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Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2011 9:13 pm
by poyboy11
Hey people thanks for being so helpful.
I'm attempting making a Tennessee style whiskey from scratch from some corn, wheat and barely that i have growing in the back yard.
I have around 30 corn plants, 2sq.meters of wheat, and one sq.meter of barely.
I know that Tennessee whiskey is meant to be 80% corn, 12%wheat and 8% barley, but though i have researched it vigorously on Google i cannot find the total weight of grains so cant make the mash.
Anybody who knows a recipe that would be great and also any tips on growing and malting the grains that would be great too. The corn only just started germinating about two weeks ago so im hoping it'll all be ready by somewhere mid summer (here in NZ)
Re: Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 1:44 am
by rtalbigr
All the recipes I've seen for Tennessee whisky use rye, not wheat, but that's neither here nor there. Ya need to figure your mash at 1.5-2 lbs grain/gal of water. So if your gonna do 10 gal you'll need 15-20 lbs a grain. Using 80% corn, saccrification will be difficult. Malted corn will only converter the corn so I'd suggest your wheat and barley be malted as well.
Big R
Re: Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 5:28 am
by Tater
rtalbigr wrote:. Malted corn will only converter the corn .
Big R
rtalbigr Where did you get this info at? And poyboy11 read parent site link at top center right of page. There is a section for grains .Took this off it---
American whiskey
North American whiskies are all-grain spirits that have been produced from a mash that usually mixes together corn, rye, wheat, barley and other grains in different proportions, the resulting distillate then generally aged in wooden barrels. These barrels may be new or used, and charred or uncharred on the inside, depending on the type of whiskey being made. The U.S. government requires that all whiskies have to be made from a grain mash and be distilled at 90%abv or less. The whisky has to be reduced to no more than 62.5%abv before being aged in new oak barrels (American white oak) and then be bottled at no more than 40%abv.
Re: Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 5:32 am
by rad14701
poyboy11, I don't think you'll end up with enough grain to make more than a gallon or two of mash, if that...
Re: Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 6:29 am
by NcHooch
I never heard of wheat in whiskeys (traditional amarican whiskeys)
I'd think you'd want to use a recipe similar to bourbon...
to make a 10 gallon wash, you could use
12 pounds cracked corn
4 pounds malted barley
4 pounds malted rye
(or somethin like that)
If you have backset, use some in the mash (20% ?)
mash as usual (shoot for a total volume of 12.5 gallons )
ferment as usual
distill at no more than 80% abv
( JD runs their distilate through maple charcoal ....
....not sure what Dickel does )
then you age with new charred white Oak.
hope that helps,
NChooch
Re: Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 1:35 pm
by rtalbigr
Tater wrote:rtalbigr wrote:. Malted corn will only converter the corn .
Big R
rtalbigr Where did you get this info at? And poyboy11 read parent site link at top center right of page. There is a section for grains .Took this off it---
American whiskey
North American whiskies are all-grain spirits that have been produced from a mash that usually mixes together corn, rye, wheat, barley and other grains in different proportions, the resulting distillate then generally aged in wooden barrels. These barrels may be new or used, and charred or uncharred on the inside, depending on the type of whiskey being made. The U.S. government requires that all whiskies have to be made from a grain mash and be distilled at 90%abv or less. The whisky has to be reduced to no more than 62.5%abv before being aged in new oak barrels (American white oak) and then be bottled at no more than 40%abv.
Wasn't fully awake and that just came out wrong Tater. What I meant was that malted corn has a pretty low diastic power, generally enough to convert itself and not much more. So my suggestion was by having the other grains malted as well would give a much better saccrification.
Do'nt ask me for a reference cuz I can't give ya one, just remember reading it somewhere.
As far as the recipe itself I've never seen a Tennessee whisky made with wheat, I am fairly certain that both Jack Daniels and Dickel both use corn/rye/barley in the approximate ratio given in the initial post. That's not to say wheat won't make a good bourbon and I'll find out soon as I have a grain bill already laid out for 64% corn/36% wheat.
