Home Distiller

Hey Yall,
...Not so much developing a recipe, but trying something out . Deputy Fife gave me this idea

I was brewing a batch of all-grain (hound dog brown) ale yesterday, and after all the sparging was done, I was left with 10 pounds of grain soaked with water ....Hmmm ....Normally I'd just toss it on the compost heap for the deer...instead, I tossed 2 gallons of 170F water, and 10 pounds of sugar in with the grain ......stirred it until all the sugar was disolved, and then topped it up with another 3 gallons of cold water...then pitched some ale yeast.

We'll see what we end up with next week.

the grain bill for the beer was
7 pounds pale 2 row
1 pound cara-pils
1 pound crystal malt
1, 1/2 pound dark munich
1/2 pound choc malt

Now that is using yer ol' noggin. Im sure it will work, maybe should up the initial grain bill so you can carry some sugars and flavor through to the spirit, but I like this. Two birds 1 stone kind of thing...Im still a noob on the shinin, still learning the ropes ( no pun intended ), but from my beer experience, there is still some leftovers in the grain bed that sparging dont get all of, so single sparge the beer and move on to the "wash" while beer is boiling. Not sure how much sugar and flavor, but it is there...

And that recipe is very very close to a stout I brew. Just missing some flaked oats, and for the cyrstal I sub in 120, is it beer thirty yet, im thirsty...

Dang, good idea! I'll be really interested in hearing how the taste turns out.

Still fermenting along nice, and smells very tasty.

Looks like I made a mistake on the recipe though ... here's the real recipe:

Hound Dog Brown-All-Grain (Northern English Brown Ale )

Type: All Grain
Date: 12/18/2010
Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Brewer: NChooch , Asst Brewer: Mr. Hound
Taste Notes: Nut Brown Ale.

Ingredients

Amount Item Type % or IBU
6.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 57.1 %
1.00 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 9.5 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 9.5 %
1.00 lb Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 9.5 %
0.50 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 4.8 %

(for the beer)
0.50 oz Chinook [10.00%] (60 min) Hops 20.8 IBU
0.50 oz Williamette [4.90%] (30 min) Hops 6.0 IBU
0.50 oz Chinook [10.00%] (1 min) Hops 0.9 IBU
1.10 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min) Misc
1.00 lb Brown Sugar, Light (8.0 SRM) Sugar 9.5 %
5.19 gal Piedmont, NC Water
1 Pkgs Nottingham (Danstar #-) Yeast-Ale


The beer is excellent, if you want the full recipe,PM me.

NChooch

Hey Yall,

Just an update on this "experiment" ...

It finished fermenting out at 9 days, and had a cap of grain floating on the top at that time .
I scooped the grain off the top and racked as much of the clear as I could to the boiler ...
then dumped the remainder in a filtering bag and strained it ... ended up with almost a full boiler (5 gal).
Set up the Bok with 6 scrubbies, and ran it.

tossed 150ml of fores
saved 250 ml of heads,
collected four 250 ml jars of 180 proof hearts.
then the tails came ...saved about 250 ml of tails and shut it down.
I aired the hearts out for 24 hrs .
After cutting the hearts down 50% with water, it has a sweet grainy smell, and taste...definitely neutral, but still has the sweet grainy taste. prolly the best white dog I've ever made.
I'd call it a winner, will definiely do it again next time I do an all-grain beer .
cheers,
NChooch

Brewed an All grain pale ale today, and used the spent grain again to whip up a batch of barley goodness.
If ya thing about it, it's really not that different than UJSSM

Today after all the sparging, I set it aside and got the beer boil going, then took the 7 pounds of sugar, mived with the juice of a lemon, amd boiled to invert it. mixed it with the grain and cooled it to 150 degrees ....added 3 beano tabs in case there was any more starch to convert and let it mash while I boiled the beer. When I was ready to finish up, I used 3 gallons of ice water to bring the volume up to 7 gallons and drop the temp to 85.
Pitched the safeale 05 and its already bubblin' 3 hours later
Smells really nice too

I've officially dubbed this the piggyback recipe.

