StillSmart

On deck is a 50 lbs. bag of rye malt. This all grain party will be hosted on my 20L Braumeister. It certainly can be adapted to BIAB or a three vessel system. The goal is to make a quality rye whisky.

The plan is to make an 8% beer and strip 4 x 20 L batches down to 10% resulting in about 22 L of low wines. [This will be edited to reflect actual results.]

The Mash for One Batch:

23 L filtered water
1 T 5.2 pH Stabilizer
12.5 lbs/5.7 kg of rye malt
.5 lb/.23 kg rice hulls (roughly a 20:1 ratio)
1/4 t k-meta
multi-step mash
Mash-in at 77F/25C
Beta-glucanase rest at 103F/39C for 30 minutes
Protein rest at 122F/50C for 20 minutes
Beta amylase rest at 145F/63C for 90 minutes

No mash out and no sparge.

Lift malt pipe and set aside for setting up the next batch.


To Boil or Not?

I am using a no chill cube which will hold about 5.3 gallons of pasteurized wort until I am ready to ferment. So, I boil for at least 10 minutes and to also reduce the volume to about 5.3 gallons to fill the cube completely. And then, over the next several days, I repeat the process three more times.

Alternatively, boil for 45 minutes to precipitate the hot break and top up as necessary to fill cube or chill to room temperature and filter hot and cold break from fermenter. The idea is to mitigate puking while on a strip run by reducing solids from being racked into the boiler.

Whether pasteurizing for 10 minutes or boiling for 45 minutes, add a whirlfloc tablet in the last 5 minutes of the boil to help coagulate the hot break to achieve nice, clean wort.


The Next Batch (optional):

Each succeeding volume of mash water is to be enhanced by having rinsed the spent grains of the preceding run of as much residual sweet wort as possible.

For a Braumeister:

Reset malt pipe and add water to the 25L mark
Recirculate for 30 minutes at 167F/75C
Lift malt pipe and allow to drain in place for 5 minutes
Remove malt pipe and discard spent grains
Allow mash water to cool to 103F/39C
Replace malt pipe and dough in and mash as per original schedule above.
(or refrigerate enhanced mash water until next mash)

The initial mash weighed in at 13.2 Brix or 1.053 SG.

Pitching the Yeast:

I will be using Safale US-05 at a rate of one packet per 20 L. WLP001, WLP050, WLP065 and 71B also can be used. Supplement with one teaspoon of gluco-amylase per 20 L at room temperature to convert dextrin in the wort to fermentable sugar.

Fermentation:

For the US-05, start the fermentation at 65F/18C and try to maintain throughout. It may take 24 hours before signs of fermentation are visible. Fermentation is complete when the specific gravity measures 1.000. If the wash will not be distilled within 48 hours from time of completion, then use finings to remove as much yeast from wash.

For WLP050, start the fermentation between 75F and 79F or 24C to 26C. It may take 24 hours before signs of fermentation are visible. Fermentation is complete when the specific gravity measures 1.000. Note that White Labs suggests a terminal gravity of 0.979. Cold-crashing will help to accelerate yeast sedimentation.

For the subsequent fermentations, harvest the yeast and divide after following yeast harvesting procedure. Then use the harvested yeast for each subsequent fermentation.

Reserve 5 L of wash over the course of this process to dilute low wines to 27% ABV from about 35% ABV. Using wash promotes flavor over filtered water.

Strip Run:

For a 20 L strip run, it is ideal to have about a 12 L head space in your boiler which should have a volume of at least 8 gal/30 L. Before switching on power, the wash should have been racked off the sediment, degassed and treated with conditioner or vegetable oil. Now, with the prerequisites out of the way, switch on power.

Monitor for puking. The protein rest may serve to mitigate puking in combination with the conditioner or vegetable oil. If puking occurs, resolve puking by lowering power. Collect low wines until evolving ABV is 10% and then switch off power. Low wines should be stored in a 5 gal/19 L glass DJ/carboy. If it pukes, thoroughly rinse out pot still before the next strip run. Once the low wines from the four strip runs have been collected, next step is the spirit run.

Spirit Run:

There should be about 17 L of low wines charging the boiler for the run. The ABV of the charge should be adjusted to 27% using reserved wash, preferably, or water. It should take about an hour to get to temperature at full power. At the 50 minute mark, dial the power back to 450 W. Closely monitor and adjust power upon seeing foreshots to maintain a drip rate of 1 to 2 per second. Upon transition to heads, adjust power to maintain a drip rate of 2 to 3 per second. Upon transition to hearts, adjust power to maintain a very thin stream. Once the evolving distillate is at 64 or 65% ABV, change container and strip down to 10% ABV. Save feints for future spirit runs to develop fuller whisky flavor.

Collect in 300 ml jars to facilitate determination of cuts. Cover with coffee filter and secure with band. Let air out for 24 to 48 hours. Make conservative cuts for drinkable white spirit; otherwise, generous cuts will require aging on charred oak.

