Nutrigrain Wash Discussion Thread

[FilthyPhil]

I'm slowly getting there.
After 2 weeks it's down to 1.004 but still bubbling away. Is that orange stuff floating around normal?

[Wellsy]

It was on mine mate, I put it down to some sort of food colouring but that was just a wild guess.
I did not grind mine up, they just went in whole. The nutrigrain turned almost white, like a wet rice bubble, hence my guess on the food colouring

[FilthyPhil]

It was on mine mate, I put it down to some sort of food colouring but that was just a wild guess.
I did not grind mine up, they just went in whole. The nutrigrain turned almost white, like a wet rice bubble, hence my guess on the food colouring

Ok, thanks Wellsy. I thought it may have been some sort of infection or something.
I crushed mine in a blender but it probably doesn't make any difference.

[Rumblepants]

Has anyone here added molasses into their NGW washes?

I'm planning an experiment adding 1 litre of Molasses to each wash and running 5 generations.

Is Molasses a straight replacement for sugar in a wash?

Cheers
Rumble

[bluc]

It's only about 40% fermentable.

[Rumblepants]

It's only about 40% fermentable.

Ok great thanks Bluc.

My recipe plan is

25L wash

1 large box of NG
4.5 kg sugar
1.1kg Molasses
Lowans
Epsom and citrus to adjust ph to 5ish

Save backseat from strips to add to next wash. Do 6 gens then a spirit run through pot still.

Aiming for a bastard rum tasting thing.

How does that sound?

Cheers
Rumble

[bluc]

Any reason for molasses in a whiskey? My bet is mol will over power grains(just my 2c and not a reason not to try you might love it) I have read of Americans doing sweet feed(grain mol mix) with great success.

[Rumblepants]

Any reason for molasses in a whiskey? My bet is mol will over power grains(just my 2c and not a reason not to try you might love it) I have read of Americans doing sweet feed(grain mol mix) with great success.

Just for something different. Sounds like a fun experiment to me.

[bluc]

:handgestures-thumbupleft:

[warramungas]

Worth a try with mollasses however might get a bit of rum taste.

[Rumblepants]

Worth a try with mollasses however might get a bit of rum taste.

I'm kinda hoping for some whiskey/brandy/rum profile out of this. Should be interesting :)

[BOB2]

Hi All, loving the forum but have run into question regarding Feints.
I am about 15 batchs in but this is the first with a "grain" mash. so i am still very new to the whiskey and oaking process.

I have just ran 3 generations of the nutrigrain wash thru a pot still (stripping runs), then combined the best parts of these strips for a final Distilling run starting at 35%abv

This has produced out of the pot still 6800ml in a range of 80%abv to 70%abv in 600ml takeoffs. I have read that keeping the 6800ml to oak is ideal (which is what I am going to do) as this has a nice flavour and nose profile.

Now for the question

Forums confuse me on if I should keep distilling down from 70%abv to 20% abv and keep these feints and reuse ? which appears to be the advice

If I keep to reuse ?
Do you reuse them to add in a final distilling run of another batch of stripped nutrigrain ?
Do you use them to add to a stripping wash run ?
Do you keep until you have enough to do a feints only final stipping run ?

Any advice to shed some light on this would be appreciated. :text-thankyoublue:

[Wellsy]

A couple of things to clear up Bob.
When you do your stripping runs keep all the product for the stripping runs. Don’t try and pick and chose from your stripping runs as everything is all jumbled up due to the speed we do stripping runs at.
The spirit run when you combine all the stripping runs is what you do nice and slow and this is where you need to make your cuts as to what you will keep and what you will redistill later in a feints run. There are no rules on selection as it all needs to be based on taste as every run will be a little different.
Have a reread of the making cuts topic in the newbie section mate.
Don’t get hung up on describing what things taste like initially just concentrate on what tastes good and what tastes like nail polish and that will be your heads cuts. And what tastes good and what tastes funk6 in a bad way and you have your tails sorted out mate.
Pop into the intro section and say hello and wha5 gear you are running

[Wellsy]

Forums confuse me on if I should keep distilling down from 70%abv to 20% abv and keep these feints and reuse ? which appears to be the advice
Stripping runs I strip down to 20%, the spirit run I will usually stop at around 40% because spirit runs take a long time.


