Sour Mash All Grain Wheat Vodka

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Dokimos
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Sour Mash All Grain Wheat Vodka

Post by Dokimos »

So I made a sour mash all-grain wheat vodka. And I’m here to tell you about it.

Recipe:
-50 lbs hard white wheat from a bake shop
-10 lbs malted red wheat
-High temp alpha amylase (liq) (added during hard wheat cooking)
-Glucoamylase added at mash temp (powder)
-Multivitamins, a few (probably unnecessary)
-Olive oil (helps make up for lack of wort oxygenation, look it up if you havent already)
-5 packets US-05 ale yeast

I dumped 5 gallons boiling water and 10 gallons backset from a 5-grain whiskey from my 15 gallon keg boiler onto the unmalted wheat, then insulated the drum. I boiled 15 gallons more water, did it again. Temp came out around 170F. Waited a while until it cooled to 150F, then added the malted wheat and some glucoamylase for insurance. Temp came out to 148 after addition. Cool. Mashed 4 hours
(wife wanted to furniture shop…fine I guess).

Strained grain with a colander and some willpower, sparged with about 5 gallons of cold water from the garden hose. Added that to the fermenter, let the 5 or so buckets of wort chill in the snow, then add it all back to the fermenter after it cooled to 72F. Hydrated and pitched yeast and went to bed.

I used a heating band and temp controller throughout fermentation in a 55 gallon plastic drum. The temp got up to about 75F after the first 24 hours of fermentation but settled down about 70 for the rest of fermentation, which lasted about 4 days. I know, that’s a little warm for US-05. I’m still dialing in my temp control. But the fermenter looked like a party was going on inside. After 24 hours it smelled like bananas (an ester called isoamyl acetate which is common
in wheat fermenations).

Stripping runs: The beer cleared fairly quickly and I ripped it through my CCVM with a 2" x 4’ copper column in two stripping runs. I diverted flow from the low wines jug to some sugar wash feints I had laying around at 20% coming off the spout until 10%. Gonna use those tails to bolster the flavor of the spent grain sugar washes I’ve been doing. The first run that I filled all the way up with 15 gallons (foolishly) tried puking on me for the first half of the run. Ugh. Wheat is used for head retention in beer so I should not have been surprised. The second run which had about 11 gallons didn’t cause me any problems.

Reflux: I used my CCVM packed with copper mesh and started pulling fores at 2-3 drops per second. After about 200 mL, I increased the speed to a quart every 45 mins or so, putting 1650 watts into the elements. I maintained 95.5% ABV after adjusting for temperature for just about the whole run. This dropped in my last couple jars.

Early heads went straight into my cleaner/firelighter jug. I noticed the late heads/early hearts smelled like pineapple. This is from the ester associated with the combination of butyric acid (puke smell) and ethanol. It was quite smooth on the tounge. Interesting. Probably a result of the sour mash.
The hearts were very sweet and neutral to my taste. Probably too sweet for me. This made me wonder, why do dead-on hearts smell and taste super sweet to me? I never made an all-grain vodka before (except for some distilled oktoberfest beer which was a one-off) so I assumed the sweet
taste I’d noticed in sugar washes and rums before was a sugar bite. But apparently that is not fully the case. This was interesting.

The tails came quick after some great wheat flavor came through and I shut her down for the night after capping the top of my CCVM and ripping some more alcohol through at full power to add to my spent grain sugar shine low wines as sort of a stripping run.

On blending, I found that the pineapple heads/hearts I noticed were tasty, but did not belong in a vodka (at which point I’m seeing for myself why sour mash is not common for vodka). The hearts were nice and neutral with the aforementioned sweetness. Early tails had a hearty graininess/wheat and oily mouthfeel and pleasant lingering bitterness and crispness to the finish. This carried on to the final product which I enjoy since flavored spirits are my preference. Also, the dryness of the finish makes you want to take another sip. Sweet spirits are nice but the finish doesn't necessarily make me want to take another sip. I believe the beer guys call this quality “crushable”.

