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Re: Single malt Method/grain bill

PostPosted: Wed Mar 15, 2017 4:03 pm
by coffe addict
If you are chasing Islay style whisky you will need to use 100% heavily peated malt. Baird's does one which is 55ppm phenols which is pretty damn close to ardbeg and llaphroig. On your stripping go all the way down to around 5% to drag all the phenols into the low wines. Spirit run the hearts will be low in phenols but the first two jars of tails will have tonnes of phenols. Use both and age for two years and you'll have close to the same level of phenols.
The new make whiskey will have more phenols than the aged whiskey
To be close to an Islay style your white dog should taste like a cigar lol.

Re: Single malt Method/grain bill

PostPosted: Wed Mar 15, 2017 4:05 pm
by coffe addict
Whiskyscience.blogspot has tonnes of great and in-depth information on scotch.

Mods please delete if my comment counts as advertising.

Re: Single malt Method/grain bill

PostPosted: Wed Mar 15, 2017 7:11 pm
by rumsponge
cheers,
will do some testing later this winter after the rum season. Was initially thinking of just using 50% heavy peated malt, but after your suggestions, coffee-addict, may go straight to 100% .

Re: Single malt Method/grain bill

PostPosted: Wed Mar 15, 2017 7:38 pm
by coffe addict
Yeah if you are chasing the heavy Islay peat the Baird's heavy peated is pretty close. Not cheap though. If you do find after aging that it's too heavy blend it down with a 50/50 hp and ale mix till its at your desired level. The peat drops alot with aging.

Re: Single malt Method/grain bill

PostPosted: Sat Mar 25, 2017 6:23 pm
by Cols15
Just a update..
I have sampled the spirit a couple of times since the post i made about it not being smokey, i was wrong becaude the spirit is smokey (medium smokeyness is the best i can describe it).

I think the day of the spirit run i didnt think the spirit was smokey at all because i had been tasting it alot right off the still, my taste buds were overwhelmed.

Now I'll let time and oak do their thing.

Re: Single malt Method/grain bill

PostPosted: Sun Mar 26, 2017 9:04 pm
by shortybronx88
Following this with excitement.

Just done 12kg malted barley in 40L of water in cycle set up.

Wondering what to do with it when I run through the still.

I am thinking of putting away for aging. Have a barrel on the way, so might pop it in that.

I suppose I am just excited using my newly built mash tun with grain milled on newly built mill!!!!!

Re: Single malt Method/grain bill

PostPosted: Tue Mar 28, 2017 7:45 am
by Cols15
Hi Shorty,
Did you use any smoked barley in your grain bill? Or are you not a smokey malt whisky fan.

Re: Single malt Method/grain bill

PostPosted: Sat Apr 08, 2017 6:52 pm
by shortybronx88
Nope. 100% regular malted barley

Re: Single malt Method/grain bill

PostPosted: Sun Oct 15, 2017 4:39 pm
by Cols15
Just a update.

7mth on the spirit has mellowed and is a golden colour.
The Abv has dropped from the starting 65% down to 58%, it has had allot of airing and I wont be airing it during the rest of the aging process.
The spirit smells of peate and taste of peate but is very smooth, I don't get any malt taste at all. The peate taste has dissipated with age but it is the dominant taste of the spirit.

I'm not a big peate fan and I wouldnt make a 40% heavy peated malt whisky again. I plan on doing another whisky with 10% peated malt in future, although right now I have a 100% 2row malted barley mashing.

Re: Single malt Method/grain bill

PostPosted: Sun Oct 15, 2017 5:47 pm
by bluc
Sounds good! I was given some peated scotch to try, never tried it before but liked it it had notes of iodine and kind of a band aide taste but smoothed out to a delicious malty aftertaste. As much as I hated it I loved it about the same amount so much so I had to try and make some :laughing-rolling:

Re: Single malt Method/grain bill

PostPosted: Sun Oct 15, 2017 8:41 pm
by Cols15
Hi Bluc, I've been following your whisky all grain thread.
Can you add bandaid to your grain bill.. :laughing-rolling:

I was planning on leaving my whisky mash all night as i checked it at the 3hr mark and it came up as 0brix. I added some more mashing water as it seemed to dry then left it, i thought I'd somehow screwed it up. After another hour passed it got the better of me and i checked it again, this time i noticed some blue right at the top of the Refractometer. I tasted the mash and it tasted sweet.. i then rralised the reason the Refractometer wasnt reading was because it's off the scale.

