Home Distiller

Yep.

If I'm in a hurry I use more of the backset to upsize to la larger fermenter. Having three or more charges to strip in a day is much better than single runs using my still setup.

Joining the UJSSM party on page 117.

Rinsed 25 lb cracked corn from TS (this is half a bag, about a 5-gallon bucket full) using the hose and a bucket to eliminate dust, cob, and the propionic acid mentioned on the label, and dumped it in my 20 gal Brute HDPA trash can. Fired up the boilin' pot and inverted a 25 lb bag of sugar in some water with a small amount of of acid blend. Poured the hot sugar water over the corn, and topped up with tap water. Added a pinch of Epsom salts and 1/2 T of DAP for the hell of it. Stuck in my aerator for an hour, and when temp dropped to 100F, I pitched about a 1/4 cup of DADY, let it melt in, and stirred very well. SG was 1.070 and pH 5.1. Put the lid on, done, mashed in. No airlock will work because the lid doesn't seal real well, but the trash can has worked very well for me with nary a spew nor an infection in a number of ferments. It produces about 12 gal of wash each gen, which is perfect for my 15.5 gal keg boiler.

I'll update after a few gens. Hoping for some good, clean, classic corn moonshine, nothing else. I use a pot still, no thumper, and usually strip, then re-distill the low wines watered down to 30% ABV with fresh wash. I've recently had a good run of sweet feed done like this, about 4 generations on one 50 lb bag. Am very happy with that, looking forward to this now.

Thanks, Uncle Jesse!

Edit to add: I've read every post on this thread. Really.

Did a couple striping runs of my ujsm wash and the last few jars (20%-30%) were real cloudy and after sitting it has a sediment on the bottom. I'd describe it as white sand. Is this normal and ok to continue to put in the spirit run?

My stripping runs are always cloudy. Don't worry about it.

So my first run of UJSM finished nice 1.073 OG down to 1.005 second round 1.070 down to .998. Since then I have been stalling 1.020, 1.030. What can be some causes? I'm doing the same as the first attempts. pitching fresh yeast ontop of keeping the yeast cake in there. maybe aerate the backset after adding the sugar?

Did you add oyster shells to the first batch? Sounds like pH crash

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And always aerate the wash

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yea aerate but you more than likely had a PH crash after subsequent generations. Check it and add some oyster shells if too low and it should kick back up

dieselduo wrote:yea aerate but you more than likely had a PH crash after subsequent generations. Check it and add some oyster shells if too low and it should kick back up

Agreed.
Always add crushed oyster shells in the beginning. Always.
And always aerate when starting or restarting a wash

I have read a little about the shells but haven't used them. Whats the ideal ph in a sour mash?

when the PH gets below 4.2 all fermentation usually stops.Since bacteria competes with yeast for food, the ideal pH is the one that kills the most bacteria without slowing the yeast growth rate down. The optimum PH is around 5. If it gets too high it will also stop.

dieselduo wrote:when the PH gets below 4.2 all fermentation usually stops.

For wine yeast the optimum pH is around 3 - 3.5. For bakers or beer yeast perhaps a bit higher. But bakers is able to ferment pH 3.5 for sure without problems. I have a professional pH lower/stabilizer for fruit mashes here "Biogen M" for pH 3 - 3.3.
Edit: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Biogen-fruit-a ... B00F4IVACU" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
http://www.fishpond.com/Kitchen/Biogen- ... 9050327126" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

dieselduo wrote:Since bacteria competes with yeast for food, the ideal pH is the one that kills the most bacteria without slowing the yeast growth rate down.

Yes. What's called "optimum", is a compromise between the health of the yeast and the supression of the competitors.

I been using DADY. I have stopped after my last batch and froze the backset to kick start a new wash in a few weeks. I will get see shells and check PH.

I know this is off topic but don't want to start a new thread to ask. What is the most you can put in for a spirite run? I'd imagine you can go a little higher then a stripe run since no foaming. My boiler is 5 gallons. it is 4.5 gallons to the bottom of the skirt. I have between 4.5 and 5 gallons of low wines. I'm planning to run at or near 40% abv and put in as much as it can handle to get a nice big run. but don't want to over do the still

I've just had this problem of stalling too. I'm in Australia and our tap water is about ph7. I had it stall after about 4th gen. Tipped it out and started fresh as I thought it may of been something I did. I had 5l of backset saved which I added to the new batch. Done everything right and went great guns! Got near 6L of 50%. 2nd gen has stalled on 1.060 and won't budge no matter what I do.

Any ideas?

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Lloydo wrote:I've just had this problem of stalling too. I'm in Australia and our tap water is about ph7.

The hardness of the water is important, not the pH. The harder the water the more unlikely is a pH drop. You can compensate soft water with adding shells / calcium carbonate.

Please could you disable the "sent from ... Tapatalk" signature? (Somwhere in the Tapatalk Signature settings).

Will softening the water kick start the ferment? Do the corns put off unfermentables?

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no idea on the soft water, but if you want to kick start the fermenter just add some epsom salt when you pitch.
or better yet look up pugirum, he has a yeast bomb there that is meant to be the bees knees, I know shady swears by it

That yeast bomb is awesome.

