Home Distiller

I've started an experiment to make Irish Whiskey from ingredients found at the supermarket. This is a no cook, sour mash style recipe similar to UJSM.

Here's the ingredients -

2.5 kg hulled or pot barley
0.25Kg flaked rye
2 Kg white sugar
65g (about 1/3 cup) active dry yeast.
Enough filtered water to fill to 21-22L

Everything I've read indicates that Irish Whiskey is made from barley. Of course, it's a blend of malted/unmalted barley. Since this is a no cook style, I've added hulled barley and white sugar. Your basic Jameson Irish Whiskey is a blend of whiskeys (made from other grains) so I've added a bit of flaked rye.

First I added barley, rye and sugar into the carboy -



Topped up with filtered water and mixed very vigorously. I have a mixer that I attach to a power drill and this gets the job done ASAP. If you using a spoon, mix mix and then mix some more. Mix some more and when your arm is tired mix even more - that's how much this gets mixed.

Sprinkle active dry yeast (baker's yeast) on top. Put air lock on.



Didn't take long (maybe an hour) for a cap to form. I gentle shake or swirl the carboy to fold the cap back in. I'll fold the cap in maybe every 4 hours or so.

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Distillation

I'm going for less then 8% ABV wash (the sugar I add gives it less the 6%). I'll do stripping runs to collect low wines. I'll backset after each stripping run just like the USJM method. Once I've collected enough low wines, I'm thinking of using my still in fractionating mode - or I might double distill. Haven't decided yet, I'll know more as I taste the stripping runs. I'm going for the triple distilled Irish Whiskey smoothness.

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Aging

I've read that Jameson is aged in used Oloroso sherry oak barrels. Oloroso from what I understand is a premium sherry made in Spain. I bought a bottle of Walnut Brown Oloroso cherry. I put some medium and a few heavy toasted (ratio 4 medium to 1 heavy) oak chips a mason jar. Filled it with the Oloroso sherry. I'll let this sit for awhile to simulate the used oak barrel that Jameson uses.



Once these chips have been aged, I'll dry them out and use them to age the final product.

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That's my experiment, should be interesting how it turns out.

I'll be interested to hear your results.

My father inlaw has helped me with the soldering on my still, so I have promised him some irish whiskey once I have a couple of batches of UJSM laying down.

Be sure and post your results.


Cheers

Well it's fermenting quite well. The flaked rye keeps getting blown over the foam at the top and I'm swishing around the carboy to 'fold' it back into the wash.

I haven't bothered with any SG readings as these don't tell you much (as I've read). But, I took a pH reading - it's at 4.5 From what I've read this is within the 4.5-5.5 range where the enzymes in the yeast can break down the starch in the grains. Tomorrow, I'll pick up some beano and add 3-4 drops to help this process along.

I've decided not to run this wash as a continuos sour mash. Instead I'll backset twice (for a total of 3 batches) and not replace any of the grains that get spent as described in Ian Smiley's book as the Intermitted Sour mash cycle.

Got some beano tablets. Could not find it in liquid form. I crushed two beano tablets and added it tonight. We'll see if the enzymes in the beano does it's magic (of course I don't have a wash going without beano to compare )

I have found that the Sherry Soaked Oak tends to deliver a more Bushmills-like flavour than Jameson. Bushmills is aged in sherry casks. I had heard that Jameson had a contract with Jim Beam to get their old bourbon casks for aging. This makes sense to me since Jameson tends to taste like dilute bourbon to me.

All I do right now is an all grain malt whiskey. My pot is only 6 gallons so I can't call it single malt- a gallon of product takes 3 separate batches. I add additional amylase and 2-4 beano tablets dissolved in about 1/8 cup of water for the ferment. I'm still perfecting my mashing technique and the Beano reduces some of the limit dextrins really well.

I am interested in how your no-cook method turns out.

I had good results with a no-cook that just used liquid malt extract or dry extract from my local brewshop.

Let us know how it works

Interesting, I'll have to do a Bushmills / Jameson side by side taste test. I'm sure I'll enjoy the process.

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This morning the ferment had stopped. I did a stripping run tonight. I took 14L of wash out of the carboy. I left some wash in the carboy covering the barley - here's a pic-



I stripped this down to zero ABV (give or take) and ended up with 2.2 L of 34% ABV distillate. So from my calculations

2.2L x 34% / 14L = 5.34% ABV wash. hmmm.... is this right? Doesn't seem much of the starch got converted to sugar with the beano - if any.

Anyways, wash tasted tasty, distillate seemed to taste pretty good - these are 'relative' tastes - I certainly wouldn't call it Irish whiskey or actually drink it . But so far I'm encouraged.

I took 7L of backset, added 2Kg of sugar, topped up with filtered water. Let it cool and then put it back in the carboy for round 2 of the ferment.

GBM,

beano does not convert starch. It simply breaks down the complex sugars into less complex sugars. I think one of its strong points, is in molasses washes. I have not tried, but with all the unfermentable sugars in there, I think it "should" work better here than in other places.

H.

Ok cool.

I also read in Ian Smiley's book that some of the starch will get converted with the yeast when describing his no cook sour mash. Of course he's talking about corn not barley so I don't know if that makes a difference. Also, I misunderstood the word 'grist' - I missed the definition on the homepage and took it to mean unhulled - when it also means 'cracked' in several pieces. Don't know if these items affect anything in that regard.

I was curious to see if I would see any starch conversion at all. It would seem there was none.

