My First Attempts At All Grain

[Capt-Cudellez]

I recently tried my hand at all grain brewing. I’m not that interested in whisky so an all grain vodka is my goal.
I am brand new at this, so this is not a “how-to”, rather a record of what I did.

Grain Bill:
20lbs Maris Otter barely malt
8lbs Malt Wheat
4lbs Malt Rye

Target Vol: 48L

I am using my T500 as the hot water source, this is actually on the small side for doing this volume, but I have a work round that lets me use it. I am using a 100qrt ice chest\cooler with a slotted copper manifold as a mash tun.

The Process:
Grind all the grain and put it into the mash tun.
I already have the T500 almost up to temp, so I measure the temp of the grain and plug the numbers into a calculator. I’m trying to hit 65oC so the calculator advises a 74oC water temp (my grain temp was very low from being stored in the cold garage)
I tip in the 30L and give it a good stir and break up any dough balls.
I measure the temp, it’s on the high side, so I stir the thick mash until it hits 65oC.

As I am using all the water my t500 can hold, I also have a pan of boiling water on the stove in case I made a mistake and the temp was low side.

I close up the cooler and cover with a blanket and leave for an hour.

Now what I have done is make quite a thick mash, I put another 22L in the boiler and bring that almost up to the boil.

After the hour has been reached, I open the cooler stir the mash and add another 12L from the boiler. The mash is now at about the consistency you would go for at the start if you had a bigger boiler available. This 12L or so is just replacing the water that the grain has absorbed. I give it a stir until it hits 65oC, and then close it up again for another half hour.

I top up the T500 with another 8L of cold(total of 18L in the boiler) this is heated to just over 70oC. Easily done in the half hour with the 10L of almost boiling water that it already in there.

I drain off all the liquid from the mash tun, then dump the 18L from the boiler in, give it a good stir, Leave it for 10mins then drain that off.

I hope to hit my target of 48L, I did, and the reading was 1.070 ish when cooled to pitching temps.


Most of the above is complicated by the fact I only have a small boiler to use for supplying the hot water. My keg never really smells great, even after cleaning, so I don’t want to use that for this purpose. This is all brand new to me, and I was surprised how easy it was. Yes it is messy and much more work, but I hope to have a few bottles of something special at the end of it.

I’ll be stripping my second 48l wash later this week, and do the spirit run at the weekend.

[Capt-Cudellez]

Well I ran the vodka on the new VM/LM, cut was the same as a normal sugar wash run, and I ended up about 7.5L of 40%.

It tastes great, very smooth, and worth the effort. This will last me a good while as its not my everyday drink.

[RoboStill]

I've been considering moving my beer brewing from partial-mash to all grain for some time now, I hadn't even thought about going AG for spirits! A nice wheat-y vodka would be great, reminiscent of some prairie moonshine I had once upon a time.

How did you settle on that grain bill?

[Capt-Cudellez]

How did you settle on that grain bill?

Pulled it out of thin air, just calculated to aim to hit 1060 by working out the potential points per gal - lots of good info on the beer forums on how to do it so I wont go into it here.

If I was doing it again, i would not include the rye, even at just 12% of the grain bill it brings a sweetness to the spirit.
I've done rye whiskey before, and it turns out I'm just not that keen on the flavour, its very very slight in this as its been stripped then taken to azeotrope, but its still there.

This was expensive, and time consuming when compared to doing a sugar wash, but its a nice thing to to for something "special".

[Frank]

@CC
mate, its interesting (to me) that the rye = sweetness for you as (I've not done rye yet but) I thought it was more a spicey/dry profile.
For you, is this sweetness about the taste on the tongue or the 5-second mouthfeel-type flavour?

No matter, if you are still keen on another 'something special' / allgrain, I hope you have a go at cracking (and maybe even peat smoking) the Maris Otter or similar and see what your results bring.....

(Scarecrow, where are you....please advise etc )

[Capt-Cudellez]

To me its upfront in the mouth. I'm sure its the rye, as my rye whiskey is the same.

[chill]

That is interesting. I perceive rye as spicy, prickly, "hot" (as in chili not temperature).

Chuck