Ruddy's Malting setup

[RuddyCrazy]

G'Day Guy's,
Well tried my best to appease SWMBO so turned off the still at 10.30 only to find they had already gone :angry-banghead: so back up to the shed and fired the still up again :handgestures-thumbupleft:

About 20 minutes later saw the plates weren't loaded and found the gas bottle had run out :scared-eek: so went and got the other bottle and put in on to continue the run. After taking 3 litres the site glass's fogged up so back into reflux to fully load the plates then took another 500ml only to find the plates had done it again :scared-eek: so in total did 3 reflux loads and just used my nose with the cuts and some of the early tail cuts will be interesting in the morning to investigate as in taking 4.4 litres before cuts the angels did finally shine on me :laughing-rolling:

After the last reflux saw that second bottle of gas was just about gone and that last cut jar did sort smell like my kelpie :laughing-rolling: so yea that was the end of the run.

Turned off at 12.30 so a great morning and only 5 or more months from starting this to getting it to aging time, only a year or so to go but from the smell this is going to be one nice drop.

After lunch I'll warm up some rain water to 30C and throw 20 litres into the fermenter to keep those yeasties kicking as the corn didn't happen this morning it's a tomorrow job. :laughing-rolling:

Cheers Bryan

[RuddyCrazy]

Well finally got around to putting on the first generation :handgestures-thumbupleft: I did find a bit of infection had started but reading on HD it's nothing to worry about with a AG so just scooped out close to 90% of the white goop and inverted 10 kg's of sugar with that last 2 kg going into 8 litres of warmed up backset. Didn't take long for the airlock to start kicking over so the yeasties are still alive and ready for that long awaited feed. :laughing-rolling:

Cheers Bryan

[RuddyCrazy]

Well a few weeks have gone by and didn't see much action from the airlock so opened it up and saw the grains had dropped now when I put my hydrometer in it showed 1040 :scared-eek: there was week where I didn't use power as after a huge downpour I reckon my shed inverter got a tad moist :angry-banghead: and on starting it went thru what looked like death throws :scared-eek:

so about a week later tried it again just to see if any fireworks happen and the bloody inverter turned on :handgestures-thumbupleft:

so everyday the heat belts are warming the fermenter but still no real action, so rahter than walk down the hill and half empty the fridge to get to the US-05 yeast I just chucked in a yeast from a home brew tin :laughing-rolling:

Well now got a very thick grain cap and it's down to 1020 :handgestures-thumbupleft: so it's getting there

Had a dram of the first batch thats aging and man for a guy who has never tried rye man that taste hit me with the feeling why did i take so long to do this :laughing-rolling:

Cheers Bryan

[RuddyCrazy]

G'Day Guy's,
Well a bit of an update finally got to run the sugarback and decided I did need empty bottles for my AG thats ready I put the previous years AG in the boiler :laughing-rolling: as it was still ok but too mild for my tasting the second batch :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Got the ABV on a full boiler load to 18% and after cuts got to fill a couple of 5 litre demi's @65% for the run, put some fresh charred French oak off my big domino and put 10 litres of backset in the fermenter when it cooled down.

So decided today while my shed is charging as I ran it down right flat yesterday machining :scared-eek: it's close to 8 hours of genset and throwing 80+ amps at the battery to get it back to life.

Crushed up 5kg's or rye and 3kg's of barley and took close to a 20 litre bucket of old grain out replaced the grain with the new stuff and added 8Kg's of inverted sugar to get a SG of 1085, checked the ph with my papers and decided to chuck in a couple of oyster shells to do the job of looking after the ph :laughing-rolling:

Still got a full metal bucket of rye and the barely bucket is about 3/4's so I might keep the generations going until I run out of grain.

Cheers Bryan

[RuddyCrazy]

Well for the last few days I've had to keep topping up the airlock as the ferment was hammering on and noticed it had slowed down a heap. So took a gravity reading and it's down to 1.000 and still bubbling, there is still some grain floating and I reckon by the weekend she'll be ready to run. Now what better time on one's birthday to run a whisky wash :handgestures-thumbupleft: and I will be starting early as the yard arm won't be too far away. :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:

Anyway with this generation it's going to give me around 20 litres @ 65% so one more generation will fit a 25 litre French Oak barrel with a medium char where the barrel has been totally reconned and freshly charred for a tad under $350 :handgestures-thumbupleft: I reckon one season with whisky and the next batch will be a fruit brandy as doing small batch's has shown what a nice drop it is.

Cheers Bryan