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So earlier this month, I did my very first all-grain beer (Blue Moon clone). Had been doing extract or partial mash kits up until then.

I got pretty good conversion on the grains for the wort & off it went into my pressurized fermenter with some Lal Belle Saison yeast. My long-time league's fantasy football draft was this past Sat & everyone enjoyed.

But back to the grains. The kit was 5.5# of 2 row barley, 4.25# White Wheat, & 1# of oats. Rather than just tossing the spent grains, I used some demerera sugar & made a 1.080 wash & added some DADY yeast. The grains accounted for a little over 1 gal of volume in the 6 gal bucket, so I was just short of 4 gal of stripping run boiler charge, which turned into ~3.0L of low wines @ 52%. Added 1L of water to get it down to 40% & put it in my AirStill.

Got ~1L of hearts (55%) + 1.2L of feints. Adding a small oak spiral & will see how it turns out in 6 months, or so!

I know I'm not the first to "repurpose" spent grain, but for a $35-ish kit, I got 2+ cases of beer & when diluted to 45% should be 1.2L of spirit...

I did the same thing with a stout last winter. It was a big stout, 10.5% so a little more grain, just over 20 lb. I did cook some corn and added as well. On oak now, will see in a year if it was worth the effort.

Interested to see how the remnants of any hops residuals left behind affect the likker.

Cheers,
jonny

Nice one RD. You get the whole Boilermaker from a single mash

jonnys_spirit wrote: ↑Mon Aug 21, 2023 7:33 pm Interested to see how the remnants of any hops residuals left behind affect the likker.

Cheers,
jonny

Shouldn’t be an issue as the grains come out before the hops go in. Only problem would be if you didn’t clean the boiler properly.

All good: no hops in the sugarhead. Just transferred the grains from the mash barrel to the fermenter. And my beer boiler isn't the same one I used for stripping run.

GrumbleStill wrote: ↑Mon Aug 21, 2023 11:00 pm Nice one RD. You get the whole Boilermaker from a single mash

jonnys_spirit wrote: ↑Mon Aug 21, 2023 7:33 pm Interested to see how the remnants of any hops residuals left behind affect the likker.

Cheers,
jonny

Shouldn’t be an issue as the grains come out before the hops go in. Only problem would be if you didn’t clean the boiler properly.

Copy that! I haven't made beer in decades and I could've sworn that I threw hops in with the grains... Maybe not but thank you for clarifying!

Cheers,
jonny

jonnys_spirit wrote: ↑Tue Aug 22, 2023 8:13 am

GrumbleStill wrote: ↑Mon Aug 21, 2023 11:00 pm Nice one RD. You get the whole Boilermaker from a single mash

jonnys_spirit wrote: ↑Mon Aug 21, 2023 7:33 pm Interested to see how the remnants of any hops residuals left behind affect the likker.

Cheers,
jonny

Shouldn’t be an issue as the grains come out before the hops go in. Only problem would be if you didn’t clean the boiler properly.

Copy that! I haven't made beer in decades and I could've sworn that I threw hops in with the grains... Maybe not but thank you for clarifying!

Cheers,
jonny

Mash hopping is all the latest rage when brewing really fruity ipas coupled with genetically modified yeast. Still not legal in the EU..

But it's not that common of a practice otherwise, even if I believe some Belgians could be mash hopped as well.

Ok total derail here. Fruity IPAs should not exist. An IPA should be bitter as God intended. If you want a fruity beer then give it a different name instead of IPA, perhaps Satan's Fruity Taint (SFT for short)

subbrew wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2023 9:20 am Ok total derail here. Fruity IPAs should not exist. An IPA should be bitter as God intended. If you want a fruity beer then give it a different name instead of IPA, perhaps Satan's Fruity Taint (SFT for short)

I get what you mean, but there are the "new england ipas" that taste like if passion fruit and mangos had kids. And all the taste comes from the hops. I'm impressed.

And at the same time, I wonder... What if we distilled that?
Would it become bitter, or carry over that fruity goodness and become some sort of burboun -brandy? Burdy? I might have to try it..

LordL wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2023 1:50 pm

And at the same time, I wonder... What if we distilled that?
Would it become bitter, or carry over that fruity goodness and become some sort of burboun -brandy? Burdy? I might have to try it..

Hard to find anything but New England IPA anymore. Hope the pendulum swings back shortly. But even NEIPA are 40 or so IBU so I think the bitter would come over.

If you wanted the flavor I thing you would be better off trying a hop tincture and adding post distill. But that would give a different flavor as well since you would not have any of the bio-transformation compounds the hops go through during fermentation.

LordL wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2023 1:50 pm And at the same time, I wonder... What if we distilled that?
Would it become bitter, or carry over that fruity goodness and become some sort of burboun -brandy? Burdy? I might have to try it..

I think I remember reading here on HD someplace the the hop oils really clung to the column, packing, condenser, etc... You are almost bound to doing a vinegar run afterwards?