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50 litres SBB RUM fermenting away

Mashed in 8.3 KGs of fine ground corn, 3.3 KG of rolled oats milled to fine flour, 37L water, HT Enzymes - cooling overnight before pitching Gluco
repeat tomorrow and again on Friday - will all be yeasted by Saturday morning! Then we wait!

Also have 29 L 25% low wines waiting to be refluxed - but the sun has gone on holiday, so still all setup and can't do anything with it until Sunday when the weather should clear!

EricTheRed wrote: ↑Wed Jul 20, 2022 4:16 am… cooling overnight before pitching Gluco.
… repeat tomorrow and again on Friday.
… will all be yeasted by Saturday morning! Then we wait!

You’re not going to wait until Saturday to pitch yeast are you? That’d be a good way for an infection to take ahold of your fermenter. Pitch yeast as soon as it’s cool enough (100*F/38*C).

You can easily “brew on top” of a started ferment. It’s like “feeding” a ferment, only bigger.
ss

still_stirrin wrote: ↑Wed Jul 20, 2022 4:33 am

EricTheRed wrote: ↑Wed Jul 20, 2022 4:16 am… cooling overnight before pitching Gluco.
… repeat tomorrow and again on Friday.
… will all be yeasted by Saturday morning! Then we wait!

You’re not going to wait until Saturday to pitch yeast are you? That’d be a good way for an infection to take ahold of your fermenter. Pitch yeast as soon as it’s cool enough (100*F/38*C).

You can easily “brew on top” of a started ferment. It’s like “feeding” a ferment, only bigger.
ss

No, today's mash in will be put into fermenter tomorrow morning along with Gluco, and when down to 32°C, will pitch yeast
Repeat for next two days, Thursday's will be yeasted Friday, and Friday's on Saturday

Besides, it is so cold here (Winter in South Africa), that i have to put into sun in the mornings, and cover with a blanket at night to keep the yeast going.

Neutral: I'm out of Gin!

Started up 4x6 gal of calrose medium grain rice with angel yeast. End game is a neutral to make some seltzers, flavored vodkas, cellos, etc...

Did a neutral spirit run yesterday.
Interesting numbers on temp gauges.
93% through the whole run

Six stripping runs of two different products through my Charentaise style preheater set up. It took 12 hours, but the stripping is done and dusted and I only have to do the spirit runs now.

I'll do the spirit runs with one of them starting in the preheater. That will be a busy day because, for a while, I will be taking cut jars off two Liebigs. The time and energy savings are well worth the hassle.

I tested my red white and blue "fight club" bourbon barrel that had three different batches added to it over a period of time. Oldest batch was barrelled one year ago yesterday. Very good at this point and I need to get working on a few new batches to refill it when I plan to bottle some around xmas. I haven't made anything lately but I've been getting the whiskey-itch and thinking about it!

Cheers!
-j

Spirit ran my brandy. Got 8 litres. Sitting on one heavy char dominoe and one uncharred in each jar.

Ran abt 8 gal of UJ with rye and oats. Started at 85 abv and ran it dry. 13 250ml jars before it clouded. Sitting on the bench under coffee filters tonite. Kick off the next batch in the AM. Pretty nice on ice, as a white dog.

Not "made" just yet, but did a demo on an old fridge, for use in a 3-keg fermenting chamber. Basically an insulated box with cooling, heating, fan and a light to keep a constant temp range that one can set/change with a controller. I'll do a write-up when its all done. People use non-modified fridge/freezers but for 3 kegs it's hard to find something that will work, I don't fancy lifting and lowering full kegs into a top-door unit, so going custom.

It's 95° in the shade here so I'm sitting in my cool basement running 30 gal sugar head that I had sitting around for a couple of months. Decided to dust of the old flute (haven't used her in almost two years) and wow I forgot what a sweet thing she is. Dialed her in to output 90 to 93 % and she's running like a dream
Stay safe and cool
OVZ

Made a peach concoction. Bubbling aggressive enough to pop lid first night.
Hoping for a brandy in the end. Wouldn't let me attach a pic.

