Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

I reakon tipsy and coffe are on the money for rule of thumb mashing 3l/kg water for strike/rest 1.2mm mill gap. 63-65c rest, sparge to 1.010. Only thing left is strike temp.

bluc wrote:I reakon tipsy and coffe are on the money for rule of thumb mashing 3l/kg water for strike/rest 1.2mm mill gap. 63-65c rest, sparge to 1.010. Only thing left is strike temp.

Is strike temp a consideration for all mashing or more for when your using an esky type tun? I was figuring I just chuck it all in and let it come up to temp and hold there

Strike water temp is more for esky style mash tuns. If you have rims or herms you can raise temp (you can in an esky to by adding boiling water). Usually in an esky insulated tun you just do a single temp"infusion mash" juggle strike water temp so after grains are added and stirred thouroughly the temp is 60-65 then held there for hour +.

Clickeral wrote:

coffe addict wrote:Ah ok I think I understand, I had assumed that the grain would be up around 12kg in the 20L.
In this case boiling to the sg up to 1065-1070 would be beneficial.

DO NOT BOIL WORT THAT IS GOING TO BE DISTILLED

it kills the enzymes and means it wont ferment out as dry, meaning you will have residual sugar which can burn onto your elements

I would aim for an OG of 1060 which would be around a 9% wash if fermented out to 0990

Probably about 10kg of malt for that

Ive never heard of anyone getting to 0990 and I've never boiled. If the enzyme have done their job before you boil all it will do is separate the protein's. If your doing a 90Mon mash (like beer guys do) then there is still some activity from the enzymes however most people are doing much longer mashes on whiskey ie 3hrs. By then the enzymes have done their thing.
But a wash of 8% is about spot on, I've gone to 9.9 and quality drops of.

If you mash at the lower temperature and make more fermentable then going to get more alcohol and less flavour the same with adding sugar the extra alcohol is going to strip flavor and with a lower original gravity and fermenting at higher temperatures going to be a quick ferment .

wynnum1 wrote:If you mash at the lower temperature and make more fermentable then going to get more alcohol and less flavour the same with adding sugar the extra alcohol is going to strip flavor and with a lower original gravity and fermenting at higher temperatures going to be a quick ferment .

It was always my understanding that alcohol molecules held flavour?

Heads are alcohol the more heads the less flavor in the hearts because the heads has flavor and your not keeping.

I think the flavour depends more on ester and fatty/phenol acid production and chemical reactions in the wash than on mashing temp. I don't think mashing lower to fully extract the sugars in the grain will negatively affect flavour.

Too high a sugar content does stress yeast, but this is hard to achieve with all grain as you're generally in the range of 5-8% ABV in the wash. Adding refined sugar definitely can cause negative flavours, because it is missing other nutrients that would be in the grain, and can be an oversupply of sugar to the yeast or too high ABV, which again, stresses the yeast.

Some of the these acid/ester flavours come out in the product, but aren't actually in the alcohol molecule.

I thought adding sugar reduces flavour because there is no flavour in sugar and you are substituting flavoured ingredients(grain fruit etc) for sugar.. :think:

Good point Bluc, the malts do provide their own flavour in the mix too.

So i went to grain and grape to grab some pilsner malt and ended up walking out with a 25kg bag of heavily peated as well. Turns out I went in on a sale day and got 25kg for $75 which isn't too bad I reckon!

I'll do a few runs with the joe white pilsner to get my eye in on the mashing and then step up to the peated malt. Might mix the two together and get some more stuff to add.

While I was there I thought why the eff not and bought some stuff to do AG beer while I'm at it. Not a big beer drinker but 99% of my mates and family are and like stilling I get more enjoyment out of making something and seeing others enjoy it than I do from drinking myself.

One more wash then I can get stuck into the all grain. Look forward to adding more info to this thread. Has some good info I reakon.. :-B

bluc wrote:One more wash then I can get stuck into the all grain. Look forward to adding more info to this thread. Has some good info I reakon.. :-B

Yeah I'm yet to do one myself. My mate who had the still at his place has been busy prepping for his wedding so we haven't had time. I've been practising on my tun with a few AG beers, great fun.

I've got my grain so I'm going to put down a peated whisky ferment this week, just trying to figure out what grain bill to use.

@sparrow go 100% heavy peated and if it ends up too peaty for your tastes send it to me ummm I mean use it to blend with less peaty whiskies. That way you get to control the level of smoke in your dram.

coffe addict wrote:@sparrow go 100% heavy peated and if it ends up too peaty for your tastes send it to me ummm I mean use it to blend with less peaty whiskies. That way you get to control the level of smoke in your dram.

Haha great to see you're willing to dive on that for me mate!

I do love islay whiskies, I was almost thinking of just keeping it simple and doing a 50/50 with heavily peated and joe white pilsner to make it a little more easy drinking for my stillin mate.

I've been soaking some oak staves in apera for a couple of months so I was thinking if I used a heavily peated whisky in them I might get something like ardbeg uigeadail?