Mash not required

[RuddyCrazy]

Well my purchase is on the way and it did say 15th dec to 5 jan for delivery and I checked the tracking and it's arrived on our shores, got onto ali to take a look at the picture and it's the same as Teddysad posted above. So soon fun times ahead and with those BIAB bag's Wellsy is doing it should make for some good fun.

Cheers Bryan

[Wellsy]

Sometimes Bryan we make such rookie mistakes it is incredible.
I racked mine off today as I worked out why I was still seeing bubbles. My fermenters are in the shed and in the morning when I open the cupboard doors the sun shines on then. Wearing them and the air in them. Guess what that does to the air lock lol.
I worked it out this morning and to confirm it I closed the cupboard and went back 15 minutes later only to see the airlock exhibiting what happens when fermenter gets negative pressure :angry-banghead:
So racked off about 34 litres ready for a stripping run on Tuesday. Already got the grain ready for the next ferment :)

[Wellsy]

Btw Bryan when I say we, I actually meant me :laughing-rolling:

[RuddyCrazy]

Wellsy my 60 litre fermenters have a 30 watt heater 5 star heater belts around them if needed but this time of year fermenters are counted in days rather than months. That last apple cider ferment fermented out in 6 days with no extenal heating and I reckon that TPW I put on yesterday will do the same.

now my idea with this yeast is to use my 60 litre fermenters and dump a 20kg bag of grain in each one corn and barley and in one of my smaller fermenters do a rye ferment.

Strip the lot in my 4" pot still and combine for a spirit run again in my 4" pot still then on oak for a year atleast. I sampled my all grain after 6 months and well it can have another 6 months. I only put 6-7 grams a litre in toasted/charred french oak which I get from that 2.2 kg domino I scored.

I got 4 extra 5 litre demi's so plenty of aging space but for now there are holding low wines from my TPW

Cheers Bryan

[Teddysad]

I suggest max 11 kg of grain in that 60 l fermenter and 80g of the yeast. Try 30l of hot water 85 to 90c on top of the grain and stir well. Let it sit for an hour or so, then top up with cool water. Once cooled to 35c add the yeast. Stir every day for 3 days then leave it alone to do its thing

[Wellsy]

Thanks Teddy
I just stripped my first AG and got 6 litres at about 35% from my 30odd litres.

Just went with the second generation, 8 litres of backset and 24 litres of hot water. Waited 6 hours for the water to cool so yeast could be pitched. I think this time I will get a better yield thanks to following the process better :)

The first strip tasted fantastic from the still. Thanks for sharing your experiments teddy

[rash]

Well, my first attempt with the angel went ok, a wheat bourbon, with a slightly lower yield than expected. Kept 1100ml @65%. Now on oak, tastes nice, lots of corny flavour.
Running my 2nd attempt now, a 100% wheat vodka. 8.3kg ground wheat, 25ltr total wash volume. Slowly bubbled for weeks, stopped bubbling a week ago. Running now, 120ml chucked as fores. Ran it at 1.5ltr per hr, 4 plate 3inch column. Coming off at 90%.. after fores collected about 500ml before output slowed right down and abv has been dropping lower and lower... Taken 1ltr now, abv at 77%, all I can smell is tails... Sad run...

[bluc]

Rash
Did you grind grain, stir regular and what is your full recipe including yeast amount? Also temps?

[rash]

Just turned it to strip speed and it is pumping out water by 200ml. Very poor yield... Wonder if my ferment stalled? Was no activity and starting to grow little white silky bits on top.. yeast flakes?

[rash]

Rash
Did you grind grain, stir regular and what is your full recipe including yeast amount? Also temps?

Hey bluc, wheat was ground to a coarse flour,
8.3kg wheat
Wash 25ltrs
40g angel yeast
Stirred couple of times a day for first week.
Not sure on temp, made it quite warm from start and let seqld weather take care of the rest..
Ash

[bluc]

I get 3-3.4l at 65 abv in my keeper jar :geek: from 15kg grain in 40l water . from 8 kg 1.5l would not be terrible is the 1l at 90 hearts or a mix. By the time you dilute 1l 90 down to 65(as I do for ageing) you have 1460ml with differing cuts I say its about on par with what I get.

You grind grain mashing at about 3:1 and stir along with warm temps you may bump volume by steeping grain in boiling water and let it cool before adding yeast.
I stir everyday at least once for 2 weekd and often let it sit for 3 weeks.. but I dont steep in boiling water..