Saltbush Bill wrote: ↑Fri Jul 29, 2022 3:18 am Resized_20220729_124905.jpegResized_20220729_154134.jpeg

BBQ here I come. Looks mint Bill

Just made up a bit of a whisky (bourbon?) mash, bubbling away ferociously.

8kg Cracked Corn
7kg Coopers Red Barley Malt

High Temp Enzyme for the corn, worked a charm. Won't do it without it again.
Mashed in with the Barley at 63C in 65L Brewzilla.

50L in the fermenter after sparging. Have fermented on the grain the last few runs, but going to try off the grain this time.

SG of around 1.064

Pitched SS Whisky Yeast around 40C (yep, bit warm, got impatient) and checking it this morning it was still at around 38C. Was aiming for a 35C ferment temp, will have to open the fridge and let it cool on its own today a bit.

Looking forward to running this one.

Started a passion fruit wine.

Put a maceration for gin up
2 litres 46% neutral
24 gms juniper
6 gms coriander
Contents of 4 rooibos tea bags
9 gms rosemary leaves (no stalk)

Will sit for 24hrs and 20gms orange peel will added to boiler

Bradster68 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 29, 2022 3:12 am Made a peach concoction. Bubbling aggressive enough to pop lid first night.
Hoping for a brandy in the end. Wouldn't let me attach a pic.

Here's a pic of my peach must

Citra IPA. First time brewing anything in about 2 months. I've been rebuilding the controller for a while now. Still need to work on the process for my RIMS system. Got a few grains leaking out from the biab which caused some blockages and the biab blocks the outlet from the keg if not propped just right with a spatula. And then my temp sensor stopped working. Frankly it's a miracle I got it to mash at all!

Cleaned my still and ran my 50 litres of SBBs

Did 4 x stripping runs on a cornmeal and oatmeal mash.
135 litres mash resulting in just over 100 litres wash at 9.9%
Stripped to 30 litres of low wines
Spirit run on Thursday.

Started next neutral - 7.5 kgs oatmeal ground to flour and 22 L water. Enzymes used. Then 22.5 kgs sugar to make up 135 L mash.

EricTheRed wrote: ↑Mon Aug 01, 2022 2:12 am Started a passion fruit wine.

Put a maceration for gin up
2 litres 46% neutral
24 gms juniper
6 gms coriander
Contents of 4 rooibos tea bags
9 gms rosemary leaves (no stalk)

Will sit for 24hrs and 20gms orange peel will added to boiler

rooibos gin has made it onto my standard list.
2l neutral
32gms juniper
12 gms coriander
1.6gm angelica
1gm sage
4 x tea bags rooibus (10.4gms)
0.4gm cardomon
0.4gm orris
0.4gm anise
0.4gm ginger
0.4gm carraway
+ orange zest
3 months old now.

meanwhile, back at the ranch, today is a spirit run for my 51% rye whiskey.
just a small 20l test batch.
tastes good

Made two mash with my new brewzilla Gen4, made with 33% Oats, 33% malted wheat and 33% 6 row.c
This all-in-one BIAB brewery is very easy to work with!
I should have invested more and bought the 65L version...

Spirit run on some 18 month old low wines. 68% Golden Promise and 32% Maris Otter. Included the feints from a 100% Golden Promise single malt which came out super sweet.

SaltyStaves wrote: ↑Fri Aug 12, 2022 2:54 pm Spirit run on some 18 month old low wines. 68% Golden Promise and 32% Maris Otter. Included the feints from a 100% Golden Promise single malt which came out super sweet.

Golden Promise makes some tasty stuff!!!

After just short of 4 years being out of the game.
I started a ferment of 15gal Birdwatchers, & 15 gal UJSSM.
Hope that one of them will be ready to run this upcoming weekend.
If not.... the following weekend both should be ready.

hs9

Tried running some UJ but I left it sitting too long with a lacto and possibly another infection and ended up not having enough alcohol in it to make it worth running.

I made oat vodka from generic oats from the supermarket that I got on sale for 1 dollar per pound. Smells fantastic, the wife will be super happy hopefully I will end up with enough to keep her happy for a few months... or at least until I do something stupid... again