That is making something from scratch alright.
Liquor looks clean.
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Yeah you got it right, anything i drink i dilute back down to 40-45% or lower if its a liqueur. If iām using it as a solvent aka for shatter/wax, then i keep it at whatever high proof i have 90+%.
Typically i save and use my heads for making waxes but the heads contain methanol which comes off your still first at (65C or 150F), and is highly poisonous if consumed straight. So when making alcohol to drink, you always want to throw out the first bit that come out of your still to be safe, or save it and use it as a cleaning solvent like i do.
Now when making waxes with it because im evaporating off all the methanol and ethanol used, im not risking any chance to poison myself as its just not there anymore, and you would actually have a higher risk of methanol poisoning from drinking wine and or beer, but mind you will get alcohol poisoning first before methanol issues.
But if you ever heard or wondered about the old folks tales of people going blind or dieing from āmoonshineā from prohibition era, its because they were either drinking the first stuff coming off the stillās and or unsavory types were mixing in methanol to raise the proof of their spirits to get more money when they sold them, obviously not wanting return customers.
Adding more of any fermentable starch or sugar will increase your yield, White sugar is usually the cheapest so when doing fruit batches i typically use quite a bit of sugar as well, cause it raises the ABV of your starting wash.
Now it can only be raised so high though as after a certain percentage yeast starts to die off, and or produces bad flavors. Reason to stay away from the turbo yeasts, as they just stress the yeast out due to the higher % causing a lot of bad flavors to be made. Practically wise having your wash finish under 14%abv (1.096 starting Specific Gravity) will prevent the yeast from being too stressed, i typically do 10% (1.065 starting SG) washes myself as they finish out quicker and prevent less off flavors.
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I got into making wines earlier this year, mainly cause I wanted to grow out some plushberry and make some blackberry cannawine. Before that I dabbled with Vikings blood(cherry mead), it would knock your socks off.
Recently I got a 5 gallon stove top still. Iām about half way thru a spiced rum ferment to run thru it. After that Iām gonna make some bourbon and see how that goes.
Funny thing is I donāt really even drink anymore lol. The high yeast content and sulfates in a lot of store bought wines and beers give me migraines after drinking it for the night. Distillates are another story all together tho lol.
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Maybe thatās what has me.
I am usually a 1 drink wonder.
99%
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some people do have yeast allergies, the other thing is that beer and especially wine due to the pectin in grapes have higher methanol content which if in higher concentrations can give nasty hangovers. Distilled products we can remove that methanol.
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Not a still, but thought you all might get a kick out of my brotherās Synergy all grain brew system.
Iāve been assisting him for years, but this is my first beer on my own. I developed the recipe, brewed, fermented, and kegged it myself.
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cost me a total of approx $14.00 a gallon in materials to make
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Iāve read that making the mash for whiskey and mash for beer are basically the same. With that, whatās your grain/water ratio? Iām trying to figure how much corn Iāll need to make some bourbon in a 5 gallon fermenter.
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Beer & ale is harder than distilling spirits also on my to do list
That batch used 20 lbs of grain and 17 gallons of water. That gave me about 13 gallons of mash which ended up around 10-11 gallons after the boil. Remember me commenting about the quantity of extra grain? 20 lbs for a 10 gallon batch of beer.
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I do now lol. I didnāt put two and two together, Iām slow sometimes.
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Hereās whatās on the agenda for tonight. Make the mash for bourbon. Itās gonna be a 5 gallon ferment using 71B-1122 yeast. For this I used:
8lbs super sweet corn
3lbs malted white wheat
3lbs malted barley
Fun fact, bourbon barrels are primarily come from the Ozarks. Since Iām in Missouri Iām gonna fine some local corn, wheat, barley and make some true Missouri bourbon lol.
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Are you boiling that mix? If so when do you add the yeast?
Where is the best place to find the malted wheat and barley.
How much sugar did you add?
Iām heating it to the point you can see steam coming off but not boiling. Ideally you want to keep it around 160Ā°F so the enzymes in the barley will convert the starches in the corn into fermentable sugars. This batch Iām not going to add any other sugars than whatās in the grains and see how that works. Thatās the reason I got super sweet corn so in theory it should have a naturally high sugar content.
This strain of yeast need temps between 100-107Ā°F get it out of dormancy, so Iāll add it when it cools a bit and after I pour it from the pot into a bucket to ferment.
I normally order the malted barley from Midwest brew, I think, so I just ordered the wheat from there too. The corn was frozen kernels from the grocery store. Not the ideal but itāll work for gaining the XP in the process.
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71B-122 yeast. Is that what it is called or is brewers yeast. Just found out Blondy ordered the wrong yeast. Just wanting to know what the best yeast is.
OK I looked it up and ordering the correct yeast this time.
It does say to activate it at 110f.
Iām wanting to make a mash from just chopped corn. Been doing some reading and found the you can use amylase enzyme to covert the corn starch to sugars. Does any one have any experience on using amylase? Or know where I can read up on the best way to use it to get the most out of the corn.
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Amylase is the enzyme that breaks down starches to simpler sugars the yeast can use for fermentation. Itās the major enzyme in malted barley, thatās why itās used in beer making. Adding it to the corn mash should accomplish the same thing.
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I used this chart to select yeasts for wines. Making spirits from them should accomplish the same thing.
yeast-selection-chart.pdf (396.2 KB)
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Itās amazing the difference the yeast makes on the final taste of beer. When making a 10 gallon batch, often we will use a different yeast for each fermenter. The two batches can have a drastic difference in taste. I imagine the same is true for spirits.
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it is but a lot less so due to distillation of the final product. As a lot of the flavors we taste in beer and or wine produced by the yeast donāt all carry over in the distillation process and obviously the higher % you distill to the less flavor that will carry over anyways. I have played around with different yeasts but not enough where i can pick out differences in any sort of detail.
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