All Bran Recipe

[rad14701]

maybe I'm just reading this wrong or not quite awake yet still on my first cup of coffee but initially you list ingredients as 1 gal water 3.5 cups suger 1 cup bran and 2 tbsp yeast then at the bottom in the notes section you say "essentially" 1 gal water 1 cup suger 1/4 cup bran 1/2 tbsp yeast.

this leaves me a bit confused you sayin that originally used the first amount then realized you could cut it down w/ same effect or what ? also you said aerate for an hour, surely you just mean like let it cool ? not constantly stirring the whole time correct? sorry for the newbie questions still gettin my feet wet here but this recipe came highly recommended and Im anxious to try it just need a little clarification before i jump in. sorry if i missed these answers somewhere in the post i read over pretty good and didn't see anything but doesn't mean i didn't overlook somewheres, thanks for the help

-Mycotroph

Yeah, have another cup of coffee - you're not awake yet...

* Essentially, 1 liter water, 1 cup sugar, 1/4 cup cereal, 1/2 tablespoon yeast, scaled to desired batch size.

[Mycotroph]

maybe I'm just reading this wrong or not quite awake yet still on my first cup of coffee but initially you list ingredients as 1 gal water 3.5 cups suger 1 cup bran and 2 tbsp yeast then at the bottom in the notes section you say "essentially" 1 gal water 1 cup suger 1/4 cup bran 1/2 tbsp yeast.

this leaves me a bit confused you sayin that originally used the first amount then realized you could cut it down w/ same effect or what ? also you said aerate for an hour, surely you just mean like let it cool ? not constantly stirring the whole time correct? sorry for the newbie questions still gettin my feet wet here but this recipe came highly recommended and Im anxious to try it just need a little clarification before i jump in. sorry if i missed these answers somewhere in the post i read over pretty good and didn't see anything but doesn't mean i didn't overlook somewheres, thanks for the help

-Mycotroph

Yeah, have another cup of coffee - you're not awake yet...

* Essentially, 1 liter water, 1 cup sugar, 1/4 cup cereal, 1/2 tablespoon yeast, scaled to desired batch size.

woops sorry jus so used to standard measurements typed gallon instead of liter but you still cut down the amount of sugar/cereal/yeast and thats what I'm wondering about, which amounts to use ? the first list of ingredients or the second ? or does it even matter ? also thank you for the quick reply

[Mycotroph]

maybe I'm just reading this wrong or not quite awake yet still on my first cup of coffee but initially you list ingredients as 1 gal water 3.5 cups suger 1 cup bran and 2 tbsp yeast then at the bottom in the notes section you say "essentially" 1 gal water 1 cup suger 1/4 cup bran 1/2 tbsp yeast.

this leaves me a bit confused you sayin that originally used the first amount then realized you could cut it down w/ same effect or what ? also you said aerate for an hour, surely you just mean like let it cool ? not constantly stirring the whole time correct? sorry for the newbie questions still gettin my feet wet here but this recipe came highly recommended and Im anxious to try it just need a little clarification before i jump in. sorry if i missed these answers somewhere in the post i read over pretty good and didn't see anything but doesn't mean i didn't overlook somewheres, thanks for the help

-Mycotroph

Yeah, have another cup of coffee - you're not awake yet...

* Essentially, 1 liter water, 1 cup sugar, 1/4 cup cereal, 1/2 tablespoon yeast, scaled to desired batch size.

woops sorry jus so used to standard measurements typed gallon instead of liter but you still cut down the amount of sugar/cereal/yeast and thats what I'm wondering about, which amounts to use ? the first list of ingredients or the second ? or does it even matter ? also thank you for the quick reply

yeah sorry I AM A MORON idk why i didn't understand just read it again and everything clicked idk what my problem was this morning... sorry

[Condensifier]

Nothing to be sorry about Mycotroph, anyone could think the same thing early in the morning or whenever and if you're a MORON we all are. I for one learn a lot from questions asked by people new to this hobby. No problem from what I can see.

[Mycotroph]

woo hoo super stoked pulled off little over half quart of 60 % abv from first run of All bran plus about the same of "tails" that'll be added to next run gunna triple up on the recipe and see how it goes in about 2 weeks thanks Rad for the recipe

[raketemensch]

Where are you sourcing your 20-20-20? I'm having a hard time finding it locally, and it's pretty schpensy on Amazon.

I'm going to give this one a shot this weekend.

[rad14701]

Where are you sourcing your 20-20-20? I'm having a hard time finding it locally, and it's pretty schpensy on Amazon.

