Home Distiller

Jimbo wrote:

jedneck wrote:Whiskey I hope and a fu©kin mess. Drill mixer broke so I had to go old school with a paddle.
45%,wheat
30% corn
15% barley
10% oats

That right there is a NICE grain bill, that will be DEEEELICIOUS! I tried stirring a batch of bourbon with a paddle and broke the damn thing in half! That gunk is thick and heavy! It WAS a beautiful paddle I made out of flamed maple. I glued it back together and hung it on the wall, where it sits lookin pretty. Sure aint no match for horsepower and a paint mixer!!

You are right the smeared (with a fish MCH) strip run taste amazing. Its missing that grassy spice I get with my home malt. Might havta chit malt the grain.
Dumped all the slop at the end of the run back into the fermenter. Gonna let the solids settle to get backset to adjust pH on next batch. Then I'm gonna adjust pH on spent grains and backset and add sugar to SG of 1.06-7. Work for fruit, why not grain.
Jimbo 3 1/2 hours from setup to tear down and clean up. No pressing.

I'm looking for an old, small wine press. I bet that would work great for squeezing grain.

25# chicken scratch grain ground to course flour (mix of corn oats and barley)
10# whole wheat flour
2.5 gallons of 1st gen ferment
Water to 25 gallons.
Converting with enzymes.
Boiling water to steep the grains. I need to make a steam wand to fit a bigger fermenter.

Jed, when working with flour is it necessary to stir the ferment on occasion to keep the flour in suspension?

Reading through older posts it was mentioned.

Kegg_jam wrote:Jed, when working with flour is it necessary to stir the ferment on occasion to keep the flour in suspension?

Reading through older posts it was mentioned.

Once the yeast goes in I leave it alone. The ferment activity seams to keep it mixed up.

3 more quarts of Ginger Liquour. This stuff is addicting, expecially on a hot day like today with a glass full of ice. Ice cold 60 proof ginger beer! http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 11&t=57158

edit: I added a little honey to this batch. nice touch with the spicey hotness from the ginger

Doing two stripping runs of rad's AllBran today, keeping the choicest of hearts, then re-running the rest tomorrow.

This is my first run after the water/vinegar/box wine runs, so I'm feeling pretty good. The friend who has been helping me out stopped by for a bit, and I can see how this would be a really nice social thing, especially in these days of screens and internet and everything -- sitting around with nothing to do but talk for a few hours? I'll take that.

Now he's out running around sourcing 2" copper...

Had one of those what to do, what to do moments.

Since building the keg and using 2", I started wondering what to do with my old, smaller pot and dome lid.

Came up with this.

Allows me to use the old 1 1/2" stuff or the new 2" stuff on the propane boiler if need be.

The 1 1/2" pipe slips down inside the adapter and 2" uses a tri-clamp.

Had my first sugar wash fermenting for the last couple weeks. Even though it was buffered with 1/2 lb of malt to 14 lb sugar in 5 gallons the pH still crashed and I had to adjust and re-pitch yeast. Made it down to 0.992 yesterday.

Ran the stripping run today. Ended up with 9.0 L @ 50% ABV of very clean tasting gin base. Going to be playing with some gin formulations in the next while. Had expected to have to run it a 2nd time (pot still runs) to have it clean enough but I'm not thinking that will be needed at all.

Haus6565 wrote:Had one of those what to do, what to do moments.

Since building the keg and using 2", I started wondering what to do with my old, smaller pot and dome lid.

Came up with this.

Allows me to use the old 1 1/2" stuff or the new 2" stuff on the propane boiler if need be.

The 1 1/2" pipe slips down inside the adapter and 2" uses a tri-clamp.

Nice work. Are you jut going to use it for smaller runs, or maybe make it a thumper?

Just really wanted to have options with old and new components, but smaller runs is correct.

Alchemist wrote:Had my first sugar wash fermenting for the last couple weeks. Even though it was buffered with 1/2 lb of malt to 14 lb sugar in 5 gallons the pH still crashed and I had to adjust and re-pitch yeast. Made it down to 0.992 yesterday.

Ran the stripping run today. Ended up with 9.0 L @ 50% ABV of very clean tasting gin base. Going to be playing with some gin formulations in the next while. Had expected to have to run it a 2nd time (pot still runs) to have it clean enough but I'm not thinking that will be needed at all.

14 lbs sugar in 5 gallons is a way heavy 1.129 OG. How in the world did you get that down to 0.992, thats greater than 100% attenuation. Forgive my skepticism, but doubtful on your numbers. If you are correct you fermented a 17.5% wash. Pretty miserable situation for any yeast and impossible for most. Must have taken a metric ton of DAP? Even if you pulled that heroic feat off the theoretical total alcohol produced is .175(5) or .875 gallons of 100% or 1.75 gallons at 50%. So again, how you got 9 liters of 50% out of 1.75 gallons (6.6 liters) of 50% is another physics busting mystery. You might want to double check all your numbers. And in a single potstill run you made a clean gin base? really?? It takes me 5 repeated runs on a potstill to make a suitable neutral base. Sorry, not trying to be dickhead, just gotta call BS when you have multiple physics busting stats in 1 post.

wonder if he meant 15 gallons???

Edit: then again 9L (2.3 gallons) for 15 gallons would still be kind of a stretch, in my opinion.

Took the last 25 lb batch of malted red wheat off the drying screen today. I have 100 lbs of home malted red wheat ready for cooler weather to let the fun begin. The malting was easier than I expected and the grains appeared to sprout evenly despite the ridiculous hot weather. I think I'll toast some of it to see what it does for the flavor profile.

