White Diamond Wheat Whiskey recipe 1 & 2

[PalCabral]

Hiya distillers.

Back in the 80'ies when I started my Whiskey journey in Scandinavia, it was all about Scottish Blended Whisky. The only "known" single malt in those days was Glenfiddich, but this was about the time when Laphroaig and other single malt brands were starting to reach the general drinker. After Scotch came Canadian whisky, usually priced "right", followed by Irish Whiskey. American Whiskey was often frowned upon, too sweet, too bold, too any old excuse. Jim Beam, Jack Daniels, Schenley (not a Bourbon) and Four Roses. But it was American Whiskey that got my attention.

Rye Whiskey could only be found in specialty liquor stores in Europe and it wasn't much: Jim Beam Yellow Label, Old Overholt and Rittenhouse Rye were the only Rye Whiskies sold. I don't think there was much more than that in the US either, in those days Rye was practically extinct. In my research I stumbled over Wheat Whiskey. No commercial brands could be found, but it intrigued me. One day I will drink a Wheat Whiskey.

Fast forward 40 years later and I'm still waiting to taste my first Wheat Whiskey. Thanks to the Whiskey craft boom, Wheat Whiskies are no longer impossible to find. These days I can order a few Wheat Whiskies in the EU, but they are expensive. Call me cheap if you like, but wheat is the cheapest grain in Europe, I'll be damned to pay +100 bucks for a bottle. Yes, I realize I'm paying for the maturation and the novelty, however, I am a home distiller, right? I can distill anything I want! Wheat Whiskey it is! This plan was already in my mind when I restarted this hobby a year ago. I am calling the project White Diamond.

There are a number if excellent threads on the forum already about Wheat Whiskey. Twisted Brick's 100% White Wheat Whiskey viewtopic.php?p=7806249&hilit=wheat+whiskey#p7806249 is probably the best and very inspiring. However, I will set off in a different course. I am not a fan of single variety anything and when it comes to Whiskey I believe a mix of grains are needed to create the complexity that can match up with the oak flavors from maturation. So what will mix up well with Wheat?

I have two general thoughts when it comes to the recipe: one is where the wheat is balanced by malted barley to make a grainy whiskey. The other is lowering the wheat a bit and give some room for corn, to lighten the Whiskey somewhat. I couldn't make up my mind so I have decided to go with two recipes: High Malt formula and High Corn formula.

I've also been thinking about the use of wheat malt and raw wheat. I like malt, how it tastes, how easy it is to use, etc but I am also interested in heirloom varieties of grains. I did some research and found that in Sweden there are 2-4 heirloom varieties grown in enough volume that I can buy them. So I decided that both recipes would incorporate heirloom raw wheat. I also still have Emmer Wheat flour from my Emmer Bourbon experiment last fall, so I decided to use a little of that too. This is what I have landed at:

White Diamond 1 High Malt Formula:
76% Wheat
20% Barley Malt
4% Oats

In this recipe I want the taste complexity coming from wheat, so the 76% wheat is distributed as follows:

59% Pale wheat malt
10% Dark wheat malt (munich type of malt)
3% Purple raw wheat (Sweden grown heirloom variety)
3% Roasted raw wheat
1% Emmer wheat flour

Because the wheat ingredients are there to provide flavor complexity, the malted barley is just plain distiller's malt. The 4% oats will come from Golden Naked Oats malt of Simpson's maltings in the UK, just to provide a little mouthfeel.

I envision a grainy whiskey but I am hoping for some fruit in the flavors. Let's see.

White Diamond 2 High Corn Formula:
65% Wheat
23% Corn
12% Barley malt

In this recipe, I'll limit the playing ground of the wheat a little but give more space for the raw wheat. The 65% will be distributed between 50% Pale Wheat malt and 15% raw wheat from Oland island in the Baltic. Oland wheat is another Swedish heirloom wheat variety.

The corn will be a mix of yellow dent corn also grown on the island of Oland and white corn. With the barley malt, I will mix it up a little to create some flavor complexity. 6% of Red X munich malt and 6% Extra Special malt. This should give it some more roasted flavors.

I envision a sweeter and lighter whiskey, where the corn provides the sweetness and the barley malt some light roasted/toasted flavors, while the wheat is more laid back.

First Wheat Whiskey out is the High Malt Formula.