Three questions that will provide guidance

[Mr_Beer]

Need some direction moving forward.
I have extensive beer brewing and wine making experience with several regional awards. At the current state of my distilling research, I have three basic questions…

First Question – recommendations regarding software.
In the beer brewing and wine making world, there are several vendors of software that have interactive recipe building approaches – different grains/fermentables, different hops, water profiles, etc. The software helps the user ‘picture’ what the results would be of changes/additions of ingredients to a recipe. Not perfect but actually very helpful. Does equivalent software exist in the Distilling world?

Second Question – collections of recipes
Referring again to beer brewing there are literally thousands of recipes available that can be evaluated. They typically are focused on a ‘style profile’ – think whiskey/gin/rye/single malt, etc. Is there a similar repository of recipes available for distilled products?

Third question – recommendations on vendors that provide good equipment.
I am looking for a pot still and do not want to build my equipment – I will, if necessary, but I would rather purchase from a good vendor. The ‘rules that we live by’ discussion in this forum has a list of questionable vendors. What would be helpful is a list of vendors that have good equipment and associated reputations. That said, this ‘industry’ may be too small to support such a list, I do not know.

[Bushman]

Need some direction moving forward.
I have extensive beer brewing and wine making experience with several regional awards. At the current state of my distilling research, I have three basic questions…

First Question – recommendations regarding software.
In the beer brewing and wine making world, there are several vendors of software that have interactive recipe building approaches – different grains/fermentables, different hops, water profiles, etc. The software helps the user ‘picture’ what the results would be of changes/additions of ingredients to a recipe. Not perfect but actually very helpful. Does equivalent software exist in the Distilling world?Don’t use a software so not sure on an answer to #1

Second Question – collections of recipes
Referring again to beer brewing there are literally thousands of recipes available that can be evaluated. They typically are focused on a ‘style profile’ – think whiskey/gin/rye/single malt, etc. Is there a similar repository of recipes available for distilled products? I would start in our Tried & True recipe section. There is a reason for the title of the thread.

Third question – recommendations on vendors that provide good equipment.
I am looking for a pot still and do not want to build my equipment – I will, if necessary, but I would rather purchase from a good vendor. The ‘rules that we live by’ discussion in this forum has a list of questionable vendors. What would be helpful is a list of vendors that have good equipment and associated reputations. That said, this ‘industry’ may be too small to support such a list, I do not know.

We have a list of vendors to avoid but not in the business of recommending however we do have a few vendors on the forum that may send you a PM. If they are members here they are reliable.

[Mr_Beer]

Thank you Bushman for your quick answer.

An elaboration on Question #2 might get at my issue. If you look at most beer brewing suppliers they can have upwards of a hundred grains available. And then change the hops and more possibilities arise and compound that with different yeasts. What I would like to know is if the change of grains will result in a material change of flavors. An example (possibly dumb) would be a cake recipe that had chocolate added versus strawberry flavoring. There would be a substantial difference in the outcome.

That was the essence of the Question #2

I understand the answer to Question #3 -- hopefully others will provide a recommendation by a PM.

[Bushman]

Thank you Bushman for your quick answer.

An elaboration on Question #2 might get at my issue. If you look at most beer brewing suppliers they can have upwards of a hundred grains available. And then change the hops and more possibilities arise and compound that with different yeasts. What I would like to know is if the change of grains will result in a material change of flavors. An example (possibly dumb) would be a cake recipe that had chocolate added versus strawberry flavoring. There would be a substantial difference in the outcome.

That was the essence of the Question #2

I understand the answer to Question #3 -- hopefully others will provide a recommendation by a PM.

The answer is yes different grains will yield different flavors. I personally like rye whiskey. I will send you a PM.

[howie]

Need some direction moving forward.
I have extensive beer brewing and wine making experience with several regional awards. At the current state of my distilling research, I have three basic questions…

First Question – recommendations regarding software.
In the beer brewing and wine making world, there are several vendors of software that have interactive recipe building approaches – different grains/fermentables, different hops, water profiles, etc. The software helps the user ‘picture’ what the results would be of changes/additions of ingredients to a recipe. Not perfect but actually very helpful. Does equivalent software exist in the Distilling world?
i've not personally seen any software dedicated to distilling, i just use the normal beer software.
obv you have to take into account beer software has things like pre-boil volumes etc, which are irrelevant to this hobby.
Second Question – collections of recipes
Referring again to beer brewing there are literally thousands of recipes available that can be evaluated. They typically are focused on a ‘style profile’ – think whiskey/gin/rye/single malt, etc. Is there a similar repository of recipes available for distilled products?
the 'tried & true' section has loads of recipes, pick what you want to make.
from the simple, but delicious CFW (cornflake whiskey) to more adventurous drinks.
eg i do a rye whiskey, which has 400gm of choc malt, the possibilities are endless
Third question – recommendations on vendors that provide good equipment.
I am looking for a pot still and do not want to build my equipment – I will, if necessary, but I would rather purchase from a good vendor. The ‘rules that we live by’ discussion in this forum has a list of questionable vendors. What would be helpful is a list of vendors that have good equipment and associated reputations. That said, this ‘industry’ may be too small to support such a list, I do not know.

what beer equipment have you already got?
it's possible to buy add-ons for most all-in-one systems.

[still_stirrin]

Mr. Beer,

Try to think about “hobby distilling” as a follow on process to the hobby of brewing beers, which I assume you are quite familiar with. You speak of “online recipe calculators” for brewing beers of classic styles. Certainly you can use those to produce beers of note, so why not use them to design recipes you intend to distill? It can be done, as I use Brewer’s Friend as my recipe forming tool.

