Blakeson

We have the same issues with our rye. Here are a couple of suggestions that seem to help me out. - Lower your pitching temperature. The cooler (close to 70F) when I pitch the Rye fermentation is less aggressive = less foaming. - Switch to Patco 376 anti-Foamer. FermCap is super expensive. Patco376 you can throw a liter of that stuff on your fermenter and it does a pretty great job at anti foam. - Before distilling add a little (25-50% of regular dose) of your 1st and 2nd Enzymes into the wash. Ive found this to limit the gummieness of Rye washes which helps heat transfer/distillation. Good Luck. I feel like Rye is always the battle whiskey.

I use merrell work boots. They just added a work boot catagory with composite hard toes, slip resistant, etc. I get about 18months out of mine. Super solid shoes.

Bow and Arrow out of Cortez, CO supplies us with our Corn. They are awesome and will do custom mill sizes, different heirloom corn, and top-notch customer service at a competitive price. We source wheat and rye from Rio Grande Commodities out of Monte Vista, CO and Allied Commodities out of Fort Collins. PM me for any other info. Cheers

never used nutrients on all grain mash. Backset does contain some nutrients, which i do add, but seems to have more effect on flavor/yield/consistency than actual yeast activity. temperature seems to have the most effect on my yeast.

Had the same issue now we just blast the bottom with some compressed air before transferring out of fermentors.

Hey Man, go to http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/calculator/ Type in all your ingredients (flaked corn will work). But this will give you a ball park estimate of what you should be hitting with your batch size and amount of grains. ITs for beer brewing but works just the same. Other advice would be only bring your corn/rye up to 185/190f (starch conversion is usually above 180f) that will save you time in cooling. Also only rest for 1 hour. I have not seen any benefit for resting longer than that.

We fill barrels at 8000ft and 15% humidity. So they dry out pretty quick. We have to fill barrels with water sometimes a few days before. They will leak like sieves for a few hours, but they always seal up. The whiskey still gets tons of flavor after a few years. Haven't noticed any downside in the aging process from filling. Hot water seems to seal them up faster.

Pretty Sure Corn Gelat is between 180-185. I bring our corn up to 181, kill the heat, and let starch conversion happen over about 40 mins. No problems. Less heat in is less heat you have to pull out.

I would bet that pitching temperature is a great factor. I have had GREAT fermentation with different kinds of water profiles and PH levels ranging from 4.8-8.2. But right when I pitch yeast too warm (85f+) my fermentation will get stuck after 4 days around 1.020 or so. Drop the temp, pitch the yeast. You will see the temp rising over the next few days. You want to account for that. IE: High end range for yeast is 90f pitch at 80f and let it rise over the next few days.

I would recommend starting fermentation at a lower temp. Our yeast (redstar american bourbon) is rated at rehydrating 85f. We then pitch at 75f and fermentation naturally rises to ~98f or so over 3 days then drops to about 85f when we pop it in the still (5 days). The few times Ive lost track of our HE and pitched at 90f fermentation was stuck and only attenuated about 50%.