Is an all wheat whiskey feasible?

[cap73n]

I'm planning on making a wheat whiskey and I've done a fair bit of research. But I wanted to ask this question and get all your thoughts before I go ahead.

Obviously I'm going to need some kind of malt in the recipe to supply the enzymes for breaking down the starch etc.

Normally, we would use malted barley (no less then 20%) and the rest can be whatever grain we choose. Well I'm choosing to do as much wheat as possible.

I have 2 questions questions:

1) do you need to first cook wheat before mashing to gelatine the mash? ie. Use 80% wheat (can be either malted or unmalted) and cook till it gelatanizes, then rapidly cool to mashing temp (to avoid retrogradation) and add 20% malted wheat.

2) can you just use 100% malted wheat, with no cooking prior to mashing (same as a malted barley mash)

Also I plan to ferment and possibly distill on the grain, although I'm not sure if it would still be too thick. Please don't hesitate to inform me of all the problems I may encounter lol.

Regards,
Capten

[benpandaae86]

Im new to grain as well but when the emzines break down the starches it wont be as gluggy and if you distill on the grain theres a good chance you will get puking due to the extra protein

Im bout to try mountain moonshines traditional mash

The grain gurus can help more but have a read of brendans all grain bourbon

[TheMechwarrior]

Feasible? Yes.

Odin posted a good whisky recipe and there's another on AD that I know of. You don't NEED any malt if you don't WANT to use it, you can use enzymes.

[cap73n]

Im new to grain as well but when the emzines break down the starches it wont be as gluggy and if you distill on the grain theres a good chance you will get puking due to the extra protein

Ben: What about if you use a low protein wheat? There are many different varieties of wheat. Unlike barley where basically you have 2-row or 6-row

Feasible? Yes.

Odin posted a good whisky recipe and there's another on AD that I know of. You don't NEED any malt if you don't WANT to use it, you can use enzymes.

Mech: makes sense, but the other half of my question is: is it a necessity to cook the wheat prior to mashing with added enzymes? (whether it's from the malt or packet)... Could you just mash 100% malted wheat like you would malted barley or do you need to cook it first?

[bayshine]

I would maybe try 50/50 wheat/wheat malt :think:
I would buy some whole wheat meal/flour and add boiling water to it in a insulated mash tun and belt it with a paint mixer and drill(this will get very thick so you can add a small amount of malt and this will thin it down and help with mixing) and when the temp is down to about 68 deg c I would add the milled wheat malt and hold temp between 60-65deg c for a few hours or until all starches are converted :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[wynnum1]

What are you going to oak it with to get the flavor.

[cap73n]

What are you going to oak it with to get the flavor.

I've oaked some neutrals in 10 litre oak barrels I imported from Mexico and hooley Dooley they have some nice vanilla/caramel flavours. A massive favourite between me and my friends - very smooth straight and very easy to drink with cola. My plan is to do the same with this "wheat whiskey".

I know most whiskey drinkers would turn their nose up at this Because it has limited depth and character. But I reckon for me and my family/friends. We like the very delicately balanced crossover between whiskey and oaked neutral.

[Sam.]

I wouldn't go cooking malted wheat as you would be wasting it by killing the enzymes.

If you have access to or the money to use malted wheat then yeah you could do an all wheat malt mash the same as you would with barley.

I believe wheat doesn't have anywhere near the diasatic power that barley does so malted wheat wont convert as much unmalted wheat, can't remember the figures off the top of my head...

Good luck with the venture :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[waza]

I have used 33% White stock feed wheat and 66% malted barley. Both a medium grist and both added at the same time no cooking first. Wheat has a higher starch content of about 70% compared to barley about 57% . So it has a lot of starch to convert. It doesn't tend to go gluggy like corn, as long as you use enough water. If your doing AG with no added sugar or enzymes I have found a grain to water ratio of 3.5-1 works and achieved a initial gravity of 1070. about 9%. You could use less barley and more wheat but I have no info on that. You could use malted wheat instead of barley. If it's a neutral type spirit your after personally I wouldn't waste the time and effort on AG, I would just stick to an albran/weetbix or weetbix/cornflakes sugar wash.