I've just finished chilling the mash and ended up topping it up to 50lt to get a sg of 1.080

I was nearly going to dump some sugar in it believing the mash had failed.. would have been the most expensive sugarhead ever.

Re: Single malt Method/grain bill

PostPosted: Sun Oct 15, 2017 8:46 pm
by bluc
Did you sparge the grain or just dilute the wort with water?

Re: Single malt Method/grain bill

PostPosted: Mon Oct 16, 2017 5:38 am
by Cols15
I diluted it with water (esky mash tun).

Re: Single malt Method/grain bill

PostPosted: Mon Oct 16, 2017 6:22 am
by orcy
I just tried my first biab all grain. 12kg of grain is really pushing my bag size, and an hour wasnt enough to convert fully. But it got 50L of 1040 ish thats fizzing away magically. 6kg gladfields ale, 3kg gladfields toffee and 3kg gladfields peat smoked. The wort tasted amazing.

Re: Single malt Method/grain bill

PostPosted: Mon Oct 16, 2017 9:08 am
by EziTasting
orcy wrote:I just tried my first biab all grain. 12kg of grain is really pushing my bag size, and an hour wasnt enough to convert fully. But it got 50L of 1040 ish thats fizzing away magically. 6kg gladfields ale, 3kg gladfields toffee and 3kg gladfields peat smoked. The wort tasted amazing.



This has been our experience... going to try less water next time as that should improve the SG!

Little bit of trial, lots of error :D

Re: Single malt Method/grain bill

PostPosted: Mon Oct 16, 2017 9:54 am
by Cols15
Thought i should post yesterdays grain bill/recipe -

12.5kg Gladfield distillers malt (plus 3 chunks of corn that were stuck in my mill)
3lt backset from my last AG malt whisky, total of 50lt in fermenter including grain
Mashed in esky for 4hrs at 63°
SG1.080 (i cant remember if my last whisky wash fermented out to 1.000 or higher)
America whisky yeast (it was only good yeast i had on hand)

I'll update when i run it but it smells very barley malt scotchy.

Re: Single malt Method/grain bill

PostPosted: Mon Oct 23, 2017 6:59 pm
by Cols15
I ran the wash yesterday, it came off at 92-90%.
I forgot to take a final gravity reading but the run was 12 x 300ml jars, the last jar dropping to 88% and had a strong tales smell/taste.
Cuts were easy to pick (they normally are for AG runs).
I ended up with 3lt at 65%, its ageing on old 'brendans all grain' rye toast/charr oak.
I'll let it sit for 12mths and see how it turns out, at the moment the flavour is quite light.

Re: Single malt Method/grain bill

PostPosted: Sun Nov 05, 2017 5:26 pm
by Cols15
I've decided to do the non-smoke recepie again.
Ive mashed 12kg of distillets malt with 25lt of water containing 2lt of backset from my last AG malt whisky.
I'll leave it in the esky for 3hrs then check how many brix it's at.

After working with corn alot it's nice to do a all malt mash.

Re: Single malt Method/grain bill

PostPosted: Sun Nov 05, 2017 9:03 pm
by ThePaterPiper
How do you think the backset is contributing to your single malt Cols? I haven't heard of adding backset to whisky, thought it was more of a sour mash, and sugar head thing.

Re: Single malt Method/grain bill

PostPosted: Sun Nov 05, 2017 9:08 pm
by EziTasting
Cols15 wrote:I've decided to do the non-smoke recepie again.
Ive mashed 12kg of distillets malt with 25lt of water containing 2lt of backset from my last AG malt whisky.
I'll leave it in the esky for 3hrs then check how many brix it's at.

After working with corn alot it's nice to do a all malt mash.


What size grist are you making? Like bluc, 1mm?

ThePaterPiper wrote:How do you think the backset is contributing to your single malt Cols? I haven't heard of adding backset to whisky, thought it was more of a sour mash, and sugar head thing.


I think this is a good question...