Got me 24 gallons of corn meal mash bubbling, (6 gallons each, in 4 eight gallon fermenters):
16 Lbs. Corn Meal
13 Lbs. Malt Extract Syrup
20 Lbs. Cane Sugar
12 Crushed "Beano" tablets
Whiskey Yeast
Amylase Enzymes
Water, to make up 24 gallons total.
I can't wait to get this into my new 4" four plate flute still in a few days when it settles out.

Doing something new. Got some 25 kilo's of corn / malted barley syrup. Turning it into a ... Bourbon? Anyhow, it is fermenting as we speak. Pretty fast too. Easy to work with. Hoping to catch some of that corn flavour. If not, well, I have another bucket that's pure corn. For fermentation number two!

Here's a link: http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 11&t=50916

Regards, Odin.

Last nite a buddy and I made a wheat Bourbon. 50 lbs of fine cornmeal, 27 lbs. wheat malt. 15 lbs. 2 row- 55-29-16%. We mashed the corn and the grains separately, (the corn with enzymes) and
combined them in a 55 gallon fermenter. We ended up with 46 gallons, on the grain, at 1.064

Perfect, beautiful mash frunobulax.

Got 50ish# of corn malt that will go into the smoker. Gonna smoke it with corncobs. Conecogheague single malt is in my stars.

frunobulax wrote:Last nite a buddy and I made a wheat Bourbon. 50 lbs of fine cornmeal, 27 lbs. wheat malt. 15 lbs. 2 row- 55-29-16%. We mashed the corn and the grains separately, (the corn with enzymes) and
combined them in a 55 gallon fermenter. We ended up with 46 gallons, on the grain, at 1.064

Sounds like a good recipe and mash protocol, keep us posted on the outcome.

Have 2 x 24 gallon batches of 100% corn (liquid enzymes) fermented, cleared & ready to go in the new 25 gallon boiler. Did the water/vinegar followed with a few gallons of feints for cleaning runs to get it prepped & can't wait to see how the stripping goes .
I can finally drain & refill without pulling the column off, less heavy lifting as well as being faster (should be faster, I'll find out soon enough!)

Going to have to stock up on more jars for the spirit runs though, as well as start upgrading to a 4" column. The old 2" looks a bit odd on the behemoth milk can...

I finally got last years dessert wines bottled. Next is the remaining cider after I wash enough bottles to hold it all.

Not a damn thing. Working many miles from my shed with little access to web and none to my still.
I'm living through y'all's posts right now until I can get back to my toasted malted wheat and corn.

Sweet Feed - My New Way

Measure out 3" of sweet feed in a 5 gallon bucket.
Add 1" of cracked corn for total of 4" combined.
In large pot pour in the grains and add 4 gallons of water.
Heat to 150 degrees, turn down heat and maintain 150 degrees for one hour.
Add one TSP amylase enzyme at 150 degrees and stir well for 5-10 minutes. (Needed or not, I felt better)
Strain grains out and transfer liquid to a 7.5 gallon ferment bucket.
Add 6.5lbs sugar to the hot mix and disolve thoroughly.
Top off to 6 gallons with cool water.
Adjust to 1.060 SG.Usually another 1 lb sugar will get it there.
Allow to cool to 95 degrees (or according to package) then pitch 2 TSP distillers yeast and 2 TSP DAP, 1 TSP Citric Acid if city water.
Cover, airlock and wait.
Ferment started slow but rapidly picked up, typical for sweet feed. 10 hours later, one airlock may not be enough, it is going nuts.


The changes I made to my old way is that I did not simmer the mix at 150 degrees. I just added boiled water and let sit to cool down to 95 degrees.
I also fermented on grain and this time I strained the grains first and dumped them along the fence line to feed the rabbits, they love it.
Finally, I change the grain bill a bit with the added corn even though there's a bit in sweet feed I added more.

If anyone sees something I could do any different, please chime in.

Haus6565, first, you're not really accomplishing much by heating all that unmilled grain to 150 dF - especially the cracked corn. Corn needs to be milled down and cooked hot and long to get any kind of decent conversion. You're also loosing a lot of potential flavor by fermenting it off the grain. Have you read the SF recipe in the Tried and True Recipes section? The big advantage to using that recipe is the concept of doing multiple generations using the same grain bed from one generation to the next and introducing backset from the previous still run. Point being - you're wasting a lot of good grain by feeding it to the wildlife. The quality of the final product will also improve with each successive generation.

If you picked up the idea of heating to 150 dF and fermenting it off the grain from a Youtube video, shame on you. It's been discussed before.

Yea, I do the T&T SF almost exclusively to the letter and I have read the thread end to end and I get it.
Just felt like switching something up on this one, maybe I'll like it, maybe I won't but I would never know unless I try it.
I am actually looking for a milder option to a "full" flavored version, "Lite" if you will.
Experimentation is part of the fun, right?

Stripping a 4 grain booner inspired mash. 25# scratch grain(corn,oat,barley) and 10# whole wheat flour. Then gonna start gen three but gonna increase to 15# flour and 25# scratch and 5# white corn grits.
Edited to state 25 gallon ferment grain included.

Dang, Jed, you've been cookin like a man possessed lately, can't wait to do a little taste testing in Oct!

Gotta cook faster than its drank. I don't have but a half pint that is aged over 4 months. But I will have 4 different jars that will be 3-4 months for jedfest. All double malt bourbon bills.

MichiganCornhusker wrote:Dang, Jed, you've been cookin like a man possessed lately, can't wait to do a little taste testing in Oct!

That and I'm running successive gens on the original yeast. My fermentor is setup to leave 3-4 gallons in it. Countin backset used for ph adjustin im usin 5 gallons.Last ferment went to 1.0+ in 4 days. Sat for 3 more with no infection.