[cap73n]

I believe wheat doesn't have anywhere near the diasatic power that barley does so malted wheat wont convert as much unmalted wheat, can't remember the figures off the top of my head...

Good luck with the venture :handgestures-thumbupleft:

From Barrett Burston specs;
Their pale malt (barley) has a diasatic power of 255 Wk
Whereas their malted wheat has a diasatic power of 423 WK

If it's a neutral type spirit your after personally I wouldn't waste the time and effort on AG, I would just stick to an albran/weetbix or weetbix/cornflakes sugar wash.

Im not really after a neutral spirit. I'm after a light delicate spirit that people who aren't whiskey drinkers can get their palate around. Kind of inbetween if you get me. Not quite one or the other...

[Sam.]

From Barrett Burston specs;
Their pale malt (barley) has a diasatic power of 255 Wk
Whereas their malted wheat has a diasatic power of 423 WK

Got a link?

[cap73n]

From Barrett Burston specs;
Their pale malt (barley) has a diasatic power of 255 Wk
Whereas their malted wheat has a diasatic power of 423 WK

Got a link?

The links are below. But you have to download the pdf on the pages.

Barley malt

http://nationalhomebrew.com.au/brewers- ... -pale-malt

Wheat malt

http://nationalhomebrew.com.au/brewers- ... wheat-malt

Cheers

[Sam.]

They look like results from one shipment. Different varieties will differ as well but if you have a look that the barely was just in its minimum range of 250 @ 255 but max is 330.

The wheat is 423 but the minimum is 250.

Also the two shipments are from different years so i wouldn't be using those numbers as a strict guide :-B

[cap73n]

Ok fair call. You got to go off what you can find info though, thus my conclusion that wheat malt is at a minimum as good as barley malt... In practice it may, and probably is very different.

[Sam.]

Depending what wheat malt you get it may not be as good as barley. I seem to remember that wheat can convert it's own weight so 1:1 but barley can do more.

Again depends on how good it is and what strain etc etc.

The only way to find out at the end of the day is to try, I haven't tried much with wheat so far as I am not a fan of wheat beer :))

May be on the agenda for next year though :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[cap73n]

Haha exactly.

Mayb, (and this is me guessing), maybe the diasatic power of malt wheat is enough to convert the starches in a normal mash, but;

A) there is more starch in wheat to convert then barley

B) the wheat needs cooking to gelatanize the starch before the enzymes can work

Thus a wheat mash needs a malt with greater diasatic power....

This is only.me hypothesising though... So yeh, unless someone has previously done this, then I am going to have to try it myself.

[bayshine]

I use joe white wheat malt in my all grain bourbon mash and it seems to have plenty dp :handgestures-thumbupleft:
And would bet that it converts itself and it's own weight again ;-)

[tipsy]

I use joe white wheat malt in my all grain bourbon mash and it seems to have plenty dp :handgestures-thumbupleft:
And would bet that it converts itself and it's own weight again ;-)

:text-+1: http://www.howtobrew.com/section2/chapter12-1.html

[Sam.]

I use joe white wheat malt in my all grain bourbon mash and it seems to have plenty dp :handgestures-thumbupleft:
And would bet that it converts itself and it's own weight again ;-)

:text-+1: http://www.howtobrew.com/section2/chapter12-1.html

Interesting that he says that wheat malt has equal DP to barley :think:

In some cases that is probably true but may be more of a generalization.

[tipsy]

In some cases that is probably true but may be more of a generalization.

I'm sure it is Sam.
I just remember buying a bag of malted wheat a few years ago from Grain and Grape and I was told it had higher DP than some malted barley.

I got over wheat beer pretty quick though so wouldn't know how it compares today.