Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Heard some good things about Angel yeast's yellow label so got some while they were on sale. Turns out, it does live up the hype and is quite magic. What I've done is in no way scientific but it may help provide some sort of data point for others in future.

Oat
Ingredients:
~10L hot water (~50C)
3kg oats split in to
- 1kg jumbo rolled oats
- 2kg instant rolled oats
30g Angel yellow label yeast
10g Angel bakers yeast

Method:
Put all the oats into hot water (~50 is what I got from the tap and boiling a 1.7Ljug), give it a stir to mix everything, and check for doughballs
Wait till pitching temperature (35C) then add yellow label yeast and give everything a vigourous stir
Sprinkle bakers yeast on top - this part is probably not necessary but I wanted to give the yeast some help
Stir twice a day for the first four days then once the next three days after

Wheat:
Ingredients:
~10L hot water (~50C)
3kg kibbled wheat
30g Angel yellow label yeast
10g Angel bakers yeast

Method:
Put all the kibbled wheat into hot water, give it a stir to mix everything, and check for doughballs
Wait till pitching temperature (35C) then added yellow label yeast and give everything a vigourous stir
Sprinkle bakers yeast on top
Stir twice a day for the first four days then once the next three days

Corn/Polenta:
Ingredients:
~10L hot water (~50C)
3kg polenta
30g Angel yellow label yeast
10g Angel bakers yeast

Method:
Put all the polenta into hot water, give it a stir to mix everything, and check for doughballs
Wait till pitching temperature (35C) then add yellow label yeast and give everything a vigourous stir
Sprinkle bakers yeast on top
Stir twice a day for the first four days then once the next three days

Results - fermentation
Oat:
Almost everything broke down, all that was left after filtering was yeast, some hulls, and oat fibre.

Wheat:
Didn't break down as well as the oats did, but conversion and fermentation did happen. After a week, it didn't seem like it had done very much so, I filtered it and saved the liquid. With the solids that were left, I cooked the wheat, brought it up to 10L again, pitched the yeast, and left it again for another week - stirring every day for the first four days

Corn/Polenta:
Similar to the wheat, it didn't look like it had broken down much in a week either so, filtered, saved liquid, cooked remaining solids, pitched yeast, and left it to ferment for another week - stirring every day for the first four days.

Results - distilation
Oat:
Everything went smoothly, yield is a little more than if I had properly cooked the oats then added enzymes.

Wheat and corn/polenta - second fermentation:
Distillation went smoothly, got half as much yield as I would normally get

Wheat and corn/polenta - first fermentation:
Out of curiosity, I wanted to see how much alcohol there really was. Going by the yield that I got from the cooked stuff, my guess was that there was some in here. So added both liquids together and distilled it.

Turns out, if I added everything that I got from both fermentations of the wheat and corn, the yield was about 25% more.

Learnings
Angel yeast yellow label is (science-y) magic. If I had left the wheat and corn for another week or two, it probably would have fermented out just fine. Again, my methods aren't entirely scientific - more proof of concept - and my yields were intentionally left out because it'll depend on whoever is distilling and I'm still learning to use my still properly. I stopped at ~10% coming out of the spout.
If everything had been cooked properly at the start, fermentation probably would have been even faster. Would probably add nutrients to the corn wash if I was to do it again with just corn.

is the amount of yellow angel you used from any source?
i've got 2 x instructions and both suggest only 5-8gm of yellow per kg of grain.

The instructions on the packet say "Dosage: 0.2 - 0.6% of stuff" so, I used 1% by weight because its easier to work out and made sense to me. Seems to have worked out well. Figured it is a little better to over-pitch than under-pitch.

Got mine from www.5stardistilling.com.au, will consider getting them from yeast.nz when I run out and if they happen to have a sale.

My experiments with this produced a funky taste that I did not like. The fix (thanks Bluc) was to add some citric acid and bring the pH down so there was less bacteria able to grow in the mash.
Cheers.

Before or after distillation? I didn't get anything out of the ordinary, the distillate came out really clean

Your local water may have a bearing on this

Agree no issues running on my rain water or even town water. The moonshine (corn/rye) I am sipping is testimony to it. Second generation too!

