Home Distiller

Hi folks I’m totally new to this and needed some help/advice.

I been home craft beer brewing for a few years I decided to try my hand at making some shine. I culled together some instructions and tips for making my first mash from some video resources and sites.

I found these to be most helpful:

http://accomplishedidler.blogspot.com/2 ... art-2.html

http://www.clawhammersupply.com/blogs/m ... key-recipe

http://howtomakebooze.com/how-to-make-moonshine

So I decided to try to make my first batch. I thought everything was going really well until I realized that I might have made a big mistake in making the mash. In my haste and excitement and reading the instructions wrong. I used crushed barley and the sugar instead of the malted barley!!! DOH! I’m already a week into fermentation and everything appears to look and smell fine according to the instructions. However with my oversight did I mess up my batch and have to dump or will I be fine to go and and distill?

I used 5lbs of regular yellow cornmeal instead of crushed corn, 5lbs of regular white sugar, 2lbs of crushed barley from the home brew shop, and 5 gallons of distilled water if that makes a difference.

I bought a couple pounds of the dry malted barley today for a new batch to do it the right way next time. But what say you about this one?

Thank you in advance for the advice

Take care folks!

What you made is a sugar head recipe. Look under the tried and true section for good recipes. What you have is similar to the uncle Jessie's simple sour mash or ujssm. All is not lost!
When you get ready to run it keep the grain and yeast trub in the bottom of the fermenter and quickly cover it back up with water. After distilling, take a gallon of what's left in the still and use it to dissolve 7 lb of sugar and add cool water then put it in the fermenter and top the fermenter up with water.
That will work for 5-6 cycles with no additional grains added. Then trash it and follow a recipe from the tried and true section.
The stuff left in the still after distilling is backset,its very useful. You now have a source of back set. See, you didn't mess up too bad! Plus you will get drink out ta what you have fermenting.
Check out uncle Jessie's simple sour mash recipe,and jimbo's single malt recipe, both in t&t section. Save some of that backset to use in the single malt recipe.
Also check out a post called "a little spoonfeeding for newbies" by cranky. It can be found in the new distillers reading lounge or in a lot of members signature line.
Good luck, and remembering- safety before whiskey!

It's just like making beer. Have you done all grain with your beer yet? The malt in the recipe you gave is just for a bit of flavor anyway. Forget all those sites you listed or saw and do the bills in the tried and true. Just make a good type of beer and instead of hopping it and carbonating it, you dehydrate it.