I have a question about fermenting.

pangea · Post by **pangea** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 6:05 pm

Very original topic, huh?

I mashed 50# of cracked rye and 10# of malted barley as per instructions. Water 5" over the top of the grain and heated to 145 degrees for 7 hours. The iodine test was hit or miss. Finally got very little change in color with iodine after 7 hours. Siphoned the wort from the mash and wound up with 30 gallons of wort. Boiled it for one hour. When it cooled to approx 70 degrees I added four packets of the right kind of yeast. The wort had a nice head, bubbling along and looking and smelling much like the wash at the Jack Daniels distillerydown the road from me. The next day the head was gone and no bubbling action was present. My son checked it with a hydrometer and it measured 7%.

My question is- Is this normal for such a quick reaction? Will the alcohol content increase or is that all I get? My son said it needs aireating(sp).

Any ideas, opinions, silly responses will be appreciated. More questions will definitly follow.

Yttrium · Post by **Yttrium** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 6:57 pm

60 lbs of grain....hmm... are you planning on getting one of Jack Daniel's used barrels to age your whiskey in? In a few of your runs you could probably fill one. I'd probably end up doing something crazy like that if I lived near a distillery

Anyway, the speed of the fermentation depends on the yeast, type of wort, temperature, and a couple of other things I can't remember right now. If you're concerned that all the sugar hasn't been fermented, the easiest way to tell is to take a sip of your wash. If it's sweet, it needs to ferment more. If you're concerned about drinking yeast, a quick heating of a shot glass worth of wash will kill anything nasty in it.

AkCoyote · Post by **AkCoyote** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 9:15 pm

Since you are asking this kind of question, I have to assume that you have not made a 30 gal wash before. I strongly suggest that you scale your recipe back to 5 gal or less and then experiment and see what works. I'm currently doing a wash of 5# malted barley syrup and 5# sugar for a total of about 2.5 gal. Making 30 gal without knowing what will happen is asking for trouble. Follow the advice you got and if it's sweet, add more yeast. If not, run it and see what ya got. Good Luck!

AkCoyote

pangea · Post by **pangea** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 2:28 am

Ok, this yeast packet says "WD-yeast 23 grams" on it. Maybe we didn't put enough. I thought that if you didn't add enough yeast it would just take longer to ferment. The yeast would grow and take care of bidness.

My reference to JD was to let y'all know that the mash smelled beer like not to imply that my end result was to have a rye whiskey that taste like JD.

The comment about using a 55 gallon JD barrel puzzles me. 30 gallons of wash at 10% alcohol should yield 6 gallons of drinking whiskey, right? I'm going to the sawmill and getting a whiteoak plank to saw up into fingers. They will be toasted and placed in quart mason jars with the whiskey. After one month I will start tasting to check for flavor.

30 gallons may seem like a lot to start out with but I tend to go over board on any project that I do. 50# sacks of grain and large vessels just seem to go together. I already had the big pots from back when I used to boil large amounts of crawfish at a time.

Thanks for the help.