Still working through Vodka options

[Wellsy]

Wellsy ditch the breakfast cereals and get into the AG mate as AG is poles apart in tasting, my first single malt after aging 7 months is outstanding and everyone that has tasted it have said it's the best thing they have tasted in a long time. My mate at the bottleshop said after his boss tasted it they would have to open a $600 bottle of whisky to come close to the flavour. Now this batch was done in my 4" bubbler and I had a bit left over so it was stripped in my 2" pot still and a spirit run in it too.

To say the bubbler version is nice when a mate tried the pot still version he said Bryan you have hit the nail on the head here as it's way better than the bubbler version.

So go grab some barely and get malting mate :handgestures-thumbupleft: , now you can also do generations too and put some fine milled corn in for the second generation and add some other grains for the third etc. Strip every ferment then do a blended spirit run and put it down at 65% on French Oak for 6-12 months. I'm sure you will agree it is way better than using breakfast cereals.

Cheers Bryan

Thanks Bryan
My last ngw is almost done and once finished I will start on an all grain whiskey with my angel yeast. I already have some purchased malted barley but am considering how I could malt my own barley. I have an old worm farm that I think would provide a good grain bed with space for the co2 to drop through to. I will start adding a a couple of kilos of sugar as well just to get the yield up a little as my bourbon AG yields about half what my BWKO. I will stick with the WBAB wash for my vodka though as it is so easy lol. I might try a full wheat AG one day but I really am not understanding why I want full flavour in my neutral/vodka

[RuddyCrazy]

Wellsy I've got a SS trough I use 800x800x100mm, now I put a wet sheet in it after I soak the grain in a bucket with holes drilled in the base. That bucket sits nicely in my 10 litre stock pot so I fill the bucket up with water in the morning then every hour raise the bucket and use a couple of wood planks to support the bucket so it can drain. Give the grains a good mixing by hand then drop it back in slowly. Repeat thru out the day then leave it propped up over night. The grains will swell up then in the morning they are transferred to the trough. I made a plexi glass cover to keep the bugs and mice out and as it's summer I put a blanket over to keep the sun off.

Now when I'm ready to dry the malt I carefully take out the sheet and put the trough with the cover on in full sun, I put a temp gauge in today and it got to 80C and tomorrow in the sun they will fully dry probably before lunchtime :handgestures-thumbupleft:

This malting project is going to be a AG using the 5 kg's of spare corn and tomorrow I'll go to the health shop and get some rye to add. The whole point is to compare my angel yeast project and see which one is the better.

Cheers Bryan

Edit: when I said plexi Glass I meant a fresnel lens off a compact fluro light

[RC Al]

Depends on your definition of each, they are not the same thing by proper commercial standards

Neutral is a flavourless alcohol

Vodka can/should have a little flavour, but will be listed as a flavourless drink as its just meant to be a hint

[Tesla101]

40% abv is fine. Just to note that it's OK to dilute it down to 35-37% as well, which will dilute any flavour a bit more. Some of the premium vodkas do this - it's not just to create a bigger yield.

I've been doing weet-bix washes for months now. For a 25L wash I'll take 5L of hot backset from a stripping run and pour it in a fermenter with 5kg of sugar, 8 crushed weet-bix, 1/2 tsp DAP, 1 tsp of bicarb of soda and 1 multi-vitamin tablet. Whiz it up with a stick mixer and then top up to 25L with cold water then pitch 25g of bakers yeast. I use this for neutral for my gin.

No need to cook the weet-bix. Quick and easy. For a first gen just double the weet-bix. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Thanks Tesla, I am struggling to understand why you do generations on a neutral. I thought the whole purpose of generations is to build flavour but with a neutral we don’t want flavour. What have I misunderstood ?

Hey Wellsy, good question!

Two reasons why:-

1. Much easier to dissolve the sugar and "cook" the weet-bix with hot backset from the stripping run. Saves me using hot tap water ( :puke-huge: ) or boiling 5L of water.
2. As I said, I make it as a neutral base for gin. A good gin will have a 2 to 2.5 dimension flavour profile. Gins designed to be drank with tonic are usually 2 dimensional as the tonic adds that earthy, rooty type flavour that fills in the third dimension - back of mouth taste that lingers. 2.5 dimension gins are designed to be drank neat or with soda, where the earthy, rooty flavours are added as botanicals.
The first dimension is predominantly the taste of citrus botanical used, which gives a sweeter front of mouth taste that hits you as soon as soon as you take a sip. The second dimension is predominantly made up of the juniper and coriander seed, however you should also be able to taste a hint of the substrate, just like a good vodka. This is the middle of mouth that should last for a few seconds after the initial sweetness of the citrus. Having a slight wheat-ness to the flavour adds complexity which makes the drink a lot more interesting. (Just like vodka)

Getting back to vodka though, I think you could do the same with generations for a wheat based vodka. I use a reflux column for my spirit runs which is stripping out a lot of the flavour but if you're triple pot stilling for vodka you could do the same process and just tweak the amount of weet-bix - or AG if you go that way.

[Wellsy]

Thanks Tesla, that makes sense and I could never work out why backset was added.

Thanks Bryan my nieces husband grows barley and can sell me a tonne for $ 300.00. He grows wheat and oats as well. I am trying to talk him into growing Rye lol. That gives me lots of grain to experiment with lol
Lucky I found that Queensland supplier of Angel yeast so I can get it quick :)

[howard]

40% abv is fine. Just to note that it's OK to dilute it down to 35-37% as well, which will dilute any flavour a bit more. Some of the premium vodkas do this - it's not just to create a bigger yield.

2. As I said, I make it as a neutral base for gin. A good gin will have a 2 to 2.5 dimension flavour profile. Gins designed to be drank with tonic are u

i recently stumbled across this old blog from I-still (odin)
as a novice in all this, it has helped me understand tasting gin (and probably works for other stuff too?)
my mate and i had a gin tasting session at my place with my OEG before going out to eat.
then we got some funny looks at the curry house when we ordered one glass each of their 4 x gins on offer, and 2 pints of water :smile:
TBH i don't remember much after that :D
the OEG did very well in the taste test, i think.
https://istillblog.com/2019/12/16/the-s ... -flavor-1/

[Wellsy]

Ok guys final results are exceptionally pleasing. I diluted down to 40% and waited the required 2 minutes for it to smooth out and amazed at the results. I did not need to go to 35 as both myself and the missus loved it at 40%.
Fantastic mouth feel, hint of flavour which is hard to define and no bite. It just warms from the stomach out.
Man this stuff could get you seriously messed up.
WBAB I love it, thanks again to all who steered me on this path.

[Tesla101]

Well done Wellsy. How good does it feel to make a drink that you and the missus both enjoy? :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Wellsy]

It’s bloody fabulous Tesla
She has been enjoying the BWKO but the vodka really hit the spot after just 2 minutes of smoothing out lol
We are expecting 40 degrees this weekend but i think I will be safe if I put down another batch on Sunday as it will be the last day of super high heat.

[Sam.]

Depends on your definition of each, they are not the same thing by proper commercial standards

Neutral is a flavourless alcohol

Vodka can/should have a little flavour, but will be listed as a flavourless drink as its just meant to be a hint

Then you have varietal vodka category where the base grain is meant to be quite dominant....