Home Distiller

I am a firm believer in corn and malted barley for ingredients and nuclear "aging"! Here is this past week's efforts!

Three mashes of 70% TSC cracked corn with high temp enzyme at 190 df and 30% crushed two row stirred in at 145 df, held for 2 hours in insulated cooler mash tun to starch conversion with iodine test. Ran off through false bottom in mash tun, bumped OG from 55 to 80 with sugar, aerated, and fermented with EC 1118 down to FG 0.990, so we have a 10.6% wash. All stripped, combined, diluted to 40% and ran spirit run. Yield after eliminating 4 pints of heads of 15 pints at 70%, diluted to 40% with 11 pints of water, a little over three gallons of white dog.

I do the nuclear "aging" a little different than the the OP, I put 1/2 cup plus of JD chips in a quart jar, and based on experience with my microwave, I nuke for 6 minutes - OP nuked before dilution, and for 2 minutes only, he must have a high powered microwave! Cool with lid in place to create vacuum in jar, repeat two more times for total of 18 minutes. Not only is the color change amazing, so is the flavor and aroma that develops after nuking three times, The three jars in the photo left to right are white dog and JD chips before nuking, after nuking once and after three nuking 3 times with chips removed. This will be left alone for four months in the jars, but it is good enough to drink pretty much right away by me. You might be skeptical, but how would you know until you give it a try?

Not skeptical. Just apprehensive. I can f^ck up a solid iron block.
This nuclear aging is in my sights for an all 2-row in the somewhat future.
Good to see your photos for convincing evidence.

fizzix wrote:Not skeptical. Just apprehensive. I can f^ck up a solid iron block.
This nuclear aging is in my sights for an all 2-row in the somewhat future.
Good to see your photos for convincing evidence.

Yeah, the photo kind of tells the whole story, well, you can't taste or smell anything just by the photo, but those qualities sort of follow the color change. One thought, start with the 2 minute nuke and repeat as needed to get the temp of the product up to or over 150 df. I no longer measure the temp, since I know my microwave pretty well now, and it takes 6 minutes for me but maybe I just have a wimpy old microwave!

And here is the almost final product! Eleven quarts of good looking, good smelling and good tasting un-aged whisky except for each quart being nuked three times with JD chips! I will use one of the quarts to top off the other ten, then put the rest of that quart in the liquor cabinet, and the other ten in the garage to age for about four months or longer if I can leave it alone. I count this as a success, with the only thing I would like to improve being the amount of liquid remaining in the corn after the run-off. Not interested in pressing, but I think a different high temp enzyme might do better at breaking the corn down, thoughts on that?