before I made the first batch of this.
I'm going to have to put all of this on oak and wait for it to turn into a neat sipper so I can keep the cola out of the house.

[MooseMan]

Final spirit run of SBB.
To be completely honest I shouldn't have made this at all.
I haven't had a Coke in over a decade before I made the first batch of this.
I'm going to have to put all of this on oak and wait for it to turn into a neat sipper so I can keep the cola out of the house.

I'm also actively trying to avoid Coke, and I'll have the odd one with a Rum if I'm out, but...

My late Mam used to say that they drank Rum and Orange in the pubs in the Midlands when she was young. (In the days of the Peaky Blinders) and I never really thought much of it.
Then I read a book about Rum and it turned out the best pairing found for high quality Rums is grenadine juice or orange juice.

Try it, and if you don't like it, try a different orange juice.

[Bradster68]

IV also been too busy for my hobby. I'm running a corn oat whiskey right now,(strip)but have many low wines waiting. My oat low wines are on oak till I get the time. Figured I'd try a suggestion. And my son brought me some wine to run.

[JustinNZ]

Just another SBB Rum today - spirit run. Starting to warm up in my garage now, which should help with my aging. Well, not my aging. Got a permanent setup now which I’m getting used to - slowly - after really missing doing it al fresco. Set up a Yamaha cassette player last week, so I whiled away the time listening to tapes I made in 1993. Sadly Bob Marley Legend appears to have been in the Primera when it got towed to Nissan heaven a few years ago. The rum was tasting pretty good - as always the cuts are tricky-as: a jar that smells amazing can taste suspicious. Leaving those for tomorrow.

[brewbob]

Did a queens run from my sour mash. Got about 1800ml 80%abv. I've never done a queens run before, always throw it into the next run, but this isn't bad. Lots of flavor. Don't know how often I'll do this as it took probably 10 hours for the 2 runs running the still as slow as possible. Makes for good conversion in the garage on Fri night though.

[Deplorable]

I made a mess.
Well, I woke up to one anyway. Single malt grain cap breached the top of the barrel. I should have punched it down before I went to bed, but I had too much trust that it wouldn't come up almost 5 inches above the lip of the barrel. As soon as I pushed the paddle down through the cap, it started lowering back down and dropped to about an inch over the top. Stirred it down into the mash, and it's almost back up to the lip again.

[DaviesCountyBoozer]

First time using YLAY. Bill was 8 lbs cracked corn (Tractor Supply cheapo), 1 lb crushed malted Einkorn wheat, boiled (5 gal water) for 2 hours. Added 4 gr Amylase enzyme prior to boiling to keep it from sticking so much. Let cool overnite, reheated to 90°F, pitched 8 grams YLAY, aerated by pouring directly from the boiler to a 5 gal carboy. I don't have a fancy airlock, so I just put a balloon over the top of the carboy, and so far I have had to vent the balloon 5 times. The surface is actually bubbling like it's boiling, 24 hours later. And now, we wait....

[MooseMan]

First time using YLAY. Bill was 8 lbs cracked corn (Tractor Supply cheapo), 1 lb crushed malted Einkorn wheat, boiled (5 gal water) for 2 hours. Added 4 gr Amylase enzyme prior to boiling to keep it from sticking so much. Let cool overnite, reheated to 90°F, pitched 8 grams YLAY, aerated by pouring directly from the boiler to a 5 gal carboy. I don't have a fancy airlock, so I just put a balloon over the top of the carboy, and so far I have had to vent the balloon 5 times. The surface is actually bubbling like it's boiling, 24 hours later. And now, we wait....

Make sure you keep pushing the cap down and stirring it all up for the first few days DCB.

[DaviesCountyBoozer]

Yup. The extra just runs into the balloon, so as not to make a mess. I tip the carboy back and forth a couple times a day.

[Beerswimmer]

Finally finished with my bourbon, took me since spring! Filled a used 30 gallon bourbon barrel with 85% corn 15% oats @120 proof. Will sit in my outdoor shed until 2027-28.

[Deplorable]

Finally finished with my bourbon, took me since spring! Filled a used 30 gallon bourbon barrel with 85% corn 15% oats @120 proof. Will sit in my outdoor shed until 2027-28.

Now that is some serious dedication.
I wouldn't attempt anything bigger than a 10G barrel with my current boiler and space constraints.

[Beerswimmer]

Thanks man, I hope that you can try it then!

