Single Malt Recipe Advice

[robduca]

So I am about to have a go at Single Malt and had come up with a recipe from a bit of reading.
45L wash at SG 1.080 FG 1.020 7.86% Brewmate come up with the following
60% Golden Promise- 8.888kg
40% Bairds Med. Peat- 5.925kg

Went to the HBS to order and have been told that it is wrong season for Golden Promise, and Maris Otter would be similar? ($85 a bag)
Can't get Medium Peat, only heavy. ($138 a bag)

So is Maris Otter similar to Golden Promise?
And if I need to use Heavy Peat, would it be advisable to use Less? Say go 20%

Will be using a 50L Braumeister (Home brew shops) for mash.

Thanks for the help.

Rob

[TasSpirits]

Golden Promise is pretty good, but you can get a Australian Malted Barley for a fair bit less. Unless you really love peat I would suggest you go a little less than 20%, I like peat more than most and would recommend baby steps with Heavy Peated Barley. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[ekul]

if its the simpsons heavy peat i'd go 80% peated and 20% marris otter (or barret burston pale malt). I find that even the heavy peated malt isnt overly peaty. Depends on what you like though. Thats the beauty of this hobby, you get to make what you like!

[Summie]

if its the simpsons heavy peat i'd go 80% peated and 20% marris otter (or barret burston pale malt). I find that even the heavy peated malt isnt overly peaty. Depends on what you like though. Thats the beauty of this hobby, you get to make what you like!

:text-+1:

I use 100% heavy peated, and after aging etc its no where near what I would prefer. All thou very nice the peat tends to disappear almost.
I'm going to try smoke my own at some stage see If I can get a much heavier peat flavor. But each to there own, I can not tell you what you like.

[wynnum1]

Have you looked at other suppliers of Golden Promise it seems to be available .

[Jonnie Walker]

I have had great success with 50% GP and 50% Bairds heavy peated. You need to collect well into the tails to get the peat flavour. I collect down to 30% ABV with this recipe. After a month on oak (~20 square inches of heavy charred bourbon barrel stave per litre) it's PDG! Not as peaty as Laphroaig or Lagavulin 16. I will make a 100% Bairds heavy when I haved saved up for a bag of malt (about $100US delivered for me)

Distilled on 5/8/2016 Oaked at 62.5% ABV 50 square inches of oak ( this is the one I am drinking now watered down to 40%

Scotch 5-8-2016.jpg

Distilled on 5/11/2016 Oaked at 62.5% 52 square inches of oak

Scotch 6-11-2016.jpg

[WTDist]

how many grams per litre are you doing jonnie?

[robduca]

Have you looked at other suppliers of Golden Promise it seems to be available .

Thanks for the advice guys.
She has placed an order for golden promise and hopefully there is some in stock from whoever she gets it from.
Not going to worry too much about it this time looking for another supplier as it is the home brew shops braumeister that I am using.
Have ordered heavy peat and will stick with 60/40 and see how it goes. Can't wait to try the difference from sugar heads to all grain. Will be mashing on Sunday at this stage.

Cheers
Rob

[ekul]

also, if you dont boil after the mash you can preserve more peat flavour. But then you gotta run it as soon as its done or its gonna get infected

[Jonnie Walker]

how many grams per litre are you doing jonnie?

each stave is about 1" x 1" x 6" and weighs 86 grams so 86 grams per litre.

However I am not sure that weight is a good measure for oaking. I calculated that a standard barrel has about 15 square inches of contact per litre of spirit so just for kicks and grins I randomly decided to do 3 times that. if I was to cut one of my staves in half the surface area would be 19 sq" however the weight would be half. Not really sure about any of this, I am just doing what seems to work for me!

[tipsy]

also, if you dont boil after the mash you can preserve more peat flavour. But then you gotta run it as soon as its done or its gonna get infected

Can you elaborate on this?
I would have thought the critical time for getting an infection was cooling from mash temperature to yeast pitching temp.
Are you saying there could be another yeast/bacteria at work that continues to work after the pitched yeast has finished? :think:

[Jonnie Walker]

also, if you dont boil after the mash you can preserve more peat flavour. But then you gotta run it as soon as its done or its gonna get infected

I can attest to this, I have been brewing beer for 35 years plus and have never had an infection, when I started into distilling and did not boil the wort before fermenting I have had quite a few infections, they always seem to occur after the fermentation is complete, I have a theory that a lot of these infections are aerobic and need oxygen to develop, when the wort is fermenting vigorously there is a blanket of CO2 on top expelling the oxygen, as soon as the CO2 production stops at the end of the fermentation oxygen can easily percolate in to the fermentor and hey presto, the aerobic infection gets going, it was there all the time most likely from lactobacillus on the grain, it just needed the oxygen to make it happy (and you unhappy). This is a great site on sour beer that explains a lot of this with some great pictures of infections. http://hookedonhops.com/2014/09/14/sour-beer-culturing-wild-lactobacillus/

I have run my scotch mash after such an infection with absolutely no difference from the same mash without the infection see here http://www.aussiedistiller.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=9632

[robduca]

Grain has arrived. Golden promise was in stock.
So tomorrow will be my first go at all grain.