NChooch

I always do a sugar wash on top of my allgrain bourban mashes just to get as much out of the grain after fermenting on the grain.
I figured if I do a good job on my conversion and sparging on my beer runs, there really wouldn't be much left in the barley to flavor the mash. Might just be enough neutrients to make for an efficeint sugar wash though.
I wonder how this would taste if you took out all your packing and just ran her slow and steady, like a potstill??

I'm fixin to run it in my flute, so we'll see.
NChooch

I kegged up a carboy of YoMama IPA today. I also ran a mash of UJSM. I looked at the nice 1056 yeast cake from the IPA and then dumped it into the UJSM tote. 1056 is a workhorse ale yeast, so we'll see how it does. Give the yeast colony some new DNA to play with.

I never thought of using the grain from my all grain batches in my UJSM, nice tip, thanks.



Bull.

...about the only drawback I've noticed with this recipe is the wash has a tendancy to foam...like a beer boil. Gotta run it slow.
I had a sip of the hearts the other day when I ran it ...twas 90% so I knocked it down 50% with water , has that nice barley taste. I'm gonna see how it oaks.
NChooch

Any updates on how these came out?

'ol one-bullet Barney isn't so crazy after all, huh?



Astro, I'm sure they all came out fine; it's simply a UJSM-style sugar wash, but using the spent malt from the all-grain mash, instead of cracked corn. I've been doing it for years and have mentioned it here a few times. Makes a damn fine drink! Sometimes I'll just do one generation, so no backset, but sometimes I'll take it to 2-3 generations using a lot, if not all, of the backset, so it becomes a form of sour mash at that point.

Just a simple, cheap way to put some variety on your shelf.

Now your thinkin Lincoln! that's about a 1.010 gravity in that grain there.

Ya , done a couple batches of this, most is still on oak, but one of the jars was enjoyed white ...prolly some of the best white I've ever had (smooth n tasty) . Highly recommended if you ever think of it while doing an all grain beer.

Props to 'ol one-bullet Barney

Barr-nee,,,,,, this here ain't got nuthin to do with you being crazy hahaha

So since this just came off a ferment, is there any need to add a new yeast starter? If I'm using 118 will it be strong enough to convert all of the sugar? Thanks

When I make this, the grain just came outa the mashtun...not a fermenter, so there's no yeast.

mbz250sl wrote:So since this just came off a ferment, is there any need to add a new yeast starter? If I'm using 118 will it be strong enough to convert all of the sugar? Thanks

I'm glad this one popped up again. I searched for this thread the other day.
I was wondering do you get any off flavors from the hulls?

Nchooch - I'm working on your tried and true recipe and really enjoy it - until I can build up some stock Ive ben adding a little sugar to boost my yields - just went from the mash tun to fermentation on the grain - was going to piggyback on the grain once the fermentation is complete and I'm ready to run it - plan is to strain off the grain, put the grain in a bucket add hot water and then add inverted sugar to get me back up to 25L - saw a post or two here they mentioned there would be enough yeast left on the grain to start back up again - does this sound correct? Am I going down the right path to piggyback or am I confused by reading too many different threads over the past few days?

Prairiepiss wrote:I'm glad this one popped up again. I searched for this thread the other day.
I was wondering do you get any off flavors from the hulls?

I have a bottle of this white that is very tasty .... I wouldn't say it's just hulls, right? ... it's typically 12 pounds of various barley for a craft beer that's been mashed for an hour and sparged .....there's definitely some starch and flavor left, and the flavor comes across real nice once it's run . It would prolly oak real nice to an irish style whiskey, but I aint tried it cause it's so good white.

mbz250sl wrote:Nchooch - I'm working on your tried and true recipe and really enjoy it - until I can build up some stock Ive ben adding a little sugar to boost my yields - just went from the mash tun to fermentation on the grain - was going to piggyback on the grain once the fermentation is complete and I'm ready to run it - plan is to strain off the grain, put the grain in a bucket add hot water and then add inverted sugar to get me back up to 25L - saw a post or two here they mentioned there would be enough yeast left on the grain to start back up again - does this sound correct? Am I going down the right path to piggyback or am I confused by reading too many different threads over the past few days?

thanks mbz
well typically, this was done with grain out of the mashtun , not grain out of a fermenter.
But there's no reason you couldn't give it a run with grain out of the fermenter...
you'll need to keep the heat down if you want to keep the yeast healthy (under 95)
and remember that the grain's gonna be somewhat sour from the ferment.
also keep in mind that the grain'll be double-spent after mashing and then fermenting .