JD does filter through maple charcoal prior to barreling. I need to get over there and do the tour at Lynchburg, it's just a few hours from the house.
Big R
Re: Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 9:00 pm
by poyboy11
I don't think il be able to get any maple charcoal.. I'm thinking mixing it with some activated carbon and filtering off after a couple of hours (maybe less) then adding a little maple syrup might get a similar effect.
And i should probably find out how much yield you get from 2Square meters off wheat.. Does anybody know?
Re: Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 3:34 am
by Odin
Maybe active carbon filtering is not the best. Takes away taste from a whiskey. Now, part of the reason JD has to do this, is because they distill in a continuous process, making it difficult to seperate heads/tails. The maple charcoil filtering is needed to get nasties out of the taste. The bad alcohols are not extracted, BTW. I just made an enquiry on using maple sirup and got possitive feed back. Put it in your drink for testing. Establish what you like in terms of how many mls per liter, then add it to your ageing product. Filter before bottling. I will start with 2 mls per liter and if that is not enough, I will up it to 4. Heared someone who consistantly puts in 6 mls per liter. It boiles down to taste preferences in the end, I guess.
Odin.
Re: Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 6:13 am
by Usge
The kind of charcoal filtering that JDaniels uses is not using activated charcoal. They just burn wood down to charcoal and use that to filter with.
Here's a good definition I found on the web for activated charcoal (which is used in all sorts of filtering devices, ie., water, etc):
Charcoal is carbon. Activated charcoal is charcoal that has been treated with oxygen to open up millions of tiny pores between the carbon atoms. According to Encylopedia Britannica:
The use of special manufacturing techniques results in highly porous charcoals that have surface areas of 300-2,000 square metres per gram. These so-called active, or activated, charcoals are widely used to adsorb odorous or coloured substances from gases or liquids.
The word adsorb is important here. When a material adsorbs something, it attaches to it by chemical attraction. The huge surface area of activated charcoal gives it countless bonding sites. When certain chemicals pass next to the carbon surface, they attach to the surface and are trapped.
Activated charcoal is good at trapping other carbon-based impurities ("organic" chemicals), as well as things like chlorine. Many other chemicals are not attracted to carbon at all -- sodium, nitrates, etc. -- so they pass right through. This means that an activated charcoal filter will remove certain impurities while ignoring others. It also means that, once all of the bonding sites are filled, an activated charcoal filter stops working. At that point you must replace the filter.
Quoted text from "HowStuffWorks".com
There are also ways to treat used activated charcoal (with heat) to refurbish it from what I understand. So, anyway, just wanted to clarify...that the "charcoal filtering" JD does, is inherently different.
(Edited to add). According to Nixon/McCraw (The Complete Distiller), the "attraction" is more of a "physical" process...ie., the impurities bond with the surface not because of chemical adherence, but because they are physically trapped in the nooks and crannies that they fit into.
Re: Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 6:16 am
by Odin
+1 Usge!
Re: Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 9:17 am
by rad14701
poyboy11 wrote:And i should probably find out how much yield you get from 2Square meters off wheat.. Does anybody know?
Less than 500mg by weight or 600ml by volume of wheat by my calculations... You might only get half that considering the small plot...
Re: Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 12:42 pm
by kiwistiller
Where in NZ are you, poyboy?
The best way to increase your yeild while still maintaining at least a little bit of that "from scratch" vibe is to use all the grain you grow for malting, and use feedstore grains for the bulk of the starch. Cheap way to go, too.
Another idea would be to swap some labour for some grain with a local farmer.... if you work on it, it counts as from scratch, right?
Re: Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2011 5:35 pm
by poyboy11
rad14701 wrote:poyboy11 wrote:And i should probably find out how much yield you get from 2Square meters off wheat.. Does anybody know?
Less than 500mg by weight or 600ml by volume of wheat by my calculations... You might only get half that considering the small plot...
Your telling me im going to get half a gram of wheat per 2 meters? Fairly sure il be getting somewhere around that per spike of wheat
Re: Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2011 6:07 pm
by Dnderhead
i fingered in my head,,about 1 lb/1/2 kg per sq miter.this can very depending how it taking care of.
