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I'm doing Uncle Jesse's recipe, since it fermented out pretty well the other two times I tried it. Sadly, the still never got built because of other things but this time, we've got it all ready to go. The first time I did the recipe I used beer yeast, didn't start if first, and didn't aerate it that well, but it worked nevertheless.

The second time I did it with someone else, we used Lalvin EC-1110 champagne yeast, started it, and aerated it thoroughly. This time it really took off, the head on top was at least an inch and a half thick, it was bubbling vigorously, and it was really alcoholic at the end, though a bit of a different flavor than the other stuff with the ale yeast.

The only question I had was, the champagne yeast says that it takes a week, and from what I saw, it does indeed take a week to quiet down. But in the Making Pure Corn Whiskey book, it says to stop it at 4 days no matter what, since the esters that lend flavor to beer/wine are not good for making whiskey. Although after 4 days of the Lalvin, it was still fermenting like there was no tomorrow. So should I chill it after 4 days to stop it, or will it taste just fine if I let it run the whole 7 days? Or pick up some distiller's yeast (wherever the hell that is)?

You pretty much get to decide based on what tastes good to you. You only get to know this by doing it a lot of times...(even then you can get confused...) You'll find the whole range of opinion here. If you're new to fermenting then I'd say let it ferment till its done. If your mash has a pleasant smell then the distillate will too. (this is not a hard and fast rule....but in general...) Deciding when to run it based on how it will taste is probably way out on the learning curve. I'm not there yet...

Don't chill it, let it ferment till it stops... its usually obvious... all the floaters drop... the airlock stops bubbling... 6 months have gone by...

learning how to use a hydrometer is a surefire way to know when to run, and to make it repeateable.

i let it ferment until it's done, almost always. why? because i figure that's how most moonshiners did it and i try to be authentic where possible.

as for esther formation, it's a tradeoff between higher proof (and thus greater output) or a flavor preference. experiment, experiment, experiment.