Whiskey yeast with AG:

When makeing an all

When useing it for an all grain mash, and also for a grain plus sugar mix, what is the highest ABV wash this yeast can handle without bad effects? What original specific gravity OG?
Thanks

Many thanks Elricko,

I have enjoyed and learned so much from your posts on all 4 forums I follow. I aspire to someday to be able to retain a portion of your knowledge and experience, and then to help share.

A few questions if I may? 25#'s barley'to what volume total mash? Did you add the 2 #'s DME to the 25 liters you pulled off? What would you consider your optimum OG to be ,for distilling purposes,? Pardon my ignorance, but was your 2 row Maris Otter malted, or did you add malt? I presume you made the ale from what was left over after pulling the 25 liters. so am guessing you had approx. 50 L total to begin with , with OG of 1.040,? I am hopeing my Whiskey yeast with AG will work as well as yours, I guess i'll soon find out.

I have a Sabco proffessional turkey frying keg ,15.5 gal.,with a very tight fitting 12' lid, and have ordered the false bottom and sparge drain. Do you think I could use this as both my mash boiler and fermenter ,especially for those ferment on the grain recipies? But will also have fermenters of a smaller size for all barley mashes, etc.

Thanks Elricko, I am not in a rush for an answer, so reply at your leisure.

PS. Just as an aside, I have some 1500 bd. ft. of white oak to plane, some 500 hundred bd. ft. of sugar ,or hard or green maple, to run through my planer. Aalso, some Sassafrass wood, spicewood, black and yellow birch, apple, sourwod,and peach. , I need to get busy to have product to age,.

I have about 500 birch trees i could tap this spring, would the raw sap be worth fermentating, or would it have to be processed ,cooked down ,?

Finally, I used to keep 200 hives of bees, until an apple orchard sprayed for insects, and I had no warning, they all died. But the orchard is now out of business, and want to return. so please get honey fermenting recipies ready.

Thanks again Elricko, You are always one of the quickests ones to answer, and so appropo.
mtnwalker



Elricko
New member
Username: Elricko

Post Number: 76
Registered: 04-2006


Posted on Monday, December 18, 2006 - 01:18 pm:

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I made an all grain mash using 25 lbs of 2 row Maris Otter last Saturday. I pulled out 25liters without sparging and ended up with an OG of 1.050. I didn't think that was good enough so I threw in two lbs of DME to bring the OG up to 1.068. At that point I tossed in a pack of Liquor Quick Whiskey yeast. Within a few hours it was bubbling like crazy. If I'd had another pound of DME I would have thrown it in to bring it up a couple more percent, but I was all out. I will be moving it to a secondary next saturday and I will post the % of alcohol I get for you. I hope that helps. My objective is to make scotch. I plan to soak it with dark toasted oak chips for color and taste.

For the record I went ahead and sparged out the grain and made a pale ale with it. After boiling it down to five gallons it ended up with an OG of 1.040. No sense in throwing that stuff out.

Thanks so much Elricko. You answered my questions, and more.

Since I just bought molassas and brown sugar last week for my first rum trial, I am going to start your recipie in just a few minutes.

This week, I will pick up some more barley malt and some DME for my first scotch run.

And also a grinder, as my local feed store carries lots of different grains and even rolled oats. After a year and a half of all sugar trials, I am ready to branch out and learn. I have seven 25 L fermenters, that look so sad empty!

Oh yeah, I better get some glass jugs for ageing.

My thanks and appreciation again.

I was wondering why not use 100% molassas for your rum?

Up here where I live molasses is more expensive than brown sugar plus for the OG to be where I wanted it I needed a higher sugar content than usually found in molasses alone. Brown sugar IS just white sugar with molasses mixed with it, so I guess if molasses is cheap where you live you could use it and pour in white sugar to bring it up to the OG you want. Remember if you do this, make sure to use only unsulfered molasses.

I must have erased your first message. What was the OG for your brown sugar wash?

Elricko, you're a charm!