Re: Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2011 6:21 pm
by rad14701
poyboy11 wrote:rad14701 wrote:poyboy11 wrote:And i should probably find out how much yield you get from 2Square meters off wheat.. Does anybody know?
Less than 500mg by weight or 600ml by volume of wheat by my calculations... You might only get half that considering the small plot...
Your telling me im going to get half a gram of wheat per 2 meters? Fairly sure il be getting somewhere around that per spike of wheat
Metrics aren't my units of measure... Make that 500 grams, 1/2 kilo... I calculated down from US measurements of yield per acre and converted to metric...
Re: Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2011 8:56 pm
by Prairiepiss
Usge wrote:The kind of charcoal filtering that JDaniels uses is not using activated charcoal. They just burn wood down to charcoal and use that to filter with.
They don't just burn it down to charcoal. They burn it to the charcoal state. In a very hot flame. The flames would no doubt be consuming all the oxygen from the interior of the fire. Then they spray it with water. So it doesn't completely burn to ash. My question is. By them spraying it while it is still hot. Steam would be created inside and outside the charcoal. Would this not activate it to a certain point?
Here's a good definition I found on the web for activated charcoal (which is used in all sorts of filtering devices, ie., water, etc):
Charcoal is carbon. Activated charcoal is charcoal that has been treated with oxygen to open up millions of tiny pores between the carbon atoms. According to Encylopedia Britannica:
Treating with oxygen is not the only process. There are chemical processes and oxygenated processes. The oxygenated process generally involves making of the charcoal in a extremely hot environment lacking oxygen. Then while still very hot oxygen is introduced via steam water or oxygen. Are a few that I have found reference to. This being introduced into the charcoal and expands causing the pockets to form. Thus making it more porous.
So, anyway, just wanted to clarify...that the "charcoal filtering" JD does, is inherently different.
So I'm just asking if activated carbon can be made by steam injection and or water injection? Is the way JD makes their charcoal not making a type of activated charcoal (carbon) ? It may not be as activated as a mass produced one. But I would think it would be more effective then just plain charcoal.
I could be way off? And I'm sory for going back off topic. But it is part of the Lincoln County Process of making Tennessee Whiskey. And these thoughts have been running through my head for a while now. So I needed to ask.
Oh yeah and you will need someone to send you some spring water from Tennessee for your Tennessee Whiskey. 
Re: Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2011 9:06 pm
by junkyard dawg
wasn't somebody selling some Tennessee water extract?
Re: Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2011 9:15 pm
by Prairiepiss
junkyard dawg wrote:wasn't somebody selling some Tennessee water extract?
How do you concentrate water????
Re: Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2011 9:20 pm
by junkyard dawg
he's gonna make millions
Re: Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2011 10:00 pm
by Prairiepiss
Damn! I wish I would of thought of that. I would be the Tennessee water tycoon by now.
Re: Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2011 12:31 pm
by Usge
Yall all gonna be rich
P,
I don't have any inside info on JD. But, as far as I've read/seen (that's all I know), making activated charcoal is a different process —and burning wood down to coals outside then spraying it with water wouldn't be the same. The two step mechanical process you mentioned has to first reduce the material down to a "carbon" (ie., as in free of oxygen and hydrogen elements) skeleton...not burned wood. Basically, it's one step removed from incineration. They then use oxygen environment to increase the pore volume. The end result is called activated charcoal. As far as I can tell, the charcoal that JD is using is burned wood that they stop from burning all the way to ash. Don't think that's the same thing.
Having said that, I would imagine filtering through small bits of alligator char wood would have some effect on the whiskey none-the-less. It certainly does in a barrel.
Re: Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2011 12:39 pm
by rtalbigr
From what I've read Usge is correct. JD is filtering through maple charcoal that is not activated. Also, as I understand the bed is pretty deep. I think it takes a couple of days for the distillate to make it through the charcoal bed. They have a circulating wand that drips the stuff.