I've been using this quite a bit, I like to use sticky rice/gluttonous riceas a base grain usually 30-40% it breaks down really well and makes a lot of alcohol.
Then a standard load of whatever grain bill for whatever I want to make for bourbon or scotch ect, but I like to add some whiskey yeast too for a better flavour profile and citric acid and Diamonim phosphate, then adjust the PH to 5.7, those electric pH testers are brilliant for that.

A sample recipe would be 2kg sticky rice ground course, 5kg cracked corn ground course, 1kg of course ground barley and 2kg of fine ground rye.
Put into the fermenter, add 20lt of boiling water, top it up with around 15-20lt cold water (I use a 60lt fermenter so I just top it up before pitching, I've never measured how much I put in) after a couple of hours and add 3tbs of yellow label and a packet of whiskey yeast.
That makes a very nice smooth bourbon, all flavour without the sugar adding extra sweetness.

But that sticky rice just gets converted so easily, it's what that yeast was made to be used on.

Which the enzymes would convert and off you go, interesting, must get more of this, does a good job.

Actually i need to revise, this stuff rocks, I make ujssm out of the two 30 s I have, the yeast/enzymes continued to demolish the corn and made this almost as good as the first new corn batch. Nothing but sugar, water and lme added and stirred. Highly recommend it. It overcomes / allows for mashing mistakes and does it at room temp. How could you go wrong.

That's what I like about it, the other one to try which I'm using this run due to being out of yellow label is Chinese dried yeast balls, they do the sane thing.
Their what I use for rice whiskey.

Why would you use sugar or lme with
Yellow label both ard already sugar. Add it your flour any flour. Corn/barley/rye/wheat/oats/sorguhm etc etc Then after fermentation get up to your elbows squeezing goop then distill.. this makes all grain spirit same as mashing.
Beats me why anyone well almost anyone would add sugar too it..

That's why I add sticky rice if I want to up the proof, it's got no real flavour and basically dissolves as it's converted.

bluc wrote:Why would you use sugar or lme with
Yellow label both ard already sugar. Add it your flour any flour. Corn/barley/rye/wheat/oats/sorguhm etc etc Then after fermentation get up to your elbows squeezing goop then distill.. this makes all grain spirit same as mashing.
Beats me why anyone well almost anyone would add sugar too it..

Agree... with a healthy supply of raw grains, it makes the process for those that are time poor fairly streamline.

To add abv, this was the self use of them ,they had been mashed and worked very well, this took the last out of it, this was almost as good as the proper use of grain etc. Was impressed with it. Lme just for giggles, $14 per batch is good value! the outcome is excellent and on oak. 12 months later ....

You dont add sugar=0 added flavour. Add more grain, more flavour more alcohol :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I think you guys are missing that chipboy is talking about adding lme n sugar to the spent/already used AG mash, the lme is a nice touch - good one man :handgestures-thumbupleft:

It's good to play with different mashing ideas like that, sometimes it works geat other times not so much.

I usually do a run of rum at Christmas where I use 20lt if molasses and no suger and 10lt of dundar, then once it's run I re mash it in with 10kg of raw sugar and another 10lt of dundar and mix the two runs together when I'm done.
Then take 20lt of that for the next year's dundar.

Atm in a similar fashion using the dry yeast balls I've mashed in 5kg of course ground corn, 5kg of fine ground rye and 1kg of pale malt split between two 35lt fermenters with an additional 2kg of steamed sticky rice in each.
I ce they have worked off then I will drain them and re-strike both with 6kg of dextrose and add whiskey yeast.

Then I plan on draining them into another container and then putting both lots into the still to see if it maintains a fairly all grain flavour with an increased yield.

I'm not sure if it will work but I've got a pretty good feeling that it will, due mostly to how yellow label or dry yeast balls breaks down the grains and draws out the flavour.

RC Al wrote:I think you guys are missing that chipboy is talking about adding lme n sugar to the spent/already used AG mash, the lme is a nice touch - good one man :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Doh :oops:

Hey Bluc don't worry I miss things all the time. The angel took more out the corn so much so I could smell it in fermentation. The finished product is great, on oak and you're correct it is not ujssm, its my experiment.