Infinity Grain Whiskey Shine

[PalCabral]

Hiya Distillers.

I thought I'd share one of my projects with you: my Infinity Grain Whiskey Shine. It's an idea I've got from being inspired by two different threads on this forum and the discussion therein.

1. Sugar Head / Gumball Head / Sugar Shine

When planning to start fermenting with YLAY I think it was Mooseman who mentioned in one of the threads that he regularly make a sugar head on top of the spent YLAY grains. I'm not that fond of sugar shines as I don't like that sugar bite you tend to get but I am a big fan of reusing yeast, which I regularly do with normal fermentations, and I thought that this sounded like a great idea.

However, for me it was more that I saw the possibility to reuse the Rhizopus fungi and the enzymes still active in the spent grains, which could enable me to ferment a mash with unmalted grains, which I normally don't do. Instead of dumping the spent grains and all the YLAY goodies that still are active in the slush, why not ferment yet another grain + sugar mash on top of it? I decided to make it a habit to make grain mash with whatever was at hand or where my whim took me whenever I have spent YLAY grains, or normally mashed grains.

So, adding on top my already growing backlog of "stuff to do in the distillery" this fall, I started making Sugar Heads and Gumball Heads on my YLAY ferments and traditional all grain mashes, where I didn't just add sugar but also malt and grains. In all I made 6 different "heads":

- Wheated Bourbon: Sugar and Wheat DME (Dried malt extract)
- Emmer YLAY: Sugar, Wheat DME, boiled Rye bread
- Emmer YLAY: Sugar, Rye malt, Cararye, Flaked Oats
- Emmer YLAY: Sugar, Rye malt, Cararye, Flaked Oats, Millet flour
- Wheated Bourbon: Sugar and Wheat DME (Dried malt extract)
- Teff/Lovegrass Bourbon: Sugar, Flaked Rye, Amaranth flour

I made these a bit smaller in size, about 20L/5g so that I could quickly stripp them or combine them with another "head" for convenience. But none would be big enough to be a whiskey by itself.

I realized that when all of these different batches would end up in one spirit run the result would just be one mix of grain flavors. What else can I call it than a Grain Whiskey Sugar Head Shine? I hadn't thought that far to be honest. Due to the backlog, the actual Spirit run has been postponed and postponed, but now I need the carboys and what not I have stored all the low wines in, so I am hoping to run on Sunday.

Initially I had thought I'd drink some of it white and I'll fast age the rest, or if the flavors are all mixed up crazy Sicilian Calabrese (from the song with Dean Martin), I could just re-distill to a neutral or something. However, that's when the next inspiration took hold of me.

2. Infinity Bottle / Infinity Jar / Infinity Barrel

As it were, Deplorable woke up an old thread on the forum with the topic of an Infinity bottle. Someone had started to add all the little rests from homemade liquors (or maybe even purchased ones) into one and the same bottle, like a mixed bag, and it had turned out quite nice. Someone else had done the same but in a jar or a barrel. An Inifinity bottle or Infinity barrel. With every addition of something, the spirit and flavors would change as they mixed with the already existing locals inside the bottle/jar/barrel.

I loved the idea and thought that this is exactly what I should do with my Grain Whiskey Shine. Store it in a jar, or in my 3 liter barrel that has been curing for a year with Sherry and Port, and just allow it to be what it becomes. Then I could just add to it when I have enough grain "heads" to run the next spirit run. So this is my plan. Whatever is the product from my Grain Whiskey Shine run this weekend, it will be part of my Grain Whiskey Infinity Jar or Barrel, Generation number 1. From time to time, I will bottle from it, and when I add a Generation 2, I will make a last bottle of the previous version just to have something to compare with.

Let's see where we go with this project. The mixed bag of low wines I have right now have corn as their base being from Bourbons, but I've used quite a lot of rye and wheat, plus oats, millet and amaranth in the additions. It's going to have more of a rye pronounced flavor, I think (and hope). Besides the low wines I also have odd jars of collected feints from my Emmer and Teff runs and from this summer when I made a grain Vodka/Doppelkorn batch. I'm not sure if there are any grains that I have used this past year that isn't represented in one way or the other in this batch.

The plan this Sunday is to run it a little faster than I normally do and make a quite narrow hearts cut. I have a feeling it's going to be a bit funky, so I will keep the feints (heads and tails) from this run for the next time. Any thoughts on how I should run or cut is appreciated!

I'll report back after the weekend when the deed is done.