I'm going to give this one a shot this weekend.

I have switched to using 30-10-10... Any NPK will work as long as the N is the highest number... Just check the MSDS to make sure it is relatively safe...

[still_stirrin]

...I have switched to using 30-10-10... Any NPK will work as long as the N is the highest number... Just check the MSDS to make sure it is relatively safe...

Bingo! My local hardware store has 20-10-10 for $14 per 20 lb. bag. I got it...and the yeast love it. The left over crystals that don't get used settle to the bottom of the fermenter and get washed out with the trub.

Thanks for the tip...one bag will be enough for hundreds of washes.
ss

[raketemensch]

Thanks, I finally found Jack's urea-free 20-20-20 in a reasonable quantity on Amazon.

[raketemensch]

So, tonight's lesson:

When leaving a lid on the pot to simmer up your bran flakes, don't go hang out with your kids.

An overflowing pot of bran flakes makes a ridiculous mess. Holy crap.

I don't have a wort cooler, so the fermenter is sitting in a chest freezer in the basement for a bit. It's still at ~120F, I'm waiting for it to drop to 95 so I can pitch the yeast and 20-20-20.

I'm hoping it'll be ready on Saturday, with my 4-gallon stockpot I can do two 2.5 gallon stripping runs, saving the hearts, then combine the rest of the heads/tails in for a spirit run on Sunday.

[Kegg_jam]

You should see wheat germ left unattended...

[raketemensch]

Woo man, I finally pitched the yeast this morning and got a starting SG of 1.195. This is gonna get interesting. I just realized I haven't calibrated my hydrometer.

Here are my simplified 5-gallon wash directions from my notes:

Boil 20 cups sugar in 20 cups water for 30 minutes
Boil 5 cups cereal in 10 cups water for 30 minutes
Boil 2.5 tsp yeast (one packet)

Add water to 5 gal, cool to 95F

Add 10tbsp yeast
Add 2.5tsp fertilizer

[rad14701]

Woo man, I finally pitched the yeast this morning and got a starting SG of 1.195. This is gonna get interesting. I just realized I haven't calibrated my hydrometer.

Here are my simplified 5-gallon wash directions from my notes:

Boil 20 cups sugar in 20 cups water for 30 minutes
Boil 5 cups cereal in 10 cups water for 30 minutes
Boil 2.5 tsp yeast (one packet)

Add water to 5 gal, cool to 95F

Add 10tbsp yeast
Add 2.5tsp fertilizer

How much sugar...??? Virtually no yeast can survive an OG of 1.195...!!! It should be half that, at most... If the OG is truly that high you need to split the wash into two vessels and top them up with water... Or was that a typo and you meant 1.095...???

[raketemensch]

Sorry, it was 1.095. My bad.

Bubbling away happily, making the airlock earn its living.

You should see wheat germ left unattended...

You, my brother, feel my pain.

[raketemensch]

So, I ran 2.5 gallons of this yesterday, and kept 4 jars of it. I made the mistake of assuming that my middle jar was the best of it by default, and gave the heads short shrift, and poured them all into the feints jar. So I lost some good stuff, but I can make other good stuff out of it, lesson learned.

Today I ran the other 2.5 gallons, and the heads smell awesome. I collected 200ml of fores, which is probably too much for a 2.5 gallon wash, but I was erring on the safe side. But after that, the first jar smells the best! And not just to me, I've been getting my wife into the sniff tests, and this time I completely randomized the order of the jars (hiding the numbers) so that I don't bring order bias into it, and we both picked jars 1 and 2 as the best.

Anyone else run into that with this recipe? Or other recipes?

I really have no way to measure the alcohol content of these individual samples right now, so I can only go by smell. I'm going to let them age a bit (they sat overnight under coffee filters) in the basement while I wait for my next paycheck to order a spirit refractometer so we can dilute them all to the same level and give them a good taste test.

Out of ~4.5 gallons of wash I've got almost a gallon of feints, and the rest I'm keeping to test properly later.

[rad14701]

raketemensch, are you saying jars 3 & 4 smelled best, or jars 1 & 2...??? Could you clarify...??? My Hearts smell best due to a relative lack of smell... Foreshots smell of acetone and Heads smell fruity or medicinal... Tails smell like wet dog or wet cardboard - or worse...

[raketemensch]

Yeah, tails jumped right the hell out, no concern there. My wife coined the word "vomitous."

