Hello fellow brewers,

This is my first All Grain whiskey, I wanted to post my brew day just to share my experience. As the mercury hit -18 Celsius and with 4 inches of snow on the ground I figured it's finally brew season here in the North East.

I will be using a Blichmann Brew Easy for the mash process and after fermenting I will be using my beloved PSII high capacity in pot mode with two or three passes before hitting oak.

My recipe is:
24.5 lbs of crashed feed corn (70%)
3.6 lbs of rye malt (10%)
7.0 lbs of 6 row (20%)
17.25 gals of water

First step after setting up equipment is adding then heating water to 70 Celsius to be able to steep the corn. I adjust the ph and add my minerals while the water is still cool.

Im not sure how long steeping is going to take as this is my first time. I'll update time once it is known. I've just added the corn, allowed the corn to settle out on the false bottom and started steeping while the Blichmann monitors the temp and keeps it at 70c.

[img=]Blichmann Brew Easy[/img]

[img=]Corn[/img]

Edited by user Tuesday, January 05, 2016 10:31:14 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Pictures

Thanks John, his name is John Blichmann, he makes beautiful equipment. You can purchase what is called a "turn key" system which has everything needed to fire it up out of box, unfortunately the price tag is huge. Another nice thing about Blichmann is the ability to buy piece by piece until you have everything, which is what I did; I kept buying as I came up with the cash.

I pick the pump up from Ontario Beer Kegs, actually everything came from there but the pump kit was something OBK put together, it came with Cam-locks and hoses. I was lucky getting the controller into Canada which is called the Tower of Power. As it crossed the Border into Canada it became aware to Blichmann that it needed to CSA approve its controller to continue sales in the country, they have no further plans to do so at this time.

Here is an update on the mash. I let the corn steep for 6 hours as I worked on the wife's car. I came in to check on the mash, it was a nice thick yellow colour so I added the rye and 6 row. The upper Mash Tun is 95% full with 35 lbs of grain, now I know its limit. After 30 minutes the mash has a slight sweet taste. I did an iodine test at 45 minutes and there is still starch.

[img=]Blichmann Brew Easy[/img]

[img=]Tower of Power[/img]

[img=]Mash Tun[/img]

Edited by user Tuesday, January 05, 2016 6:12:32 PM(UTC)  | Reason: pictures

Well I was watching TV and the boil went a litter farther than I was planning. I had 10.75 gals when I shut it down. The gravity ended up being 1.052 which is lower than I was hoping for but there's still starch in there and I'm adding the beano. I have $22 dollars tied up in this not counting time and hydro so if my math is close I should end up with a wash of 5.5% with around 10 gals. Distill that and wet it down to 80 proof could come in around a gallon of finished product, correct me if I'm wrong please, here's hoping. I could cheat and add sugar but I would hate myself later.

I added the yeast and beano, time for bed.

This is my homemade measuring stick, liters are in red and gallons are green.
[img][/img]

Update

I had two packs of yeast, one for each carboy. One carboy started fermenting strong and fast the other not so quickly. After a couple of days, fermentation was strong in both. At first fermenting looked like a pot of stew at a rolling boil, now I see a few bubbles floating up to the top.

As it slowed I added another Beano to each, I believe this freed up more sugars from the startches as fermenting ramped up once again.

OR

The old house doesn't keep a constant temp because the wood fire goes out at night. I think because of this reason, fermenting is slowly lingering, stronger in the afternoon than it is in the morning.

I started back to work and things are busy, my days off depend on the weather. When I'm sure to get a couple days off I'm going to run this. Whatever is left in the pot after the run is going right back in the Blichmann for a sour mash. Tonight I picked up more corn and placed the order for a 1.3gal American oak barrel.

Ouch, the money exchange between Canada and the US is not good. The other day a dollar was 1.41 but today our dollar dropped again.

I kept the backset and yeast for a second generation mash. I used less corn this time because the Mashtun was so full last time, corn really swells up when hydrated. I added more 6 row hoping to get better efficiency. I plan to use even less grains as near boiling once again over filled the mashtun even with less initial grains.

Here is the recipe after adjustments.