[rash]

I get 3-3.4l at 65 abv in my keeper jar :geek: from 15kg grain in 40l water . from 8 kg 1.5l would not be terrible is the 1l at 90 hearts or a mix. By the time you dilute 1l 90 down to 65(as I do for ageing) you have 1460ml with differing cuts I say its about on par with what I get.

You grind grain mashing at about 3:1 and stir along with warm temps you may bump volume by steeping grain in boiling water and let it cool before adding yeast.
I stir everyday at least once for 2 weekd and often let it sit for 3 weeks.. but I dont steep in boiling water..

Nah, i ended up with 1.2ltrs total, taking it to 0%...
When starting the wash, I used a few ltrs of boiling water on the ground grain before adding room temp water and then yeast. Maybe I need to control fermentation temps better..?

[rash]

(that is 1.2ltrs including heads, hearts and tails.) Maybe around 400ml @90% smell like hearts.

[bluc]

I have not controlled temps even in middle of winter.. It wasn't to hot when you added yeast was it?

[bluc]

Only other thing I can think is your running to hard. I know I have to be gentle with max of about 2000w power max..

[rash]

I have not controlled temps even in middle of winter.. It wasn't to hot when you added yeast was it?

Hmm, that could be possible.. need to start checking temps I think..
I usually power down once the plates are starting to load.
Thanks for your help mate, will try again over the next few days and record/check start temps.
Ash

[brisvalleymoonshiner]

Hi all. I've been following this post from the start and had a go while back with some straight wheat malt in a 50ltr wash to see how it would go. My biggest issue was that I forgot to empty the boiler from the previous run and had started filling up the boiler with the wheat wash. Wasted about 15ltrs of wash. :violence-smack: Now I have a info tag on the boiler saying "empty" :)). Managed to only get approx 800ml of 95% abv as i only had just enough to do a run. Ran it through 4 plates with my 800mm packed section. Came out nice very subtle wheat flavour but the mouth feel was slightly oily which I thought was good. Anyways I tried to take all the info from you all and have a crack at 150ltr wash consisting of 16kgs of corn 5kgs of rye and 10kgs of distillers malt. Water temp was approx 30 deg. I added approx 100 grams of yeast( not sure if i was a little under here). Mixed it well and put the lid on and stirred it twice daily for the 1st 3 days. It did take some time to fully ferment out. It was a full month before i ran it through the still. I have done 2 runs now through my 4 plates and the flavour is quiet good(50ltr boiler). I'm not an experienced distiller with running grain washes so this being my 1st chop at it I'm quiet impressed with what I have managed to make. I have the 1st batch ageing on some heavy charred oak staves. It has been sitting for approx 3 months and the flavour is coming along nicely. 2nd run I really concentrated on the cuts and tasting them as it came off the still. Doing them in cuts of approx 250-300ml I found the 1st 2 jars to be very bitey. Didn't add them to the final blend. 3-5 jars had a good amount of rye spice, 6-9 had a more corn flavour with a spice taste at the back end. Jars 9-11 were mainly corn. 11-13 had a strange taste, not in a bad way but something that I thought might mix well in the end product. Probably should have mentioned that my take off was approx 91% abv and by jar 3 I was at 89% abv. Jar 14 was sitting at approx 50% abv and I decided to not cut any further as the taste was getting a bit too odd for me. Would love to hear from some of you with any tips or corrections that I could do to to fine tune this for the next run. It's been a good topic to read and i have learnt a lot from all. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[bluc]

Sounds good to me the 100g of yeast on 16kg grain also sounds fine. I use 50g per 10kg :handgestures-thumbupleft:

The yeast does make a very nice burbon i reakon :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[brisvalleymoonshiner]

Sounds good to me the 100g of yeast on 16kg grain also sounds fine. I use 50g per 10kg :handgestures-thumbupleft:

The yeast does make a very nice burbon i reakon :handgestures-thumbupleft:

It does. I'm gonna age it for a year and see how we go.

[brisvalleymoonshiner]

Sounds good to me the 100g of yeast on 16kg grain also sounds fine. I use 50g per 10kg :handgestures-thumbupleft:

The yeast does make a very nice burbon i reakon :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Bluc. It was 16kgs or corn plus 5kgs of rye and 10kgs of distillers malt. So a total of 31kgs. So may be a little on the low side for yeast.