StillSmart

Hi to all the experts who will help with this query.

My son has gone over to full grain brewing so we are left with 13 kilos of liquid malt extract which I\'m thinking of using to ferment as a wash for my still.

Question is, what will the end product be and how will I get there ie what yeast, do I use Turbo Carbon etc. etc.
Opus 27

Think about it opus,
malt, with yeast, nutrients, sugar etc
What have you got ?
Beer!
so if you mixed it up with water and then added sugar to bring the gravity and then hit it with the yeast pack (and carbon), once it\'s distilled you\'ll have very young whiskey.
which means that you\'d have to make sure about getting some stocks of oak chips in......

So what your saying then Phantom is to use my normal turbo yeast and carbon. Won\'t the carbon take out any chance of flavour from the malt or will there not be any there in the first place. I was\'nt going to use sugar I was just going to dilute the malt to a suitable SG, the sugar element being the malt.

So what your saying then Phantom is to use my normal turbo yeast and carbon. Won\'t the carbon take out any chance of flavour from the malt or will there not be any there in the first place. I was\'nt going to use sugar I was just going to dilute the malt to a suitable SG, the sugar element being the malt.

If it was mine, then I wouldn\'t bother filtering it.
Most whiskey seems to be brewed in pot stills - so it follows that you\'d probably be doing the same thing as they do and double distilling.
I understand that they actually use some of the esters etc, what the filter strips out (the filter is so you can make potable spirit/vodka), so I\'m thinking that I\'d just make it up to about 20 litres, check the gravity, then make it up to about 1090 with sugar, then top the water up to about 26 or 27 litres (that allows for some space at the bottom with the lees). Then once it\'s finished fermenting, clear and distill it in the normal way.
The distillate, I\'d keep seperate in a DJ and chuck a couple of packs of oak chips in it and then put it away and forget about it.
With any luck, you should end up with something that approximates whiskey. If it turns out to be undrinkable, you can always then just filter the oak chips out and re-distill it. Then the ethanol-alcohol could be flavoured in the usual way.
does that make sense

Hi

My advice is not to use turbo yeast, anything done with turbo is designed to be filtered so using the malt would be pointless, if you use turbo and don’t filter it will taste like c*â€

Thanks Phantom that makes sense now. My only remaining query is if I should use the Turbo carbon in the fermentation, from what you say though I assume not. But I would still use the turbo yeast.

Thanks again for the use of your brain.

Opus 27

Hum? Well I can see bluecaps point, but I\'d also suspect that the whiskey makers would also use something like \"distillers yeast\" - which isn\'t gonna be that far removed from turbo yeast.
As for bread yeast, that\'s pretty much a \"no no\". If you looked up the recipe for \"Joe Mattioli\'s Ancient Orange Spiced Mead\", the original one suggests bread yeast.
The problem with that, is that it doesn\'t flocculate very well, and you can disturb it just by holding a racking cane next to it.
If you didn\'t want to use turbo, I\'d say that something like Lalvins EC1118 - which is a champagne yeast.
As for turbo carbon? well you can always make it without, then if it did turn out too curious in flavour, you could just still it and carbon filter it later. Either way, it\'s probably gonna strip out some of the esters etc.
Oh and I\'d make sure that the ferment was kept at as low a temperature as possible - it does seem that the \"long slow\" method is less likely to produce much in the way of fusel\'s etc.
Either way, it\'s all guess work without a good recipe to follow - have you tried searching the home distiller forums and their main site - making something like that does seem much more \"up their street\"......

I would agree with bluecap - I definitely wouldn\'t use a turbo. You want a nice, slow, steady ferment up to a fairly low percentage - they don\'t push the yeast when making single malts. The EC would be a better bet if you want to ramp up the strength of the wash - turbo is really designed specifically for the sugar wash and the exact quantities given on the pack. I\'m not saying it wouldn\'t work, but it\'s more likely to give off tastes.
Personally I am a big fan of bread yeast, after all people have been making spirits for hundreds of years before homebrew companies decided to invent these special yeasts - it\'s cheap enough to experiment with, and seems to work slow enough not to give bad flavour. In other words, don\'t write it off without trying it!

I\'ve decided to give it a go but have to wait for a vacant fermenting bin. We have three on the go at the moment, gives the house an interesting bouquet and has caused very inventive ventilation.

I\'ll run a journal type thread when I get started.

Incidently I\'d never heard of home stilling untill six weeks ago.
Opus 27

You\'re doing well then! It\'s good to hear other people\'s experiences, no matter how many things you try someone else always thinks a little different or tries a new idea and it helps everyone if we share them. I am by no means an expert, I\'ve been doing this for about a year and 3 months, but as you know Opus it\'s amazing how much you know now that you didn\'t know then!

I have done this, and this is what works. You will need to make 2x demijohns of below to make a bottle of moonshine.

Add 500g of spray malt to 4 litres of water in a demijohn x2. You don\'t need to boil and you don\'t need to add any hops. When cool pitch a beer yeast, I use any safeale 04 is as good as any. You only need 1stp so you can make quite a few batches. You can make bigger batches of Corse but it\'s better to start small in case you don\'t like it

Fit airlock and let it ferment out. It should clear after 2 weeks if not add a cheep finings.
Rack into another DJ and degas (important) run it thro the still and carbon & collect 1 litre do this for each demijohn.
Now add them both together and distil and carbon the litre and collect 750 mls(ish). You Throw away the first 20 ml. Keep tasting and testing it - dont let it all below 60 %
Dilute to 40% with RO and
Get some oak from home brew store and toast with a blowlamp about 1/4 of a pack. It will look like sawdust.
From Tesco’s you can buy sealable glass jars for jam making get one and add the oak and distillate.

Give it a shake every week for about a month and then leave it to clear (about a week) carbon filter the whiskey and it\'s ready.
If you like it you can upscale, if you don\'t you have only lost a little time.

I like it and think it works ok.
[nb : edited by Jimmy to remove duplicate post]

Umpa a quick question about your method. The final step you say to carbon filter. I guess you must have tried it but everywhere I read that carbon filtering strips the flavours out as well as the nasties. What sort of taste do you end up with.. ANd also spray malt is a bit pricey which kinda jacks the cost up (I ask because I have 500g light in my cupboard I was going to use to prime my next batch of beer). But if it tastes great what the hell.. But interested to know please. I also have some youngs beer yeast which I assume I can use?

I was planning on using Safale 04 as we have plenty at the moment.
I agree with Mikey though I\'m not sure about the carbon filter as this will strip any flavours present. Out of curiosity I put some Irish Whiskey (Top Shelf) through my carbon filter (about 50 ML) what came out was discusting.
Hope to start mine next week, weekend tied up with Twickenham.

To carbon filter after just strips out any woody or burned flavours. I use a coffee paper with a little carbon in it I suppose if you put it through lots of carbon it would take out some of the nice flavours too.
It gives a poor mans jack danials clone.
You can experiment with liquid malt, so long as the sg is 1.050 or below or it might not ferment out.

Thanks for the edit jimmy I was mega tired ( first night shift)