For Best Results Keep the Mash ABV's Down

[Jimbo]

There seems to be a belief by some new distillers here that wash gravities (ABV) need to be pushed as high as possible. I see it all over, folks trying to push sugar heads into the high teens, or really frustrating for me as an AG brewer, folks adding sugar to an otherwise perfect All Grain mash to get it up into the double digit numbers because they think its too low at 6-8%. AHHH STOP! I dont know if its greed for more hooch, lack of understanding of AG mashes, taking literally the max alcohol tolerance on yeast packets, or even for the sugar head folk just lack of understanding what they're doing to the yeast and quality of their drink when they ask the yeast to produce such high alcohol.

A successful All Grain mash will produce a wash of about 6-8%. Its very difficult to push it higher than that. Getting that much malt in that little water, to produce anything higher is difficult and requires special skill and tricks usually reserved for high abv beer makers, triple belgians, double IPA's etc., NOT whiskey producers. Whiskey and bourbon producers target 6-8% wash, for a lot of reasons, not just mashing optimization but yeast health and quality of drink also. Stressed yeast produce a lot of crap, dimethyl sulfide, hydrogen sulfide, Isoamyl Acetate, congeners, esters, fusels, polyphenols, diacetyls etc etc. etc. You do NOT want that crap in your drink.

This applies to the sugarhead folk too. Keep your sugar based washes down to reasonable numbers (sugarhead mentors here in HD state 10-12% maximum), use a good yeast (not Turbo) and your yeast will be happy, unstressed and produce a much better drink.