If I keep to reuse ?
Do you reuse them to add in a final distilling run of another batch of stripped nutrigrain ? Some of the bubbler users will add previous feints to the next spirit run as they can do spirit runs without the need for a stripping run
Do you use them to add to a stripping wash run ? No point in adding them to a stripping run
Do you keep until you have enough to do a feints only final stipping run ? When running my pot still I used to store all the fein5s until 8 had enough to do a feints run.

Any advice to shed some light on this would be appreciated. :text-thankyoublue:

[BOB2]

thanks Wellsy.. that has helped me a lot.. :-)

[Wellsy]

Too easy mate.

I can tell you I did not think it was that good to begin with. I mean I gave it 2 weeks lol, but give it the time it deserves and you will be rewarded with a lovely drop. After 6 months it gets a lot better but who can wait that long lol

[BOB2]

thanks for the advice: I have now got my heads and hearts sorted.

any recommendations on oaking ratio's and toast ratio's and duration on oak for the nutrigrain spirit

I have about 16 variations of tpw and another wine based spirit on american oak toasts ranging from 120 deg to 220deg and char combinations running at 20gms / litre and some up to 60gm/ltr trials but they have only been down a week. So its to early for me to draw any conclusions.

Im keen to lay down the nutrigrain.
Im assuming that the sweet spot for me is something like eg 180deg toast at 20gm/ltr of american oak chips at 62.5% abv. How long would you recommend keeping it on oak.
Some of the sites suggest 7 days on chips and others 3 months minimum ? Im keen not to over oak it ?

Some of my trials at 7 days have a very strong oak flavour already, and h im not sure if it will smooth out and get more complex flavour over time of if that raw oak flavour is there to stay ?

[The Stig]

Stay away from CHIPS, way too much end grain and will over oak in a few days.
Find staves, mini staves or dominoes

[BigRig]

thanks for the advice: I have now got my heads and hearts sorted.

any recommendations on oaking ratio's and toast ratio's and duration on oak for the nutrigrain spirit

I have about 16 variations of tpw and another wine based spirit on american oak toasts ranging from 120 deg to 220deg and char combinations running at 20gms / litre and some up to 60gm/ltr trials but they have only been down a week. So its to early for me to draw any conclusions.

Im keen to lay down the nutrigrain.
Im assuming that the sweet spot for me is something like eg 180deg toast at 20gm/ltr of american oak chips at 62.5% abv. How long would you recommend keeping it on oak.
Some of the sites suggest 7 days on chips and others 3 months minimum ? Im keen not to over oak it ?

Some of my trials at 7 days have a very strong oak flavour already, and h im not sure if it will smooth out and get more complex flavour over time of if that raw oak flavour is there to stay ?

TPW is a neutral wash that you would be using for a gin or for use with an essence. I wouldnt bother oaking it. All you will end up with is a wood flavoured vodka. Keep the oak for the nutrigrain wash.

That over oaked flavour is there to stay, and wont develop in to anything special. You will need to dilute it with more spirit.

As Stig has said, chips are no good for long term oaking/aging with all the end grain. I personally wouldnt use them any longer than 12 -24 hours.

For reference i use medium toasted oak dominos at 7g/L. For a 5L demijohn thats approx 2 dominos per demi.

The general rule with oaking is less for longer.

[2deadly.308]

Thanks me and my brother were at the shops and he found it quite funny I was using cereal for moonshine had 10 kgs of raw sugar and 4 kilos of white sugar (for my second macwhiskey) I stripped the first one this morning and 4 big arse boxes of nutrigrain. We both found it weird that we didn't get any comments from the check out chick

Was she hot?