So anyway, I learned that a sour mash may affect the heads flavors more than the tails flavors, especially if you cut your stripping runs short or divert your low tails to some other product. Wild yeast is an interesting thing, and my backset I used for this vodka froze shortly after I dumped it out of the still on my previous whiskey so I’m surprised the microbes got into it somehow… not that my sanitation is great.
I also learned that including some tails in a proper vodka (not neutral) is important if you want to taste the raw material used (wheat in my case). I knew this was the case with pot stills, but I had never made an azeotrope distilled spirit where I wanted flavor. The last thing I learned is that I can make vodka that I enjoy at least as much as Grey Goose. That’s mostly because I didn’t filter my vodka and made cuts to leave flavor in there. But nonetheless, I like it more because I
like flavor. Besides that, I had fun doing it.

Cheers to all you home distillers doing weird stuff like me and learning from it. Thanks for reading.
The only difference between science and screwing around is writing it down.
Bradster68
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Re: Sour Mash All Grain Wheat Vodka

Post by Bradster68 »

Very interesting. That's a pretty deep experiment 🍻
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Renhoekk
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Re: Sour Mash All Grain Wheat Vodka

Post by Renhoekk »

Thanks for the detailed write up. What you’ve made is a version of an unaged grain spirit, like a white dog or new make whisky. Vodka is its own beast and it’s supposed to be near-neutral in flavour and smell. If you enjoy leaving flavour in there, drop your ABV to about 92-94% when distilling. This is the typical range for whiskies that are produced on continuous column stills, and will produce a light product with an interesting taste
Dokimos
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Re: Sour Mash All Grain Wheat Vodka

Post by Dokimos »

Technically any spirit distilled above 95% is vodka regardless of raw materials used. But yeah I hear ya, this is definitely more of a whiskey approach. I did a sour mash to slow bacterial growth while I cooled the wort and give the yeast nutrients. Also because I was fine with more flavor than a normal vodka. I'd planned on it being neutral to start but later decided to let a lot of wheat flavor through. I usually do all grain whiskey with backset but didn't have much context for what kind of esters or congeners it makes.
The only difference between science and screwing around is writing it down.
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Renhoekk
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Re: Sour Mash All Grain Wheat Vodka

Post by Renhoekk »

Dokimos wrote: Wed Mar 29, 2023 7:56 pm Technically any spirit distilled above 95% is vodka regardless of raw materials used.
Technically, no. There's more to it than that. The defining characteristic of vodka is that it lacks distinctive character. In the US that's defined by law as being distilled to a minimum of 95% ABV plus "so distilled, or so treated after distillation with charcoal or other materials, as to be without distinctive character, aroma, taste, or color". The European legal definitions of vodka are even more restrictive.

BTW I didn't bring that up to be the spirit police. If you enjoy making and drinking a white spirit that has flavour, then you'll get the best results by learning about white dog/new make etc. That's a better fit for your process and what you're aiming to make.
Dokimos
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Re: Sour Mash All Grain Wheat Vodka

Post by Dokimos »

I'll be damned, you're right, Renhoekk. I forgot about the part about distinctive character. Pardon me.

I've made a fair bit of white dog, but this was just an experiment to see what effect a sour mash would have in something other than whiskey. I learned a lot an hopefully others can too.
The only difference between science and screwing around is writing it down.
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jonnys_spirit
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Re: Sour Mash All Grain Wheat Vodka

Post by jonnys_spirit »

Those may be the regulations in the US but purchase and compare a few different commercial products to make up your mind on whether that's what's out and available in the market.

In my mind - Vodka aims for a hint of something while neutral doesn't.

Cheers,
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Twisted Brick
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Re: Sour Mash All Grain Wheat Vodka

Post by Twisted Brick »

jonnys_spirit wrote: Thu Mar 30, 2023 6:25 am
In my mind - Vodka aims for a hint of something while neutral doesn't.
+1

Achieving this is the difficult part - much easier said than done. With their fine flavor distinctions, craft vodkas are a different animal than neutral.

This is a pretty good read.
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greggn
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Re: Sour Mash All Grain Wheat Vodka

Post by greggn »

Twisted Brick wrote: Thu Mar 30, 2023 9:56 am
This is a pretty good read.

Thanks for the recommendation. I'm already into the 2nd chapter.
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