Corn 20Lbs (60%)
6row 10Lbs (30%)
Rye 3Lbs (10%)
Water 17.75gals (8gals was backset and the rest spring water)

8gals of backset was used plus spring water for a total of 17.75gals, the spring water is local and runs out of a bedrock/shale rock ditch bank that has a 45gal plastic drum buried with a hose running water 24/7, there is an over flow of water that fills the ditch on the side of the road year round even at its driest month in August. I had this water sent away for an analysis, it is perfect water for brewing. I was skeptic at the time to use backset but certainly don't regret it, the wort was better, smelled better, more flavor and had better colour. The finished ferment even looks and smells better, I`m a believer.

On the second generation mash I used less corn, it was a wise decision, I never boiled the corn the first time, I only steeped,70c for 6 hours; this time I raise the temp to 95c and held there for 3 hours which was half the time with better results. The corn softened quicker, swelled more and the mash thickened up better than Mom's gravy at Thanksgiving dinner. The wash took 2 hours to cool to 65c when I added the 6 row and Rye. I held the temp for 90 minutes to preform saccharification.

This time around I drained/pressed the last little bit of wort from the spent grains from the MT, I gained 1.5 gals of wort and I sparged with another 2 gals hot water. I had a lot more wort to boil off this time to fit into 2 carboys which increased the original gravity. The boil was near 2 hours.

Here are my notes

Measured Pre-boil volume(gals) 16
Measured Pre-boil gravity 1.058
Measured Batch size(gals) 12
Measured original gravity 1.078
Measured Finial gravity 1.006
Measured alcohol by volume % 9.5
Efficiency % 73

On my first generation mash I had an efficiency of 44.7%. I feel the near boil of corn plus the added 6 row played a huge factor in the increased efficiency. Also pressing the grains and sparging helped extract more wort and sugar to boil wort away from increasing the sugar content. I only had an ABV of 5.5% the first time compared to 9.5% this time with no added efforts; more bang for my buck.

I'm going to add `the spirits from the first distillation attempts to this beer for distillation; I`m going to do a single stripping run and add these spirits to the third generation beer or low wines, let me explain why.

The first generation(gen1) stripping run was fast and hard, it caused tails in each collection jar, I had 12 500ml jars. The second distillation run of gen1 left me with 12 250ml jars. Jar 6, 7, and 8 are the only jars that are to my liking; the wife will only touch Jar 8 as she doesn't usually like my moonshine but finds this jar okay, that leaves me to believe it`s the only jar as I`m not fussy. Jars 1 through 4 are paint stripper; jar 5 has a very hard alcohol smell and jar 9 and 10 are packed with lots of corn flavor too much so. Jar 11 is tails and 12 is mostly water at 25%.

I`m barrel aging so I could probably use jars 6 though 9 and maybe 10 which has a total volume of 1 liter or so, my barrel is 5 liters. Jars 6 though 9 is roughly 65% and higher(can`t remember right now) so I have no room to add water for dilution to increase total volume. Gen2 and Gen3 should give me enough to start ageing and where it is a new barrel it will age fast, Gen4 spirits will be kept to cut or dilute or top-up the barrel as need be.

I want to talk about the yeast, I over pitched the wort with yeast, I believe. It was slow to start and finished too fast. I saved the yeast from the first ferment, I added it back to Gen2 wort for fermenting the night of Feb. 17. I went to work the morning of Feb 18 for the day. Nothing was happening at this time. The morning of the 19 I was home, I noticed a few tiny bubbles in the fermenter, none in the air-lock, I left for work. The wife said nothing was really happening yet through the day so I had her add yeast energizer at that time as I was going to be at work for a few days and she was leaving herself for a trip to Vegas.

I ended up coming home through the night of the 20th, the ferment was so fast and strong the air-lock was hissing and blowing bubbles out and over the top as it was fill with star-san. If you have used star-san before you will know that it foams like soap. I returned to work in the early morning of Feb 22nd and the fermentation was still wildly crazy. I return from work the night of Feb 26. When I returned home fermentation had finished. Gen2 fermented way faster than Gen1 because I technically pitch a 20 liter yeast starter in each carboy compared to the one package to each Gen1`s carboys of Distiller`s Whiskey yeast.

I have a few pictures of different things I'll post later.

Edited by user Sunday, February 28, 2016 12:32:32 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified