BIAB whiskey wash

[markus]

I'm completely new at this all grain business, with about 10 mashes under my belt I thought I'd post my doings so far. And hopefully change a few people's minds who think that all grain is too hard and will cost too much in equipment.
I've been using BIAB, My setup is nothing fancy but it does the job.
Remember I'm no all grain expert, I still have plenty to learn.
My aim is to make the finest quality whiskey possible.
Here's what I use and how I do it.


Equipment Used

50 litre keg with top cut out
Biab
Stirrer or long wooden spoon
Accurate thermometer
Gas burner
Esky Around 20 L
Blankets
Strainer
Wort chiller

ingredients

31 litres of water
4 kg pils malt
4 kg peated malt
Safspirit whiskey yeast 2 dessert spoons.

Method
I bring 31 litres of water to about 53 degrees. Place biab in keg and gradually add grain while constantly stirring. Trying to avoid big clumps, by adding it slowly.
Wash is now somewhere around the 50 deg mark.
This is the protein or protease rest or whatever the fuck you want to call it. Ive read that this helps reduce puking?I hold it here for 20 mins. I don't bother covering.

After 20 mins I remove the bag and place it in the esky. Turn the gas back on and bring the wash up to 66-67 degrees. Turn off heat. Put the grain bag back in and give a really good stir to even out the temp. Add in whats drained out from the Bag in the esky. Being Careful not to aerate wash. I use a bowl and gently pour back into my keg. It usually ends up around 62-63 degrees..
Place lid on and wrap tight in good blankets. I leave for 1 hour and check temp.
As I leave my keg on bricks it drops a few degrees. So I unwrap my keg and crank the gas on again while dunking the biab like a big tea bag, so it doesn't scorch the bag. Once it's up to 64-65 degrees turn the gas off and I give it another good stir. At this point I put aside a little wash for my yeast starter. Wrap the keg back up. After 1 hour remove bag and place it back in the esky ontop of a strainer turned upside down to let more of the wash to drain out.
I dont sparge. While its draining I use my wort chiller to bring my wash down to about 30 degrees.
Once temp corrected I have a wash of 1.065
In my fermenter goes the yeast starter then the wash. I just pick up my keg and pour the wash in from as high as I can to aerate the fuck out of it.
Whack the lid on and bobs your uncle.
Final wash size is around 24~25 litres

I done back to back mashings and put my old grains into my next 31 litres of wash and gave a really good stir. Before discarding and adding new grains. On my second mash I was a couple of points higher at 1.070

For my wort chiller i just bought a roll of copper tube from bunnings was about $100 for 15 metres which I just bent around a bucket.

So there you go. Pretty easy really. I do a lot of unnecessary lifting, 8kilos of grain thats soaked can weigh around 20 kilos. So a small hoist for removing the bag from the wash is my next investment.

I've been stripping these washes and am yet to do a spirit run.

Im no all grain expert, this is just what I have been doing and it has been working ok for me. This is by no means a recipe. I've still got some methods I may change and maybe even drop a kilo or so of malt from the list. My first few mashes with a different method were total shit and had bugger all conversion. I struggled to get over 1.040.
Using this method I have achieved around 1.065 the last 4 or 5 washes. And they are finishing at 1.000
I know my efficiency could be a lot better, but I'm working on it. Next mash ill leave an extra hour or maybe even overnight.

So there you go, It may be a little more time consuming but should be worth the extra effort. For those wanting to get into all grain go and buy a BIAB and get your mash on. Its a good place to start.

Feel free to comment. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Cheers Markus.

[Whiskyaugogo]

Hi Markus,

What is your opinion on the "Safspirit whiskey yeast"? I think it is part of the Red Star Company in the US and is highly regarded as great product.

[markus]

Can't really compare it with anything mate,
As its the only yeast I've ever used.
I've used it in UJSM, Macwhiskey and a couple of experiments with good results.
It's a speciality yeast intended for micro distilleries,
So it's gotta be up there

Cheers Markus.

[sp0rk]

Method
I bring 31 litres of water to about 53 degrees. Place biab in keg and gradually add grain while constantly stirring. Trying to avoid big clumps, by adding it slowly.
Wash is now somewhere around the 50 deg mark.
This is the protein or protease rest or whatever the fuck you want to call it. Ive read that this helps reduce puking?I hold it here for 20 mins. I don't bother covering.