Along with a few others you are really helping to advance our sport, without the ambiguity of experiment and let us know how well you failed, or read the 19 posts offering totally diferent directions and see which one works.

Thanks and a very merry and enjoyable Christmas!

Also, for anyone who can answer, what is the highest OG that Gert Strands Whisky yeast with AG can tolerate without producing off flavors and tasts. It advertises over 8.5% ABV. Grain mashes and rums if applicable. I just got a bunch in from Brewhaus, but am not sure how to use it optimally? I think it will be superior with UJSM whisky recipe? That and an all grain oat whisky as well. I think th AG additive will deffinatly help as wesll as the quality of the yeast, but if I over tax it, it will not be the quality I want, yet I want to have the highest ABV possible.

May God bless all of us this Christmas season.

I checked the gravity of the all grain scotch wort/wash in the primary today just to get an idea of where we stand. Remember I used Liquor Quick Whiskey yeast that promised 14%. So far after six days I am getting 11%, but it is still working. As I didn't get the OG I was hoping for in the beginning I doubt that I will get more than 12%. I was planning to move it over to a secondary tomorrow but I might just wait a couple more days.


There might have been some confusion in my earlier post when I said I got 17% alcohol in my rum. I meant in the pre-distilled rum wash. That was the reading when I moved it to the secondary. While I was at it today I checked it again and it actually went up to 18% so when I distill and cut it tomorrow I expect to end up with a couple of gallons of 80 proof rum. By the way, it has a really excellent flavor.

hey Elricko,

So sorry about your trial, but appreciate your shareing.

I sent my daughter out today to pick up some paint strainer bags. Did a mashed ground corn, flaked oats, flaked barley, and then 6 row barley malt, next another, with glaked wheat instead of the oats, and then one of UJSM somewhat hyped and expanded to 27 L.

The first 2 smell fantastic, but look like puke and very little liguid barriar-thus the straining bags for tommorrow.

I don't care how the UJSM turns out, though it smells fantastic, but the kalaidiscope of the solar flare bursts from the bottom of the bright yellow corn about 2' to the top through fairly clear liquid to a cap about 1/2' deep, with the contant rise and fall of bright yelloc corn flakes was the prettiest Christmas dedoration of all.

So, my daughter is in pursuit for 2- 6.5 gal. glass fermentaters, just so we can watch the corn and in the other rye grains play winter sports and Christmas snowing year round on our living room coffee table, andi the best part of it might be, when the sea faries quit dancing, I'll have to replace or replinish them.

Looking forward to a good sip while doing so.

I am so intriqued with the joy of watching this process, I have put rum cultures on hold, at least till I can sip a bit.

Thank you for the honesty of your post, Irs seldom, rare.

Wil let you know how mine turns out, but am not so sure about the first 2 mashes. Smells great, looks bad, find out tommorrow if weather is conducive.

Hope everyone enjoys their holliday!

Alex:

Sorry about the acronym, DME stands for dryed malt extract. There are three different ways to get the fermentable sugars from malted grains. The first is to take malted grain and do an infusion mash, the second is liquid extract where a company does the infusion mash for you then boils it down to a syrup, and the third is when that company takes that syrup and drys it out so that you get it as a flour base. It's a matter of how much effort and control you want to put into it. Of course if you do an infusion mash it is more time consuming, but you have total control over the process and outcome. Using DME you are relying on the company that produced it to control the outcome. When making beer I always do the infusion mash. I think for doing a whiskey wash the DME is fine, but again that is just my feelings. I hope I didn't bore you with too much information here.

When you ask when I stop collecting rum I am going to assume you are actually asking when I go to tails. Frankly I don't use taste or temp, I use smell. For a 25L wash I usually collect 3 1/2 to 4 quarts of distillant. After 3 quarts I start monitoring it pretty closely. When I start getting a sort of acrillic or burnt smell I cut it off and start collecting the rest as tails. After that I collect until the temp starts climbing and the the alcohol level drops significantly. Of course I set the tails aside and toss them in my next batch.

Is this what you were asking? If not let me know and I will explain further.

Have a great New Year!