Home Distiller

My goal is a max run in a 15.5 gal keg. (11.6 gallons?). I guess a 15 gallon batch would give me around 11 gallons to strip. 2 or 3 of those then run my spirit run. So I went through and looked at the different size recipes and divided em up and found very little consistency in regards to the amount of sweet feed & sugar. So below is what I came up with and thought I'd post it so those with more experience with this recipe could let me know if i was missing the obvious. Thanks.

My 2 main concerns are
1. Enough SF for flavor?
2. 15gal give me 11gal wash to rack off?

7.5 lbs of SF
27 lbs Sugar
13 gallons water

WannaB1,

My impression: a lot of sugar, not so much SF. I for me like to keep the SF and sugar balanced. That means there is a lot of taste and you can run multiple generations. More than one fermentation, that is, on the same yeast & grain bed. Like 16 pounds of SF, 16 pounds of sugar, 13 gallons of water. Your total collectable will be less, but taste will be better.

Now, after gen 1 is complete, run it thru your still. Keep the yeast alive, by putting some 10 liter of water on top of the yeast & grain bed. After distilling (stripping), use like 5 gallons of backset to melt another 16 pounds of sugar in. Let that cool to 30 degrees Centigrade, add it to the fermenter (with yeast & grains waiting to start the magic again). Top up to total as before with water. Gen 2 will be sourmash, were gen 1 was sweetwash.

Now, if you are ready stripping gen 1, save that. When gen 2 is ready and transferred to your boiler, add these gen 1 strippings. Now do a carefull run on this, making cuts. If you distill slowly, you will get to (with a potstill) a hearts faction of around 55% ABV. Perfect for maturing on some wood. And ... like this (distilling one and a half, I call it), you don't have to dilute with water. Means? You get maximum taste all over the place!

Man, that even rymes!

Odin.

here's what I'm able get locally It ferments well. I just hope someone can tell me whats in it. Nutrena premium 12% horse sweet feed. I see what looks like wheat floating but havent seen any corn.I just hope someone can tell me whats in it. I've got a lot ready to run.

Nutrient Level
Crude Protein 12.0%
Lysine 0.55%
Crude Fat 6.0%
Crude Fiber max 12.0%
Calcium 0.7 - 1.2%
Phosphorus 0.5%
Copper 40 ppm
Zinc 160 ppm
Selenium 0.6 ppm
Vitamin A 3,000 IU/lb
Vitamin D 300 IU/lb
Vitamin E 40 IU/lb
Biotin 0.3 mg.lb

snuffy7 wrote:here's what I'm able get locally It ferments well. I just hope someone can tell me whats in it. Nutrena premium 12% horse sweet feed. I see what looks like wheat floating but havent seen any corn.I just hope someone can tell me whats in it. I've got a lot ready to run.

Nutrient Level
Crude Protein 12.0%
Lysine 0.55%
Crude Fat 6.0%
Crude Fiber max 12.0%
Calcium 0.7 - 1.2%
Phosphorus 0.5%
Copper 40 ppm
Zinc 160 ppm
Selenium 0.6 ppm
Vitamin A 3,000 IU/lb
Vitamin D 300 IU/lb
Vitamin E 40 IU/lb
Biotin 0.3 mg.lb

Should be an ingredient list somewhere on the bag. Is the green bag here the kind you got?

yes it is. no tag though. Are you familiar with it?

snuffy7 wrote:yes it is. no tag though. Are you familiar with it?

Sorry snuffy7, I do not. I was googling around trying to help and wanted to know if that was it. The more I looked for that specific feed, the less I found If it's all grain (whole grains), that floating stuff is probably oats.

Thanks Kurgan google didn't help me either. I'll go back to the store and check the lable. It said all grain. but it had those damn pellet looking things. It fermented fine tastes fine but I just wondering whats in it.

I found around here that everything that says "sweet feed" has pellets in it. If it says COB then it is all grain or Corn Oats Barley. If it's wet COB, then it has molasses added. If it is dry COB then there is no molasses added.

Odin,
Thanks, you saved me lots of time. I'm going for flavor so this was a huge help!

WannaB1

You are welcome, Wannabe,

Now "go get them"! And please come back with stories on how great a recipe this is and how you like it! You should. To SF or not to SF, that is the question.

Odin.

I just finished tasting my 3rd gen SF aged on JD oak chips. All I can say is wow!!! This stuff would rival any commercial whiskey. Big thanks for the info!!

Congrts Vapor, SF has been a stable around my house since I started, I have i belive the 14 gen ready to be heated, but my UJ at about the same is slowly catching up for taste wife likes it on oak I like it white,to each is own, hang on it only gets better, ( maybe used to much but it is true)!

