Help needed UJSM Sour Mash Alpha Amalayse & oven cooking.

[rookie]

I read somewhere that the commercial product that most closely resembled UJSM was Beam's Choice, you know the green labelled stuff, by far and away my favourite of those Bourbons I have tasted. So I started reading and came across PintOShines "Double fermented sour mash" This fitted the bill, being the impatient type as I wanted to try now and not do 5 batches before I could sample. So after converting the figures to metric I covered 4 kgs of corn to two and a half depths in a fermenter to later add 4kgs of sugar for a 24 litre mash. I was a little concerned about the 8:1 weight ratio (corn/malt) as my malt, Simpson's Malt Golden Promise, only had a diastatic power of about 150 which as I understand allows my malt to convert about 4 times it's own weight. But hey corn is different to malt and that DP figure as far as I know only applies to unmalted grain - wheat, barley, rye etc..

Now whilst the corn is souring, (is that the correct term?) I continue to read and come across a download, again by PintOshine about Sour Mash (genuine sour mash this time with no sugar added for alcohol) and in the back of my mind is the comment by Uncle Jesse that he used to make UJSM until he mastered the cooking of corn. Now I ask myself the question if UJ of UJSM fame discards UJSM -

Q1).Is Sour Mash that much better than UJSM?

Never having tasted either or any, I don't know maybe someone out there could answer this for me. But I digress, this new recipe has a better (to me) ratio of corn to grain (4:1) and PintOshine states that this ratio aids more complete conversion which fits with my thoughts. I do note PintOshine now says try 4 smaller sour mash starters presumably in case some don't make it and I think SH one T - What if my one and only fails to make it? But that is in the future.

Now as I read the (Sour Mash with Steam) download I realise that I have a small difference to the suggested plan in so much that I am not using a starter and that all the corn of the grain bill is, in fact, already souring away. So help please.

Q2).Does this matter?

On further reading I note that the corn is withdrawn from the soured water, the soured water boiled with the addition of yeast and then the corn re-added (doughed in) to 180F soured water and allowed to cool to 154F for the alpha amylase rest. Now this gives rise to a couple of questions.

Q3). As my corn has already gone through a preferment(?) can I skip this boil, add my yeast for taste and nutrients to the mash and bring directly to temperature?

Q3). I abandoned my plans to build a steam cooker on the advice of another poster on this forum. He said steam cooking would not and could not work BUT that is, by the bye, the point is, I have no steamer at this point in time - I was wondering if, as I have a smaller mash volume, could I place this in a pot in my oven and heat there? Has anyone tried this? Has anyone any thoughts?

I know from all grain brewing the infusion water for the mash is raised to a temperature that when added to the grain gives a strike temperature 151F for the alpha amylase to do its' work and if you go lower say 142F for the beta amylase to do its work as in malt whisky more sugars are converted to fermentable sugars (with malt whisky I usually go sub 1.000 FSG from 1.080 SG) but adding a beta amylase rest in beer brewing ruins the final product as the product becomes too dry due to a lack of sugar, - So the question is -

Q4). Would there be any advantage to doing a 142 rest prior to 154 (for greater alcohol production) or are the unfermentable sugars that will remain in the wash by omitting the beta amylase rest an integral part of the final flavour as in beer?

Any and all help will be greatly appreciated - Thanks to PintOShine for the original posts

[Boda Getta]

I love UJSSM, especially after aging on oak. The advantages of UJ for newbies are its easy to make and the ingredients are inexpensive and readily available. But it is still a sugar head type of whiskey, albeit favored with corn (I often add some malted barley); I'm not sure it will stand up to a true all grain mast whiskey. I suspect most would start with one of the sugar washes, get comfortable with it, then progress to all grain. In reading your post, I would add that only the first generation of UJ is a sweet mast whiskey, subsequent generations are sour mast because you use the back-set and lees (yeast bed) in the following batches and IMHO this is much easier than using the double sour method. What I have done several times when I have suspended my UJ production to run some neutral or whatever and have no back-set or lees, is so start a quick 5 gal batch of UJ, run it and then use the back-set and lees to make up my normal 24 gal. I then add the sweet mast low wines to the first stripping run of the sour mast UJ. If fact, I have a 5 gal pail now that I will run Thur or Fri, then immediately get a 24 gal batch of sour mast UJ going to run the first of Oct.

Good Luck

BG

[junkyard dawg]

He said steam cooking would not and could not work

Why would anyone think that? Its used all the time in hobby scale all the way to industrial scale.

I would not skip that boil step.

The question of whether or not unfermented sugars contribute to the flavor of the distillate. I believe they do. Your distillate is going to carry much of the character of the mash or wash... it only follows that those flavors will carry over too. Quantifying that carryover in an all grain mash is pretty hard to do unless you do a lot of similar runs and constantly tweek the mashing.

Cooking corn properly and getting a decent yield is the first order of business. Tweeking the mashing temps to adjust for residual sugars is just not something many stillers worry about. Most just aim for the highest yield... Its already a ton of work to make a gallon of whiskey so every little bit helps.

[rookie]

Thanks guys

All much appreciated.

Also I am going back to my steam cooking project.

Might just do a back to back with just an alpha amylase rest and another batch with both alpha and beta rests. See if I can taste a difference. I will report back in time.

Regards
Rookie