The heads do smell fruity, and the hearts smell neutral. Which gets interesting, since I'm running a pot still and trying to maintain the flavor... I mean, I can definitely discern when it smells "clean," but it's hard to give up the heads (jars 1 and 2) that smell so tasty on this one. I've read about people using a small bit of heads or (early) tails in a blend to get the most flavor, but it's my first run. I've read and read and read about making cuts, I'm not completely in the dark here -- a couple of books, a few billion forum posts, etc.

I wasn't looking at these as stripping runs, but maybe I'll just hang onto the cleanest of hearts and re-run the rest and see what still comes through. I guess that's the best method, to avoid the hangover from heads.

Or maybe, since I ordered a spirit refractometer today to help me dilute the samples to equal strength to do a real tasting cuts session, I'll hang onto a little for Research Purposes before dumping the rest into the feints jar.

[sergiolis]

Sorry about the interference.... Damn! turn and turn over blue distillate again! I'm doing Allbran recipe to get some neutral and I add citric acid to invert the sugar. Today I tested the pH of my wash after fermentetation and it is quite acidic: 2.7pH. I can't see a blue tone in my sttripped Allbran but when I dilute it with water to reflux it, usually I can see a slight blue tone when the water is added. I bokareflux it and I get a crystal 96%ABV so that's perfect.
But do you know why the distillate becomes slightly blue after dilution with tap water?
I've never tried to add baking soda or anything to my stripping runs because sometimes I'm hurry up to reflux it, but maybe I should do it....

[rad14701]

sergiolis, what is the exact recipe you are mixing for your wash...??? That pH sounds excessively low...

[smokineod]

AllBran is a sugar wash, they sometimes tend to PH crash. Oyster shells prevent that fairly easily.

My recipe:

35lbs domino sugar (thanks Sams Club)
1 box Great value All Bran Cereal (Walmart)
1/2 cup of DAP (Amazon)
1/2 cup Epsom Salt (Amazon)
1/2 cup oyster shells (local feed store)
1/4 cup Fleishmanns Yeast (Sams Club)

In a 32 gallon Brute trash can, I invert sugar with 10 gal of hot backset, dump in the box of cereal and beat it up with a large mud mixing paddle in my cordless drill. Add the DAP, Epsom salts and oyster shells. Beat it up some more! Grab the garden hose and begin filling the trash can up to about 3-4 inches from the top (about where the top of handles are on the outside). From previous measurements this is approximately 25 gallons of water/backset. Beating it up the entire time with the drill and paddle for the addition of some oxygen.

The cool well water brings this down to pitching temps pretty much right away! So in goes the yeast! But not before checking O.G! 1.065 = perfection! Cover and forget for about a week. This is done in my garage, which stays pretty warm during the summer and in winter I drop in a 350 watt aquarium heater to keep it from being turned into a block of ahhh shit!

Rad, I want to thank for sharing this recipe with the rest of us! Look forward to learning more and the continued destruction of my liver!

[sergiolis]

Hi rad! I usually mix 4 washes of 25l and the whole recipe is:
100L water, 20kg sugar, 750g Allbran, 560g instant yeast, 40g boiled yeast, 110g citric acid...
so in 1 bucket approximately:
5 kg sugar, 187g Allbran, 140g instant yeast, 10g boiled yeast, 27.5g citric acid, completed with water until 25L.
My OG is usually around 1070.
It was the first time using a pH tester and I didn't test the starting wash, i will do it with the next. Anyway when I mix the stripping runs with water I can see always a slight blue tone and once or twice I saw some blue salts coagulated at the top edge of the bucket... thanks a lot for your help

[still_stirrin]

....But do you know why the distillate becomes slightly blue after dilution with tap water?...

Maybe it's the tap water. Temper with distilled or RO water and see if that helps.
ss

[sergiolis]

Hi still_stirrin,
To start from the scratch with distilled water is a huge amount of distilled water. I could dilute the stripping runs with distilled water, I will need about 10L, but I could try it once.... Thanks a lot

[still_stirrin]

Hi still_stirrin,
To start from the scratch with distilled water is a huge amount of distilled water. I could dilute the stripping runs with distilled water, I will need about 10L, but I could try it once.... Thanks a lot

OK sergiolis, you can use chlorinated (city) tap water to brew with...but I always like to simmer it for 10-15 minutes before using it in a brew to drive off the chlorine.

Also, carbon filtered water pulls out micro-solids and some of the minerals that may be in the city tap. Water is the largest component in a ferment so it is very critical to the quality of the brew.

To lower the %ABV of your low wines, add tails, or run a little deeper into the tails when stripping. But if you do have to add water to it, use distilled or RO. That will help to clean the flavor as well. Your neutral will love you for it.