Pellets, this post is about pellets. Not everybody has them and actually nobody should. But sometimes some people buy a bag and end up with a grain/pellet mix anyhow. I know I have.

So how to get rid of them? It is a lot of picking. I found a method that helped a bit. Take a bowl, put in the mix. Shake gently. Pellets are bigger than the grains (or at least bigger than the grains in my mix). They lay on top in a second or two, so you can pick them out more easily. Do this like 3, 4 times and you got rid of them.

Odin.

We spent all morning on making the new pot still head. We just pitched the yeast on our first ever ferment for distillation. We went w/ the sweetfeed recipe, but had to "wing it" on the ingredients since I can't get sweetfeed around here unless I drive an hour. We used 65% cracked corn, 25% rolled oats & 10% pearled barley as the grain bill. We used 8 lbs of brown sugar instead of 7 lbs of white to substitute for the molasses that are used as the binder in sweetfeed.

Sounds good, seaside!

First post. Starting two 5gal buckets of sweetfeed recipe. Im using all grain from producers price instead of the 12% sweetfeed. Our sweetfeed has pellets. The all grain does not smell as sweet, but will let everyone know how it turns out.

Add some molasses or brown sugar, if it is after sweet feed you are.

This is a newby question. I see lots of photos of people making this in 5 or 6 gallon carboys. If you are going to make sour mash (if this is the right terminology) for the second fermentation how do you scrape off the spent grain in a carboy? Are the people using carboys just making single batches and then throwing away and starting over? Thanks in advance for your help.

big cheese wrote: how do you scrape off the spent grain in a carboy?

You don't.

While I like carboys, I find that fermenting anything on the grain (or on the skins in terms of wine) in a carboy is a PITA for cleanup. There is no efficient way to remove spent grains in a carboy. FWIW - I usually ferment on the grain in a bucket and then rack off to a carboy to clear.

The recipe I read, said its ready in 4-5 days. Its bubbling away, and today is day 2. Will it get a film ontop or just stop bubbling. The second fermintation, the sour mash, does it take longer generally than the 4-5 days?

May take a little longer. Like 6 to 7 days in my experience. If you up backset% to above 40% it mite slow down more. So my advice on first gens: stay at or under 40%.

I stopped at TSC in Omaha to pick up some Producers Pride Sweet Feed and they no longer carry the all grain 10%...they said it is replaced by the 12% and it is 70% pellets...although it does not mention pellets on the bag...

I went to another feed store and bought what they called "all stock" sweet feed and said it was corn, oats and molasses.... hope it works...seems pretty dry...

BTW..TSC had 50# bag of cracked corn....would that work? I am sure you would have to add yeast nutrient. but I would be curious how you could make that work...

Crimsonwine,

Cracked corn: see the UJSSM recipe.

On Sweet Feed: f*ck the pellets. Pardon my French. But really. I have some. Lot's of pellets. I take them out before adding what's left (white & black oats, broken corn) to my wash.

Odin.

Update on Manna Wagon Train feed (with the mystery pellets):

As expected, the spirit run has the same "green" smell and taste that I suspect is alfafa...or some other random grain that isn't COB.

I suspect I should just water down and restrip until it's neutral? Or am I being prematurely hard on a white dog that will develop later?

Maybe let it develop. I also had alfalfa in it. HOT! But now, after a few months it still gave me a pretty good whiskey! Heat is gone, taste is rich.

Odin wrote:Maybe let it develop. I also had alfalfa in it. HOT! But now, after a few months it still gave me a pretty good whiskey! Heat is gone, taste is rich.

Interesting. Too bad there's no way to properly describe alfalfa taste or "Hot" over the internet.

I just stripped mine a fourth time. I ran my spirit run (second time) as all feints since there was nothing redeeming in it. For the third run, I added some heads that I had put CC in to clean up. I got a good chunk of seemingly neutral hearts out of that run, then took the rest (adding a good 60% extra water) and ran it again. I couldn't get any clean hearts out of this fourth run...the heads are gone, but the whole run has this grassy taste I can't get rid of.

Not sure what to do...short of buying a reflux still

Two bags in two days. The first i wasn't specific, today I said all grain no pellets, no peeeeelllleeeettttssss for the cheap seats. Hell its all pellets. It aint worth the diesel to take it back. I guess the search continues tomorrow.

Does this look right....??

They called this all stock sweetfeed...no pellets...but not much corn either...

all other sweetfeed had pellets...





This is it mashing...with the two gallons of water and 7# sugar....again..seems like alot of eveything but corn...



Comments?

Looks good. Just like mine, after I take the pellets out!

i believe 'all stock' has no alfalfa, so as to be safer for horses