Home Distiller

Chucker wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2024 5:58 am Experimentation can be a valuable component of the learning process as long as you critically review your results. You’ll get something out of this but it’ll be more akin to a sugar wash as you won’t get a decent conversion of flaked corn without further enzymes. But it will provide some corn flavor. I think you will get better flavor if you target yield less as that’s quite a bit of sugar. But I’ve also started similarly and had to reach some conclusions on my own.
Rather than belabor this, I’d suggest that you go to the Tried and True section. You’ll find several groupings that will have the base info right at the start. I think that one or more of these will help give you a basis to help sort this out if you’re looking for principles to apply. There are also a number of specific recipes that will accelerate your path to good results and give you a solid foundation to build on.
Best!

subbrew wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2024 6:11 am I recommend backing off the sugar. A quick calculation shows a starting gravity of around 1.093. might be OK if using wine yeast but for beer or brewers yeast it will stress it. I would suggest working with a recipe from the tried and true. That way you know the recipe is solid and you can learn more about using your equipment without a recipe variable. UJSSM is a recipe that is close to what you are suggesting.

jonnys_spirit wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2024 7:02 am If you're doing sugar+corn without gelatinizing and converting the corn I'd recommend checking out the UJSSM recipe in the Tried & True recipe section. This is similar and uses cracked corn plus recycling of some backset each generation to get a compounding effect.

Low wines + fresh ferment is what folks generally refer to as a 1.5 distillation. Give it a go and let us know how it turns out.

Cheers,
j

subbrew wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2024 7:35 am If the corn is only for flavor then you do not need the amylase enzyme. The only reason to add enzymes is to convert the corn. My numbers above assumed the corn was converted. If not, then the gravity is not overly high, about 1.061 with no corn contribution.

subbrew wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2024 9:13 am I agree the corn flavor is good. I will disagree that extra abv never hurt. extra abv makes for a hot drink with off flavors.

That recipe will work fine if all you are looking for is cheap drink. But that gravity with bread yeast is going to have a lot of esters and high alcohols. I will assume your buddy meant 80 to 90 proof, not abv. If not he would be pushing 18% abv wash but there is only enough sugar in those numbers for a bit less than 12%. And even if he meant proof, if he is getting 3 to 4 L from 5 gal he is not making cuts, at least very loose ones if he is.

Up to you what you make. But that is not a recipe for a quality drink. That is a recipe that gives moonshine the reputation for being rough and hangover producing.

Maverick1988 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2024 9:36 am

subbrew wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2024 9:13 am I agree the corn flavor is good. I will disagree that extra abv never hurt. extra abv makes for a hot drink with off flavors.

That recipe will work fine if all you are looking for is cheap drink. But that gravity with bread yeast is going to have a lot of esters and high alcohols. I will assume your buddy meant 80 to 90 proof, not abv. If not he would be pushing 18% abv wash but there is only enough sugar in those numbers for a bit less than 12%. And even if he meant proof, if he is getting 3 to 4 L from 5 gal he is not making cuts, at least very loose ones if he is.

Up to you what you make. But that is not a recipe for a quality drink. That is a recipe that gives moonshine the reputation for being rough and hangover producing.

I agree with you there, I'm very new to this so I'm just going by the reviews on the recipe, and my friend. I know others who tried it from him and they said it was good. but I never have.

jonnys_spirit wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2024 9:59 am

Maverick1988 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2024 9:36 am

subbrew wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2024 9:13 am I agree the corn flavor is good. I will disagree that extra abv never hurt. extra abv makes for a hot drink with off flavors.

That recipe will work fine if all you are looking for is cheap drink. But that gravity with bread yeast is going to have a lot of esters and high alcohols. I will assume your buddy meant 80 to 90 proof, not abv. If not he would be pushing 18% abv wash but there is only enough sugar in those numbers for a bit less than 12%. And even if he meant proof, if he is getting 3 to 4 L from 5 gal he is not making cuts, at least very loose ones if he is.

Up to you what you make. But that is not a recipe for a quality drink. That is a recipe that gives moonshine the reputation for being rough and hangover producing.