What I read in your thread was that when high proof, your spirit is clear. But when tempered (with tap water), it turns blue. I didn't associate that to the ferment or even the distillation process...I associated it to the tempering process, hence the use of tap water which could contain minerals and/or dissolved salts.
ss

[sergiolis]

Great explanation still_stirrin, absolutely I will dilute the next stripping runs with distilled water to see the difference. Thanks a lot for your help!!

[raketemensch]

I finally did a spirit run today, with the feints from my two stripping runs 2-3 weeks ago.

I wasn't overly optimistic, as I was originally hoping for a single run, but I realized later that I'd done them too soon, when the wash was still sweet. The product was hot, and still burns too much. Definitely my fault, not the recipe's.

But the wash had dried (flavor-wise) and cleared up nicely, so I kept some in the fridge until this morning, when I tossed it into the feints to bring them to about 25% ABV, and ran it.

Very tasty, even fresh out of the condenser. I've still got 8 jars sitting under coffee filters overnight, since I did 5-minute cuts instead of 10 this time. They smell really tasty, even my wife liked it, and she was really skeptical going into it. I'll let it breathe for the night, and tomorrow night we'll do some diluting and tasting. I've got some seasoned Birch sitting on the table saw downstairs, I'm going to char it up and drop some in.

Interestingly, our "liquor cabinet" just happens to be above the oven, so there are temperature changes all the time to help with the soaking/releasing with the wood. This stuff should be really good in a few weeks.

[panikry83]

OK Rad, you've got something crazy here man. I followed the first page recipe scaled up to 5 gallons on Sunday afternoon, OG was 1.087. It's was the most active ferment for me to date. Like helicopter sounds coming from the fermenter. Even my wife was staring at it (either confer or amazement, not sure). Now, its Tuesday morning and there is no activity in the airlock. Is it possible to have finished in 48 hours or so? SHould I open it and check my SpG or let it go for another to day to be sure? If it is finished, that was some insane ebullition. Honestly, awesome recipe either way. Smelled like cereal in the oven in my living room. Was great - and easy - and CHEAP! Thanks again.

[rad14701]

panikry83, check the SG as it very well may be done... Either that or the crazy activity has caused the pH to plummet...

[panikry83]

Fg was 1.01 racked it into my carboy and I'm about to start a second batch

[rgreen2002]

Had a quick question here.. love the simplicity of this recipe and was excited to try it since my local TS cant find a bag of sweetfeed to save their (or my...) lives. (I know....make your own...).

Anyway... I made 10 gallons of the all bran mix. I used the Aldi brand (2 boxes for less than 3 bucks...). After i started it I noticed that it was far fewer nutrients than the Kellogs variety...but I figure experimentation is the cornerstone of the website.

Millville...sounds great

Just a little light on the vitamins and minerals

For 10 gallons water I had : 4 cups of the cereal, 9 lb of sugar, I added about 2 tblspoons of DAP (no 20-20-20) and I did not do the boiled yeast (at least plan to...). I added 2 cups of freshly milled malt I picked up from the beer store because...flavor. I inverted all the sugar and I cooked the cereal/malt mix for over 30 mninutes at about 160F. I pitched 3 packets EC 1118... waited until the temp was around 100F and tossed it in. SG at the start is about 1.06 in all of them.
Now, because I read the post before I saw that it is supposed to "take off"... I figured that if that were the case I would split it into three 5 gal buckets with a lot of extra room. So now it is split into three 5 gallon buckets and airlocked. Overnight it sits. Come morning... one of the 3 is doing fine... the other 2....nada. I go to work and come back assuming either its just the slow ec1118 or I have a problem. Back from work.... zip. So I check the buckets... nothing really happening. My first assumption is either not enough nutrients or heat. I decide to add more DAP and I crushed up a B complex vitamin because the cereal is slow in B vits in particular. The other bucket - 100w aquarium heater. I wait again...
Now... 2 buckets happy. Seems to be the nutrients. So I open the 3rd bucket and add some DAP and a B complex vit. I wait.... NOTHING. Now I am confused. SG still about 1.06. Ph 4.0.
All three buckets came from the same batch... all three buckets were clean, all yeast starters were working away on a cup of the inverted sugar.
I decided maybe the temp in the bucket was just too high when I pitched the yeast. Made another starter... nothing. Wash certainly tastes sugary... some fermentation has happened because I can also taste that in the wash as well. I looked and listened for bucket leaks but nothing.
Any idea why this one damn bucket doesn't want to start?