[DaviesCountyBoozer]

My first real sourmash. Corn and 3rd generation backset and YLAY. No sugar, no malt, no enzymes. Wow... she's dripping into the jug right now, and holy smoke I can tell the difference. It actually tastes like corn! Started collecting at 200 (heads got put aside for solvent), will run until 205, and the rest goes into the tails jars for next time.

[samwell]

Not today, but on Monday… I made barley vodka with the feints from my single malt ag whisky! It tastes so good. I nailed the hearts cut and it’s so smooth. It reminds me of Finlandia! Couldn’t be happier with my first AG vodka.


Will be bringing a bottle to share at a friends birthday.

[higgins]

Well, not today, but over the past 10 days or so:

Nov 6: Made a drill holder that sets on top of my 15 gal corn cooking kettle and attaches to the handles so I can continuously stir my corn while cooking over propane. Began maceration of 2 liters of Gin (Isle of Harris clone using sugar kelp).
Nov 8: Spirit run on Gin
Nov 11: Spirit run on a new bourbon that is intended to mimic Michter's. I used the same mash bill (79C/11R/10M) and aging proof (103) that they use.
Nov 12: began maceration of 2 liters of citrus (lemon/lime) gin.
Nov 14: Made a new Badmo barrel and filled with the the bourbon. Also got 96 oz @ 125p on 3 sticks in glass. Spirit run on Gin.
Nov 15: Finished reconditioning and filling (2/3 full) an old 5 gallon Balcone's Blue Corn barrel for my solera bourbon system.

[malt_lover]

I'm making an ancient, really ancient recipe from India, made from leaves of a vine called Betel (Piper betle. Apart from it, lots of petals of native red rose, cardamom, cloves, black pepper, honey, fennel seeds, raisins, some pearled barley and some other spices. I normally make a wine from it but since it tastes and smell divine, decided to make a bigger batch to be able to distill it. Leaves provide lot of nitrogen and body to wine só it ferments nicely and has good mouthfeel. Usually I make a small batch of wine but keep topping up ingredients and it kind of becomes perpetual wine.
Since it is made from leaves, I was wondering what should it be called as brandy is from fruits? There are some raisins in it though.

[Opdog]

Getting ready for winter so I’m in the middle of an all fronts run to clear off my storage shelf.

I run mostly bourbon on a plated still. This feels like it is taking forever. At least I have a comfortable chair.

[NZChris]

Since it is made from leaves, I was wondering what should it be called as brandy is from fruits? There are some raisins in it though.

Maybe call it distilled (insert traditional wine name here)? Use a local name rather than borrowing something from Europe?
It sounds nice, let us know how it goes please. Many of those ingredients don't need to be in the ferment and can be placed in the boiler, basket, or Carter Head on distilling day.

[malt_lover]

Since it is made from leaves, I was wondering what should it be called as brandy is from fruits? There are some raisins in it though.

Maybe call it distilled (insert traditional wine name here)? Use a local name rather than borrowing something from Europe?
It sounds nice, let us know how it goes please. Many of those ingredients don't need to be in the ferment and can be placed in the boiler, basket, or Carter Head on distilling day.

Many thanks for the response. Yes, you're right, herbs and spices can be put in gin basket. However, I was just trying to use same recipe for making wine. I'd now add small quantities of botanicals in gin basket and see. Going by how good the wine tasted and smelled, I'm hopeful, it'll turn out good, fingers crossed.

[higgins]

Put together 2 YLAY mashes yesterday.

1st was 50lb (22.7kg) grain (50% rye grain, 50% flaked rye) in 21 gal (79.5 L) 104°F (40°C) water, 1 tbsp gypsum, 100g YLAY.
2nd was 50lb (22.7kg) grain (90% red wheat, 10% white wheat) in 21gal (79.5 L) 104°F (40°C) water, 1 tbsp gypsum, 100g YLAY.
All grains were ground to a coarse meal.

Both were at 90°F/32°C, very active, and had a ~4" (10cm) grain cap on them this morning when I stirred.

Both will get 2 standard strips of around 8-9 gallons (30-34L) of clear beer plus 1 steam strip of around 10 gallons (38L) of mash slurry. I preheat the next strip charge - not charentais style, but just routing waste condenser water thru a copper coil in a bucket containing the next charge. This gets the slurry up to about 140-150°F (60-65.5°C) so it doesn't take as much steam to get it boiling. I can also route the boiler discharge (backset) thru the coil for even more heating. Got to be careful to keep it below boiling, though.

The rye will be stilled on a 4" flute with 2 sieve plates for whiskey, the wheat will be stilled on a 2" packed VM for a neutral gin base.