Big R
Re: Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2011 12:56 pm
by wendellbaker
I took a tour of their distillery a few years back, right after they released their 80 proof whiskey. I stopped drinking it on principal that day. I bought the stuff growing up because of that extra 6 proof! Of course old timers tell me it used to be even higher proof than 86.
They set a stack of what look like pallets 25-30 feet high and start a ragin' fire. At some precise point in the burn, they douse it, crumble it and transfer it to huge cylindrical vats. I'm talking 30 or 40 feet wide and two stories high. Rtalbigr is right, after they distill it, they use long rotating wands and drip, drip, drip such a minuscule amount at any one time, it's hard to believe it's enough. The charcoal is so thick that it takes a full 24-30 hours for the initial drips to make it through. Obviously, this has some effect, they call it "charcoal mellowing." My guess is that it masks a somewhat inferior initial distillate with the char flavor and yes, they claim that the process sucks some of the impurities we are all familiar with as heads and tails.
It's quite a tour, despite the fact that it's a dry county. The storage rooms (warehouses) are impressive as anything. Long rows of huge barrels stacked three high for four stories and as long as the eye can see. I was staring for so long, the tour actually left me and my ladyfriend in there all alone. She got a picture of me, I climbed all the way up to the top floor. Shame I left that picture with her in Utah.
Dehydrated Tennessee water? Now that's a niche market! Any chemists/alchemists out there know how to ship H2 and O?
Re: Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2011 6:09 pm
by WalkingWolf
wendellbaker wrote: . . . . . know how to ship H2 and O?
It's a stretch and really not worth the effort.
Re: Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2011 10:42 am
by oldnbroke
NcHooch wrote:I never heard of wheat in whiskeys (traditional amarican whiskeys)
NChooch
Selectively copied the following from Wikipedia:
Maker’s Mark is a small batch bourbon whiskey that is distilled in Loretto, Kentucky by Fortune Brands.
Maker's Mark is unusual in that no rye is used as part of the mash. Instead red winter wheat is used, along with corn (the predominant grain) and malted barley. During the planning phase of Maker's Mark, Samuels developed seven candidate mash bills for the new bourbon. As he did not have time to distill and age each one for tasting, he instead made a loaf of bread from each recipe and the one with no rye was judged the best tasting.
Re: Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2011 12:12 pm
by NcHooch
oldnbroke wrote:NcHooch wrote:I never heard of wheat in whiskeys (traditional amarican whiskeys)
NChooch
Selectively copied the following from Wikipedia:
Maker’s Mark is a small batch bourbon whiskey that is distilled in Loretto, Kentucky by Fortune Brands.
Maker's Mark is unusual in that no rye is used as part of the mash. Instead red winter wheat is used, along with corn (the predominant grain) and malted barley. During the planning phase of Maker's Mark, Samuels developed seven candidate mash bills for the new bourbon. As he did not have time to distill and age each one for tasting, he instead made a loaf of bread from each recipe and the one with no rye was judged the best tasting.
thats just plain silly choosing your whiskey grainbill by makin bread out of it,
...just goes to show, it prolly don't matter that much.
NChooch
Re: Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2011 1:03 pm
by Odin
I saw a tv documentary on JD not long ago. They use a continuous still that produces 140 proof white dog. The filtering thru the maple charcoil is meant to get rid of a lot of the heads smell & taste. As I understood from another thread on HD, the actual lower & higher end alcs stay, but esters/congeners are taken out. So it is not like using activated coal to get less taste, it is aimed at reducing heads smell & taste, if I read well what was said between the lines, that is.
Odin.
Re: Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2011 1:56 pm
by Dnderhead
charcoal is much milder type of filter than activated carbon. both help to remove feints/tales not heads/fores.the lower alcohols are not attracted to either.the higher ones are.
Re: Making a tenessee whisky from scratch
Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2011 2:03 pm
by Odin
Thanks for correcting me, Dndrhead!
I remember telling myself, seeing the documentary: so, since they are continuous distilling without any heads/tails seperation, the maple bed is used to out the ... congeners. Tails it is, not heads.
Odin.