Aging:

Transfer spirit let down to 62.5% ABV to an aging container such as a 2L demi-john or 1/2 gallon jug. Age spirit on heavy toast American oak cubes (1 cm3) at a rate of 8 cubes per L or quart for 8 weeks. The oak cubes should be rinsed in distilled water to remove dust prior to use.

Bottling:

Decant spirit off cubes and filter spirit through coffee filters to remove any oak particles. Let down spirit to 40% ABV and transfer to bottle.

I checked the wash last night and the SG is 1.002. I decided to give it some more time. Afterwards, I plan to cold-crash it to drop the yeast and then do a strip run.

I am on the fence about using the backset up to 25% in the next fermentation.

It is best to boil to pasteurize the resulting beer and I have made relevant edits to the first post.

Mate, this is a well written and informative writeup IMHO...thank you....and I hope the matured product is worth all your efforts here. I know Scarecrow has tried something similar BTW.

May I ask, as you are putting wash in the final run, did you consider taking the strip collections right down to the low, low ABV% (ie LOTS of lowwine collect per wash volume)?

Frank wrote:Mate, this is a well written and informative writeup IMHO...thank you....and I hope the matured product is worth all your efforts here. I know Scarecrow has tried something similar BTW.

May I ask, as you are putting wash in the final run, did you consider taking the strip collections right down to the low, low ABV% (ie LOTS of lowwine collect per wash volume)?

Frank,

I first have to admit after I cold crashed the rye beer and then made room for a pilsener in the chest freezer, life intervened and I could not strip the beer before it became infected. This is why I edited the first post to go back to homebrewing fundamentals to at least pasteurize the wort before pitching the yeast. I have read elsewhere that some do not boil.

I tried this approach and it did not work - for me. This weekend, I am going to follow the process which will also involve excluding as much of the hot and cold break to reduce puking.

Now, my plan is to strip down to 10%. Am I inadvertently leaving out flavor by stopping at 10%?

Cheers,
KS

I am not Frank, nor do I play him on the Internet. :-) I have read that whisky distillers (the big boys) do strip down to a fairly low ABV. I assume that is for flavour as the alcohol extracted at that point would not be very economical.


Chuck

Well I am frank (just ask anyone who knows me )

@Keystone
rye may work differently to other grains re collection, but I doubt it really.

So (as per Chucks comment) check this out regarding lowwine collection range down to VERY low abv%; its from my fave Scotchmaking region and I reckon they're good at it too....so a good place to start perhaps re your q?

http://distillers.tastylime.net/library/IslayFacts/Islay_Distilleries_Factfiles.htm

Thanks Frank and not Frank!

chill wrote:I am not Frank, nor do I play him on the Internet. :-) I have read that whisky distillers (the big boys) do strip down to a fairly low ABV. I assume that is for flavour as the alcohol extracted at that point would not be very economical.

I don't think there is really that much flavour down there. I believe the reason they run it down to effectively zero, is even if a commercial outfit leaves a couple of % ABV in the boiler they would have to pay duty on any alcohol leaving the building. So they make sure its all in the spirit or feints receiver.

Another consideration could be making sure the final spirit still charge is sub 30% ABV to enable good hydroseparation, if you cut the strip at 20% I know my low wines would need to be watered down - the ABV of your feints would affect this too, but this is normally determined by your cut points.

Speaking to a distiller recently, after 3 runs or so, the cycle goes into equilibrium. So once you figure out your cut points, do it the same way every time, and you'll get a more consistent product.

I truly believe the way to exceptional brown spirits is having a methodology and sticking to it. Figuring out that methodology for your equipment and your wash, is the biggest challenge for the distiller.
I'm certainly not there by a long way, so what do I know

CC,

You raised some interesting points especially about the duty based reason regarding strip end points about which I did not know. As for letting down the low wines, I believe it was at AD where I learned that hydroseparation is best achieved at 27%.

Cheers,
KS

I resumed this process after making a beer with some great hops from NZ and Australia. I am returning to beer making fundamentals to achieve a better craft spirit.

I have increased the beta-amylase mash step to 90 minutes. I reduced the amount of rice hulls by half. If using a Braumeister, the hulls are added last into the malt pipe when considering the flow. I added a whirlfloc tablet in the last five minutes of the boil to help separate hot break from the wort to mitigate puking during a strip run.

I regularly use Google translator to convert Chinese into something I understand but when I tried "the beta mash step" or "rice hulls by half" and "into the malt pipe when considering the flow" or even "whirlfloc tablet" let alone "separate hot break from the wort"
Google could not cope, so how do I stand a chance?

And I thought it was just me!

We are obviously not keeping up!
"the beta mash step" I think I understood to beta amylase,the rest went in one eyeball and out of the other.
My bad.
Robert.

...and there was me thinking that I knew what I was doing

Come on K, put us Cretins out of our misery You never know, we might actually learn something useful, for a change.

I'm definitely up for learning this new language

AM