Still doing a bit of reading for the braumeister so let me know if I have missed anything.
Fill with water
Add grain
Heat to 50c and hold for 10min
Heat to 64c and hold for 90min
Drain liquid into container until runs clear
Drain clear liquid into fermenter
Pour collected cloudy liquid over grain
Pour hot (63c) water over grain to sparge until final desired volume is in fermenter?

Let cool and pitch yeast

Sound correct?
I'm just not 100% sure on the spargeing part
Does ph need adjusting in ag mashes?

Do many reuse the yeast in all grain or just use fresh yeast each time?

[Jonnie Walker]

The 50°C protein rest is not really needed with modern well modified malts. You shouldn't need to adjust the Ph with a grain bill like that, assuming your water is around 7.

What size is your Braumeister? That thing is bad ass, are you also planning on making beer in the future?

[robduca]

It isn't my Braumeister. The HBS has been kind enough to let me use theirs for this. I don't really fancy spending $3500 on one right now. Seems a bit pricey for what it is, so if the HBS lets me use it a couple times to try out all grain brewing, that sounds awesome to me :) it's a 50L one.

[Lizard]

So I am about to have a go at Single Malt and had come up with a recipe from a bit of reading.
45L wash at SG 1.080 FG 1.020 7.86% Brewmate come up with the following
60% Golden Promise- 8.888kg
40% Bairds Med. Peat- 5.925kg

I've done quite a few single malt batches and would be happy to share.

Golden promise is a good base malt. It was used by about 80% of scottish distilleries from 1965 to 85.
Buy Heavy peat not medium & use less if it's too strong. Works out cheaper.
SG 1.080 is too strong for authentic single malt. The textbooks all say 1.055 to 1.065. I like 1.060.
If you stop at FG 1.020, you are definitely using the wrong yeast. I get to 0.998 every time. If you are going to develop this, you need to source a proper whisky yeast and run at the correct temperature. Pinnacle, for example, starts at 19 C and rises to 31 C after 30 hours in a large fermenter. To achieve this in a small fermenter, you need heat and insulation to help it along (in NZ anyway!)

Beyond that, I think you'll have foaming troubles with 45 L in a 50 L boiler. I run about 54 L in a 67 L boiler ( 50 L wash @8% + 4 L feints @86% ish) and I have a foaming nightmare every batch. I've tried all the ideas to solve it that are posted on the forums without success!

Re oaking. I use american white oak strips with a cross section of 20mm x 12mm. I char them with a gas torch & cut them to length so that they weigh about 14 gm each (about 120mm long). You need to buy your raw oak from a trusted source who has paperwork to show that it wasn't fumigated with a toxic insecticide on importation. Also, if you want Malt not Bourbon, you have to wash the oak before it goes in the whisky. (remember, scotch is aged in second hand bourbon barrels). To mimic this, fill a jar with cut oak strips, fill up with good neutral hearts at 70% abv and put lid on jar. Leave for 1 week, topping up jar as required. oak is then ready to use. I use 14 gms oak (weighed charred but not washed) per litre of 65% spirit in a glass demijohn with the neck plugged with paper towel to allow the angels their share. I usually reduce the oak by 25% after 3 months and by another 25% after 12 months.

Hope it goes well.

Cheers

[Zak Griffin]

Scotch is about 300 years older than Bourbon... And even then, wouldn't you soak the oak in bourbon first, not neutral?

Also, pop into the welcome centre.. Love to see a pic of your bubbler!

[robduca]

So got this done today. Something didn't go to plan and not sure what. Can someone point out what I have done wrong?

Filled braumeister with approx 48L water
Heated to 30c
Added crushed grain to malt pipe
Heated to 50c and hold for 10 mins
Heated to 64c and hold for 90 mins
Raised malt pipe to drain
Poured approx 5L hot water over grain to sparge
Transferred to chiller, chill, transfer to fermenter, pitch yeast

Now the problem. Sg only come out at 1.032. Used 8.888kg Golden Promise, 5.925kg heavy peat.
Can anyone see where I have gone wrong?

Will have another crack once this ferments out and want to iron out the problems before I try again.

Cheers
Rob

[Jonny03]

Did you mix it well before taking the sample? The wort can easily stratify to give incorrect results

Did you take the sample from the fermentor or from the braumeister? At what temperature (if it's not the calibrated temp marked on the hydrometer it needs to be adjusted).

Can you take another reading from the fermentor without opening it (ie via a tap/port)? Although it should have started fermenting, if it was either temp or just a unrepresentative sample, you should get a reading closer to your expected SG.

Other than that, you'd be looking at how the grain was cracked, it's age, mash pH (although pH shouldn't have that dramatic an effect), whether the mash temperature was accurate etc.

[robduca]

The sample was taken from the wort chiller we used to cool it and retested from the fermenter once in there. Both samples close enough to 20c and both 1.032.

The grain was ordered in for me, so no idea on age of the grain.

Could it be I didn't start with enough water in the braumeister? Didn't sparge with enough water?
Temps and times should be ok shouldn't they? Might have to try look into the iodine test to make sure it's all on track for next time.

The HBS has just installed a new crusher and I will be using that one next time, so maybe I didn't crush the grain enough. Here is the only pic I took. Should have taken more for this reason. Next time.


Any advice welcome. Want to get this right, even if it takes me a few goes at it.