I agree with you there, I'm very new to this so I'm just going by the reviews on the recipe, and my friend. I know others who tried it from him and they said it was good. but I never have.

This is a good reason to stick with a tried and true recipe from the HD site especially for when you're starting out.. Ton's of info and experience documented with these specific recipes... Recipes from other sources are a crap shoot... At least until you fee confident shooting more from the hip with ferments, distillation, cuts, and aging...

Cheers,
jonny

Maverick1988 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2024 10:09 am

jonnys_spirit wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2024 9:59 am

Maverick1988 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2024 9:36 am

subbrew wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2024 9:13 am I agree the corn flavor is good. I will disagree that extra abv never hurt. extra abv makes for a hot drink with off flavors.

That recipe will work fine if all you are looking for is cheap drink. But that gravity with bread yeast is going to have a lot of esters and high alcohols. I will assume your buddy meant 80 to 90 proof, not abv. If not he would be pushing 18% abv wash but there is only enough sugar in those numbers for a bit less than 12%. And even if he meant proof, if he is getting 3 to 4 L from 5 gal he is not making cuts, at least very loose ones if he is.

Up to you what you make. But that is not a recipe for a quality drink. That is a recipe that gives moonshine the reputation for being rough and hangover producing.

I agree with you there, I'm very new to this so I'm just going by the reviews on the recipe, and my friend. I know others who tried it from him and they said it was good. but I never have.

This is a good reason to stick with a tried and true recipe from the HD site especially for when you're starting out.. Ton's of info and experience documented with these specific recipes... Recipes from other sources are a crap shoot... At least until you fee confident shooting more from the hip with ferments, distillation, cuts, and aging...

Cheers,
jonny

I'll check it out for sure, I appreciate it.

Honestly, my biggest worry when it comes to distilling anything is making the proper cuts. Personally, I'd like decent volume, but the cuts scare the hell out of me for now.

Maverick1988 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2024 10:09 am

jonnys_spirit wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2024 9:59 am

Maverick1988 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2024 9:36 am

subbrew wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2024 9:13 am I agree the corn flavor is good. I will disagree that extra abv never hurt. extra abv makes for a hot drink with off flavors.

That recipe will work fine if all you are looking for is cheap drink. But that gravity with bread yeast is going to have a lot of esters and high alcohols. I will assume your buddy meant 80 to 90 proof, not abv. If not he would be pushing 18% abv wash but there is only enough sugar in those numbers for a bit less than 12%. And even if he meant proof, if he is getting 3 to 4 L from 5 gal he is not making cuts, at least very loose ones if he is.

Up to you what you make. But that is not a recipe for a quality drink. That is a recipe that gives moonshine the reputation for being rough and hangover producing.

I agree with you there, I'm very new to this so I'm just going by the reviews on the recipe, and my friend. I know others who tried it from him and they said it was good. but I never have.

This is a good reason to stick with a tried and true recipe from the HD site especially for when you're starting out.. Ton's of info and experience documented with these specific recipes... Recipes from other sources are a crap shoot... At least until you fee confident shooting more from the hip with ferments, distillation, cuts, and aging...

Cheers,
jonny

I'll check it out for sure, I appreciate it.

Honestly, my biggest worry when it comes to distilling anything is making the proper cuts. Personally, I'd like decent volume, but the cuts scare the hell out of me for now.

Maverick1988 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2024 10:09 am Honestly, my biggest worry when it comes to distilling anything is making the proper cuts. Personally, I'd like decent volume, but the cuts scare the hell out of me for now.

MooseMan wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2024 10:44 am

Maverick1988 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2024 10:09 am Honestly, my biggest worry when it comes to distilling anything is making the proper cuts. Personally, I'd like decent volume, but the cuts scare the hell out of me for now.

Good cuts will only come with practice and experience, my advice on this is to run into small jars and be extra fussy, when you get to a jar that makes you think heads are finished, go one jar further, or two!
Same for tails, slight hint of tails smell, stop collecting in small jars, write off the previous jar or two and turn up the heat and strip the rest.
All the heads you didn't include, add to the stripped tails, and that will all go back into your next run, so being tight on cuts is wasting nothing.