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I have read all 118 pages of discussion on this recipe. Only found 1 topic about how long you can keep backset. The only info I got was about freezing it. Does anyone know how long the backset will be usable if stores in an air tight container at room temp?

i stored it for a bout 3 months, had bit of mould on top of it but just scoped it off

I have had backset in buckets with airtight lids stored outside for a year now. Went thru the winter freeze and all is well. I usually sterilize the buckets i use for backset before dumping it in.
ez

Thanks for the replies, I hate to see anything go to waste. I know for sure that the majority of the backset i have has alot of good stuff left in them. I have only run down into tails once, most of the backset was shutdown in the still way early.

Just a quick thanks to Uncle Jesse and the forum for providing T&T.

I completed many consecutive Birdwatchers as I learned more about operating my equipment with some years of previous experience in doing things like separating liquids. After 2 runs/week and 6 -8 weeks of a neutral, I moved over to UJSSM. I had a close friend try a sample of some 2 week old gen 4 UJSSM and received some feedback. He is a cigar & van winkle frequenter (whether that is viewed as good or bad I don't care), and he was engaged in the attributes of the product. He didn't know it was mine, and he didn't know is was a sugarhead. I gave him product blind as a pseudo game show type situation to prevent his bias based on what he saw from a label. Being blind made him more constructive and clear in his feedback. His feedback was corn & malt flavor, and oak would do wonders. I was thankful.

The point being, my 4th run of UJ was as determined to be of interest of him, an engaged him in a conversation. I did so because I have nobody to bounce off of for feedback unless I travel to Proof in NW WA. While the feedback from those wearing s3 gear would have been appreciated beyond my wildest expectations, I cannot make that date this year for family reasons. So, I hit the guy who drinks mid/hi level bourbon recreationally while smoking his cigars while he is at home doing the same with his like-minded bride.

Score another for UJSSM.

I thought the product was harsh of the takeoff, harsh while blending, and harsh in the barrel. Flavors I picked up were not corn or malt, rather I had to make a decision to swallow or not. I swallowed, lived, an all is well. It definitely is sharply noted as a young product a couple of weeks off. Probably an expectation of folks that have more experience than me.

For those that wonder, it is aged in 2-5 liter new american white oak barrels, and this stuff was +/-2 weeks old.

I have 2 more gens of UJ this weekend, and will continue a single Uj fermenter gen forward until yeast no longer will ferment. It has been a great road for me. And one i will come back to.

UJ can have a fermenter for me as long as it can occupy the real estate successfully.

Questions are appreciated, if any.

Hank

A big thank-you to Uncle Jesse,

I started reading this thread about a month ago when I started my Gen 1 ferment. Well, all's well after two gens, and it tastes amazing. Can't wait til it gets "better" down the road.

Tough read this thread....same questions over and over and over. If people would only read before asking questions.

But, I send a big "thank-you" to all the helpful contributors!

Slàinte!

I know it's been stated before, but make sure you have enough headspace when you're making calcium carbonate additions, especially to hot backset.

I upped the percentage of backset with Gen 4 (decreasing my amount of headspace) and didn't even think how it'd affect the calcium carbonate addition. Whelp...I had a UJSSM geyser in the basement. Took a while to clean up.

Hope this helps someone that's just starting out. An other option would be to use oyster shells or eggshells. The calcium carbonate in the shell matrix won't react so quickly and violently to hot backset.

I'm new to this, I've decided on this recipe for my first one, and base recipe if it goes well. As time goes on I'll have many questions about this...haha. But I was wondering if it's alright to keep just some of the first run instead of using all of it as feints?

Glad you found your way here to UJSSM Hanson. Yes, you can keep some of your first run on this. I have done a bunch of this recipe and it is a good one to start with. Pull out some of your hearts to keep. That will tide you over for a bit till you get your feet wet in this hobby. But, I believe the best of this comes from a second run of all low wines and aged on oak for a while. Yum.

Just wanna add: If you haven't already, you need to read and learn how to do good cuts. Here: http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11640

Hanson423 wrote:I'm new to this, I've decided on this recipe for my first one, and base recipe if it goes well. I'm as time goes on I'll have many questions about this...haha. But I was wondering if it's alright to keep just some of the first run instead of using all of it as feints?

assuming your still has been cleaned properly, if you runa nice steady takeoff and make small fractions you will likely find a jar or two in the middle that is nice.
most will run a hot fast stripper and then redistill a spirit run when you have enough strips to make it worthwhile.
some of my favorite UJ was a 1.5 distill (fresh wash added to low wines strip and then run like a spirit run.)

posting with grasshopper and he's right... oak is an improvement.

Hanson423 wrote:I'm new to this, I've decided on this recipe for my first one, and base recipe if it goes well. I'm as time goes on I'll have many questions about this...haha. But I was wondering if it's alright to keep just some of the first run instead of using all of it as feints?

I like both the sweet and sour mash version so you can't go wrong imho

HDNB wrote:

Hanson423 wrote:I'm new to this, I've decided on this recipe for my first one, and base recipe if it goes well. I'm as time goes on I'll have many questions about this...haha. But I was wondering if it's alright to keep just some of the first run instead of using all of it as feints?

assuming your still has been cleaned properly, if you runa nice steady takeoff and make small fractions you will likely find a jar or two in the middle that is nice.
most will run a hot fast stripper and then redistill a spirit run when you have enough strips to make it worthwhile.
some of my favorite UJ was a 1.5 distill (fresh wash added to low wines strip and then run like a spirit run.)

posting with grasshopper and he's right... oak is an improvement.

I know people sometimes make a sugar wash after the still has been cleaned, would it be ok to clean it by just buying cheap wine distilling it and then toss what comes out?