However, since we plan to distill our beers after fermentation, we don’t need the antiseptic qualities of hops in the beer formula. Hop oils tend to concentrate in the distilled products and will change the way the spirit tastes and smells. Not that it is bad, especially if you prefer the botanical quality in your spirits (some hobbyists actually do). As a side note, I have “salvaged” many expired beers in my still and the carry-over of hops into the product is a challenge to contend with.

Anyway, if you’re already an all-grain brewer, there is no reason you cannot use the tools you have to formulate a distiller’s beer just like you would for a homebrewer’s beer. Extracting flavors and fermentables from the cereal grains is the same process. Besides, distillation is a “follow-on” process subsequent to fermentation just like kegging or bottling your beers. It’s a process you apply after the beer has terminated in the fermenter.

Many here have pointed you to the Tried & True recipe forum and that is a great place to start, especially for hobbyists who DO NOT have experience brewing. But if you’re an experienced brewer, then you certainly can start with your own created recipe using what ever tools you have available. I would however, suggest you plan to make your “distiller’s beer” highly fermentable, that is - mash at the beta amylase temperatures (148* to 150*F) for high fermentable sugar production instead of the alpha amylase temperatures for non-fermentable sugars.

As for you other questions, you’ll just have to join the crowd here and READ the forums. ALL of your questions have been asked and answered many times already … you just have to seek them out and read.

Finally, if you are an experienced homebrewer, you are already at an advantage because many hobbyists come here with no experience brewing but a desire to make “cheap” all-grain spirits. As a result, they’ll have to learn the brewing processes first and that has a steep learning curve. You’re ahead of that game with your experience.
ss

[madspeed]

Need some direction moving forward.
I have extensive beer brewing and wine making experience with several regional awards. At the current state of my distilling research, I have three basic questions…

First Question – recommendations regarding software.
In the beer brewing and wine making world, there are several vendors of software that have interactive recipe building approaches – different grains/fermentables, different hops, water profiles, etc. The software helps the user ‘picture’ what the results would be of changes/additions of ingredients to a recipe. Not perfect but actually very helpful. Does equivalent software exist in the Distilling world? There are several pieces of software available that are geared specifically to distilling, but all of them are geared towards commercial distilling and are quite spendy and require monthly subscriptions. There is a smaller one called AlcoDens and was written by a craft distiller. You can check it out and they do offer a trial version. https://www.katmarsoftware.com/alcodens.htm

Second Question – collections of recipes
Referring again to beer brewing there are literally thousands of recipes available that can be evaluated. They typically are focused on a ‘style profile’ – think whiskey/gin/rye/single malt, etc. Is there a similar repository of recipes available for distilled products? While not a recipe database, there are charts online that list the mashbills for most of the big commercial products. You can use those as starting points as they are basically tried and trued!

Third question – recommendations on vendors that provide good equipment.
I am looking for a pot still and do not want to build my equipment – I will, if necessary, but I would rather purchase from a good vendor. The ‘rules that we live by’ discussion in this forum has a list of questionable vendors. What would be helpful is a list of vendors that have good equipment and associated reputations. That said, this ‘industry’ may be too small to support such a list, I do not know. Check out folks like StillDragon, Affordable Distillery Equipment and OakStills.com

[howie]

grain bills for a few producers.........(apparently)

whiskey grain bill of all producers.xlsx

(17.78 KiB) Downloaded 137 times

[Homebrewer11777]

Hey @Mr_Beer...what did you ever do about your software question? I'm also an experienced beer homebrewer and have used several software packages. I think working through recipes in advance of the brew and then recording actual measurements was big part of my learning to brew journey. Based on that experience I went to one of the software vendor's forums and asked similar question. Got one user to discuss privately but seems overall they'd prefer not to have this discussion on their site which I fully understand...

I've mainly been focusing on tracking my success at mashing and fermenting so far. I've found corn based grain bills and fermenting on the grain to be two topics really not contemplated by my beer experience or the beer and wine focused software. Trying to understand conversion vs lauter efficiency especially in order to understand impact of any changes I make in my process. Also nice to be able to predict expected volumes in distillations and to have an organized way to keep an useful log. Picked up a copy of "Home Distilling Handbook" and that helped me think through the calculations and logs but it is work in progress.

The helpful distiller on the other forum didn't really seem to get why I was concerned about efficiency...and after several searches your's was first one that seemed to be coming at the issue from similar direction as me so curious about direction you took.

[subbrew]

I am finding that because the final product is distilled that nuances of different grain bills are muted. There is a difference in a rye beer vs a stout vs an all corn bourbon. But difference I would see in beer, like using chocolate malt vs a debittered in a stout or crystal 30 vs crystal 60 in an amber, are not noticeable to me once it is run through the still. To me the amber based recipe with crystal 30 will taste just like the amber based recipe with crystal 60, once distilled and aged.

And because of that I find I can "wing it" a little more. Where I am very precise on grains and sanitation with beer, when I am distilling and my recipe calls for 2 lb of chocolate malt and I have 2.5 lb in the bag, I just throw it in.

[jonnys_spirit]

For distilling AG's, the grain bill is part of the recipe.

Double distillation, 1.5 distillation, recycling feints, spirit run parameters, cuts, aging, wood treatment, finishing, blending, etc are all parts of the recipe (or Protocol) too as well as still type/size and how you run it...

Cheers!
-jonny