I'm not sure what you're on about with the food processor or slipping someone money to grind for me. Like i said i used a BLENDER, and my BLENDER worked great. You could make flour with this thing, almost half gallon at a time. I have a coffee grinder, it isnt anything but a minature blender. And yes my blender is glass. Only the cheap crappy ones come in plastic. A food processor is another animal altogether.

Good info on this page. http://www.distilling.com/PDF/chapter6.pdf


Whiskey is distilled after the high-krausen stage of fermatation, or peak fermatation. Both beer and wine continue to be distilled after this stage. I assume this is what you refer to as the "pout and simper" stage.

Lbs to kg is 2.2 to 1 so...
7kg corn meal= 15.4lbs
1.5kg rye= 3.3lbs
1.5kg malted barley=3.3lbs

I did do one thing differently as an experiment which was i used 1kg of the standard 6 row malted barley but the other .5kg(just about a pound) i used dark roasted malt barley. Its for making darker beers so we will see how it plays out. One advantage it gave me was it was easy to tell when the malt was thouroughly mixed because of the very dark colour. I like Jim Beam and Knob Creek so I have delusions that this might lead me to there sweeter flavour.

Like i say i am assuming rousing means stirring but during the mashing stirring was refered to as agaitation because its assumed you are useing a fermenter with a built in stir system. So i want to be clear if rousing is different.

Thanks for the info. I've been stirring and shaking. So far fermentation is very gentle. And its not rude, i said it myself. For anyone to think their first crack at something they are going to strike gold is absurb but heres hoping!

I honestly don't buy that 89% of the flavor is in the barrel and yes im not a total novice i know all the colour is from the wood. This isn't my first mash, just my first all grain-no sugar or molasses. The reason i don't think that most of the flavor is from the barrel is because all the bourbon makers are pretty much forced by law to use the same char on their barrels. This would according to this thinking mean they would all pretty much taste the same. I am sure you know that they don't, wild turkey which uses the same grain percentages as JB and KC yet tastes drastically different. On the other hand JB and KC taste very similar and of course are both made by Jim Beam. I think the only real difference is the aging and its not a drastic difference. The only reason i prefer Knob Creek to black lable is the extra proof. I like the 60% stuff.

A good neutral with extracts might make decent liquiors or rums since that is how they are made anyway but im unconvinced its makes a decent whisky. I will keep trying until i do.

After a little more experimenting i went and bought a bottle of Knob Creek 60% for comparison. While some of the flavour is coming from the barrel i'm suprised to find most of the flavour is coming from their cuts. Its been a while since store bought and the first thing i notice is the smell. Heads. And the taste, light heads with some tails sweetening the mix.

Using a malted recipe with sugar buffering the SG to 1.090 producing 20gallons of wash making 13 quarts of low wines and 7 quarts of spirit collected between 87% and 75% selective cuts were made for 2 2quart masons with three charred oak sticked in each and one pack of activated charcoal. The result is was two 56once jars of whiskey at 60% which is sippable and the most pleasant drinking product thus far.

The all grain was a bit of bust. Run too early it puffed and bucked a bit, only produced 4 quarts of low wines and one 26 once jar at 84% after cuts. Tasted somewhat like a nice canadian whiskey. Nice flavour with the dark malt prevailing. This kind of mash needs to be done on a much larger scale to be productive.