That recipe in your first post?
Just make a UJSSM and be glad you did.

Stilljoy McFlavour wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2024 12:46 pm Considering the title of this post, how could it not be about Uncle Jesse’s Simple Sour Mash. Turns out it is actually your answer.

As for making cuts; I found it extremely difficult to make good cuts when I was starting out. Making a selection based on smells and flavors that were basically all new to me and that I could not identify was almost like flipping a coin. As I did more runs I learned to recognize the various compounds, and making proper cuts became easier and easier.

This guide by kiwistiller offers fantastic advice about getting started with making good cuts
viewtopic.php?t=11640

Homebrewer11777 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 19, 2024 9:58 am Another vote for UJSSM here. As others have said you are already pretty close to the recipe. Three reasons:

1. It will work really well for your volume issue. Scale each generation to deliver a full boiler. Then combine Gen 1-3 low wines for your first spirit run. Gen 4-6 for your next spirit run, more or less as long as you like. For your boiler I'd scale the recipe to about a 10 gallon batch and then adjust from there. 10 gallon batches should give you about 3 gallons of low wines, 3 of those into a nice spirit run with enough product to enjoy some now while aging the rest.

2. Relies on cracked corn. Cracked corn is cheap--generally cheaper than cornmeal certainly cheaper than corn flakes, and easy to work with in this recipe. Will not give you all kinds of issues separating liquid wash from solids like you will when you get into converted corn recipes.

3. You will get plenty of help from this site. Lots of experience here with UJSSM so always somebody around to answer questions. If you are having a problem it will be very easy to troubleshoot without endless questions trying to figure out what you actually did, likely followed by shoulder shrugging that if you'd only followed the tried and true recipe we could probably help you..

subbrew wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 12:29 pm Since you are going for volume and cost then red star distillers active dry yeast (DADY) is a good choice. If you are trying to push the ABV over 10% then a wine yeast such as D-47 will be better.

Maverick1988 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 1:05 pm

There's Lalvin D47 Yeast on amazon.... is that what you mean?

subbrew wrote: ↑Thu Jun 27, 2024 5:39 am

Maverick1988 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 1:05 pm

There's Lalvin D47 Yeast on amazon.... is that what you mean?

Yes, that is the one. I usually get it from my local home brew store as I know it has been kept refrigerated. I like D47 as I have found it will withstand an acid environment, into the very low 3.1 or so and still keep going where others will have stalled.

Homebrewer11777 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 27, 2024 7:01 am If you follow the TnT recipe you should be fine with DADY. You would only need a more alcohol tolerant yeast if you change the recipe and try to make it more concentrated sugar solution...I'd not modify the sugar concentration in the recipe in hope to generate more booze. It works really well as written.

Pick a yeast that will like your expected fermentation temperature. Remembering that fermentation is exothermic so will tend to run 5-10 degrees above ambient temperature if you are not actively controlling the temperature. DADY likes to be between 80 and 90F. Bread yeast would be at high end of this range. If ambient is 75-80F you should be good with either of these. If keeping the fermentation at or above 80F is a challenge for you you might do better with beer yeast such as US-05 or S04. These do well from mid 60s to low 70s. I'm tending to use DADY for summer fermentations and beer yeast for cool season fermentations.

Deplorable wrote: ↑Sat Mar 26, 2022 3:46 pm The fermentation process itself is just as nuanced and complex as the alcoholic beverages it yields. Multiple factors influence the concentration and complexity of flavor compounds produced, including the source of sugar, temperature the reaction takes place at, and duration of fermentation. Then there’s the strain of yeast selected for the process. Individual strains perform in different ways depending on fermentation conditions, which ultimately impacts the “building blocks” produced by the strain.
If you're a beginner in this hobby it would be wise to experiment in a more controlled way to decide what strain of yeast you like to use.
You have a few of options available to you from here. You can make more ferments identical to the first two until you have enough to do a double distillation and keep them separate all the way through keeping notes about each.
You can do a one-and-done on each of them and learn a little about each yeast and the flavor it contributes.
Or you can mix them both together and not learn anything about the two yeasts different contributions to the spirit.