After 20 mins I remove the bag and place it in the esky. Turn the gas back on and bring the wash up to 66-67 degrees. Turn off heat. Put the grain bag back in and give a really good stir to even out the temp. Add in whats drained out from the Bag in the esky. Being Careful not to aerate wash.
Hot Side Aeration is more or less a myth (it may or may not reduce beer shelf life), you don't really need to stress about aerating at the point
I use a bowl and gently pour back into my keg. It usually ends up around 62-63 degrees..
You can leave the bag in for this, it's not really necessary to remove it, however if your bag is touching the bottom of the pot/keggle you can scorch the bag (chuck a cake rack in the bottom to solve this) or if you're not watching carefully, you can overshoot your temp
Place lid on and wrap tight in good blankets. I leave for 1 hour and check temp.
As I leave my keg on bricks it drops a few degrees. So I unwrap my keg and crank the gas on again while dunking the biab like a big tea bag, so it doesn't scorch the bag. Once it's up to 64-65 degrees turn the gas off and I give it another good stir. At this point I put aside a little wash for my yeast starter. Wrap the keg back up. After 1 hour remove bag and place it back in the esky ontop of a strainer turned upside down to let more of the wash to drain out.
Try raising the temp to 75°C for 10 minutes after you mash (mashout), this will usually squeeze a few extra gravity points out
Also, are you boiling at all? malted grains have a lot of bacteria on them, a 15 minute boil should sort them out
I dont sparge. While its draining I use my wort chiller to bring my wash down to about 30 degrees.
Once temp corrected I have a wash of 1.065

In my fermenter goes the yeast starter then the wash. I just pick up my keg and pour the wash in from as high as I can to aerate the fuck out of it.
Whack the lid on and bobs your uncle.
Final wash size is around 24~25 litres

I done back to back mashings and put my old grains into my next 31 litres of wash and gave a really good stir. Before discarding and adding new grains. On my second mash I was a couple of points higher at 1.070

For my wort chiller i just bought a roll of copper tube from bunnings was about $100 for 15 metres which I just bent around a bucket.

So there you go. Pretty easy really. I do a lot of unnecessary lifting, 8kilos of grain thats soaked can weigh around 20 kilos. So a small hoist for removing the bag from the wash is my next investment.

I've been stripping these washes and am yet to do a spirit run.

Im no all grain expert, this is just what I have been doing and it has been working ok for me. This is by no means a recipe. I've still got some methods I may change and maybe even drop a kilo or so of malt from the list. My first few mashes with a different method were total shit and had bugger all conversion. I struggled to get over 1.040.
Using this method I have achieved around 1.065 the last 4 or 5 washes. And they are finishing at 1.000
I know my efficiency could be a lot better, but I'm working on it. Next mash ill leave an extra hour or maybe even overnight.
With today's well modified malts, the extra time isn't all that worth it, I've mashed for 2 hours before and only gotten maybe an extra .002 points higher than I would have a 90 minutes


Cheers Markus.

[Sam.]

The grain that you discard, if you have another decent size fermenter chuck it in, add a heap of sugar, top up with water, add yeast and ferment away for a good sugar head wash, there will still be lots of flavour and probably some sugars in that grain ;-)

[markus]

Try raising the temp to 75°C for 10 minutes after you mash (mashout), this will usually squeeze a few extra gravity points out
Also, are you boiling at all? malted grains have a lot of bacteria on them, a 15 minute boil should sort them out

Isn't mash out just a beer brewers thing?

Cheers Markus

[Sam.]

Try raising the temp to 75°C for 10 minutes after you mash (mashout), this will usually squeeze a few extra gravity points out
Also, are you boiling at all? malted grains have a lot of bacteria on them, a 15 minute boil should sort them out

Isn't mash out just a beer brewers thing?

Cheers Markus

Yep if you want to ferment on the grains don't go near it :snooty:

[markus]

The grain that you discard, if you have another decent size fermenter chuck it in, add a heap of sugar, top up with water, add yeast and ferment away for a good sugar head wash, there will still be lots of flavour and probably some sugars in that grain ;-)

Good idea S and L, ill give it a go

Cheers Markus

[sp0rk]

Try raising the temp to 75°C for 10 minutes after you mash (mashout), this will usually squeeze a few extra gravity points out
Also, are you boiling at all? malted grains have a lot of bacteria on them, a 15 minute boil should sort them out

Isn't mash out just a beer brewers thing?

Cheers Markus

If you're not reusing the grain, it'll wash the last sugars out
I've been reading a lot about people arguing about whether 75°C will denature enzymes or not, I guess if you're fermenting on the grains it may be on the safe side not to

[Sam.]

Try raising the temp to 75°C for 10 minutes after you mash (mashout), this will usually squeeze a few extra gravity points out
Also, are you boiling at all? malted grains have a lot of bacteria on them, a 15 minute boil should sort them out

Isn't mash out just a beer brewers thing?

Cheers Markus

If you're not reusing the grain, it'll wash the last sugars out
I've been reading a lot about people arguing about whether 75°C will denature enzymes or not, I guess if you're fermenting on the grains it may be on the safe side not to

Im no all grain guru but I though 72 was enough to destroy most? :think:

[sp0rk]

A lot of people are now saying 77-78 does