I was wondering do you get any off flavors from the hulls?

I never thought about it, so thinking back, I have to say the answer is a definite "no". And more interestingly, the flip-side of the coin might be that the grain and hulls -add- good flavor, because I've noted more than once that, at least in the white, the "sugarhead" version was tastier than the original mash, once distilled.

Also, remember that nearly all commercial distillers ferment, and distill, on the grain. Nobody's complaining of "off-flavors" when they buy a bottle of mufti-hundred dollar whiskey.....

Thanks NcHooch - good thing I've started reading these post multiple times and asking more questions as i learn - looking for a good neutral spirit that isn't all sugar and thus thought the piggy back idea seemed like a good way to recycle and make me feel likel neutral wasn't all sugar - does the grain lose that much flavor/starch/sugar during the ferment - please excuse my lack of scientific knowledge as I just jumped into all grain recently - figured fermenting on the grain was more for convenience since it is a pain to separate prior to adding the yeast - will go reading, but what recipe are you using for your neutral spirits?

Greatly appreciate the sharing of knowledge

Thanks both NCHooch And Barney for the response. What got me thinking about it was the fact that everything you see for homebrew says the hulls can give you off flavors with temps. And fermenting on grains. But you don't see it much on this side. Well maybe the temp thing. But soon I will doing some heavy experimenting with it.

I don't know how Barney feels, but my guess is that the beer mash and sparge prolly takes about 80% of the starch and flavor out of the grain ...so, whatever's left goes in your piggyback recipe.

I typically don't go for a neutral , I just go for light flavor washes if I'm not making whiskeys ...
Gerber, Allbran, piggyback, and UJSSM all make nice white dawg.

Prairie, I hear ya about the off flavors for hulls, but isn't bran just grain hulls? ....I wouldn't make a beer out of bran, but Rad's allbran recipe sure is tasty ...I guess it doesn't seem to matter in distilling.

hope that helps

The bran is the outer layer of the grain itself. The hulls are the protective layer on the outside of the grain. The part that can be peeled off. Or falls off when rubbed in you hand.

I like this idea . I throw away so much grain... Would like chooks but them next door won't like that. Last night I made chocolate chip cookies with spent grain from a porter, but it only uses a few cups... Based on what unboiled grain mash does at my place, it must get a raging lacto ferment going after a while? It occurs to me that with the right timing, you could sparge a grainbed with hot backset as a second batch sparge....

I've been doing a similar thing at the moment with cider. Got given a trailer load of apples, so I built a cider press and got going. In the last few batches through the press, I've been saving the pulp, and chucking it into big bins with some extra pectinase, dextrose to bump it to 8% plus whatever is left in the pulp, and a neutral wine yeast. After leaving it to ferment for a month, there isn't actually much pulp left. I've been feeding it back to the press before distillation (because why not?), but I would have no worries distilling this on the pulp in a keg on a burner. Tastes pretty good white. Not quite as strong in flavour as the all-fruit stuff but pretty good nonetheless.

Brewing tonight so I'll have a play around with this.

I never even thought of sparging with some backset. That sounds like it could make it even more interesting. More stuff on the todo list. That freakin list is getting to long.

thanks astro for dragging this thread into 2012

now it's got me thinking...

what if once you have mashed you beer and drained the mash etc for beer you
1. add back some water to the mash tun and then add some un-malted corn / barley / wheat / boiled rice / sweet feed /or ?
2. let the original enzymes go to work on the "new mash" for a while
3. drain this / sparging etc maybe a bit of sugaz if you want
4. ferment this ?

will the enzymes still be working ?

i am just putting together a HERMS beer rig and can see myself having a play with that hot grain after the next beer mash-in

sounds like you're over-thinkin it Maheel...
Heat slowly denatures enzymes, so I wouldn't expect much by throwing any sort of unmalted grain in.

this is a good way to quickly get a sugar mash goin when you do an all-grain beer.
Quick, easy, and makes a damn fine spirit.