There certainly might be some conversion. There might also be some complex sugars already in the corn, that the beano is working on. I really can not say, as I have not used beano at all up to this point. To have any idea, I think you would want to do 2 or 3 washes that are EXACTLY the same recipe, temp, yeast, amount of yeast, etc, and observe if there was any difference you could tell. I think that one batch of each would be too "risky" to know for sure. One of them might have had a small infection that changed (or consumed) some of the quality. Thus, 2 or 3 that were consistant and different would tell you there was "some" improvement.. 2 or 3 that were identical, would tell you it aint worth spit (well, spit does have enzimes, so it might be worth less than spit )

H.

I've come to the conclusion that I've put too much backset for the second wash. It is fermenting very slowly. To slow for my patience level. I'm going to abort the second wash and start over.

Live and learn

Just adjust the ph, It will take off again.

If you did not use enzymes/ malt you wold not have much convertion ,your just making something like UJSM .Yeast will convert some but I thank
its a mater of survival on there part also your grain should have bin broken

Yeah, I've read there would be some conversion from the yeast. But I didn't break the barley. Next run I've 'grist' or crack or the barley and see what happens.

Looking to develop a simple recipe for Irish Whiskey with supermarket items - if it's possible.

ph after backsetting was 3.9. A roll of Tums (peppermint flavor) raised it to 4.1. Didn't do too much. Wouldn't want to add any more Tums to the wash.

Starting over is better. Fresh experiment

Your grain could be still good cut some open and see if starch is still there . also you could cook the grain that should make a difference

Sodium BiCarbonate is available in the baking aisle, it'll do a better job of lifting ph than you antacids.

Added some sodium bicarb.

You forgot the 'watch out it might foam over'. Had a little moping to do

ph is at 5.0

GingerBreadMan wrote:Added some sodium bicarb.

You forgot the 'watch out it might foam over'. Had a little moping to do

ph is at 5.0

Oh yeah....



WatchOutItMightFoamPunkin

It seems to be fermenting ok. I like faster ferments then it's doing now, but I'll keep an eye on it and run it. About one bubble every two seconds.

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Started another batch. This time I omitted the flaked rye and only used 1.5 kg of pot barley. I cooked the barley like I would make a soup and then put it through the food processor to 'grist' it. Going to see if it makes a difference, if the baker's yeast has any potential to do starch conversion. If there is no starch conversion and the barley is just adding flavor, then I would guess 1Kg is all that is needed, maybe less. One thing for sure is, the barley does provide great nutrients for the yeast - I think this will ferment in 4 days also.

I'll definately be more careful watching the ph second time around

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Tasted the distillate from the stripping run - it does have flavor. Not bad. Not sure yet it's Irish Whiskey flavor.

Using my newly acquired tools, I've made these observations.

The first batch (the one I backsetted and wouldn't start up quickly) I did not cook or 'crack' the barley. I just dumped it in. I did a iodine test and it shows no signs of starch. I know there was no starch conversion because when I stripped it, the only alcohol that was there was from the white sugar. So the starch must still be trapped in the whole barley kernel. Ph measured is 4.4 right now.

The second batch I cooked barley and ran it through the food processor. Iodine test shows starch. Ph measured is 4.1.

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So the conclusions (and these are probably obvious to grain distillers here) I can make is 1) the barley has to be cracked for the yeast to get at the starch. 2) Backsetting a barley wash like UJSM might be tricky because the ph is going low quickly. I don't know how this compares to corn - I'm just guessing from what I read about UJSM.

GBM,
Unless you add some malted barley or enzimes, you are still going to get just the sugars output. Starch is a long chain sugar that the yeast can't eat. If you are using malted barley, it needs to be cooked below 160*F or it will kill the conversion.

I'm just basing my information on Ian Smiley's book about no cook sour mashes. He states that yeast has enzymes that will convert starch to sugar - although very inefficiently. I believe his number is on a first batch of a USJM type corn + sugar wash, the yeast can convert up to 30% of the starch to sugar. According to my simple calculations that would be about a 10% increase in the expected ABV of just sugar alone. It's active dry distillers yeast he is using, so I'm curious to see if supermarket grade baker's yeast has any conversion power.

Haven't read Ian's book, but was the yeast; Distiller's yeast with A/G?
If so , the A/G is for alpha and gluco-amalase.
Standard supermarket yeast will not consume very much at all, maybe 2 to 3%

Just plain distiller's yeast. He does talk about yeast with added enzymes, but not in this particular chapter.

There is lots of talk about having the right ph for the yeast to convert starch to sugar. The range is 4.5 to 5.5 for optimum conversion. I'm already below that at 4.1. I'm going to carefully measure the ABV output of the wash to see if I can see any increase because of the 'starch conversion by yeast'. I'm not banking on it to produce any real extra alcohol. I'm just curious to see if it's there.

In my opinion yeast will convert starch but at last resort ( as no sugar), sort of "I have no steak left- guess Ill have to eat hot dogs" kind of survival mode

Some lactobacillus bacteria will slowly secrete amylase over a long fermentation but, like Smiley says, that involves a sour mash (ie, in the brewing sense rather than in the backset sense).

I was going to do a stripping run on the wash I had ph problems with after backsetting. I've come to the conclusion that using peppermint flavored Tums (as a source of calcium carbonate) was not a good idea. The wash had a definite peppermint smell to it from the roll of Tums I put in. I ended up dumping it rather then stripping it as I didn't want my supermarket Irish whiskey to taste like peppermint schnaps

I have the other wash ready to strip. Will do a stripping run on that next.

I know it's a dead tread but I'm curious, how did it turn out to be?
I love barley soup and was thinking about mashing some.