boognish

Interesting idea, but I have no experience with this. What are you trying to achieve? Or are you just curious?

Agreed on early head cuts. Don't get greedy. You can always redistill your cuts

We had to settle for the specialty distilled spirits category since we don't use corn, but rather barley.

+1

Excellent recommendation +1

+1 would read again

From an ingredient standpoint, our recipe is inspired by Irish tradition

Interesting

All I am saying is that if you have never fermented anything, the best way to learn is by doing it. Fermenting for distillation is cake. I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss homebrewers either. I know a lot of them whose expertise puts many of my pro brewing colleagues to shame.

I make an Irish style whiskey, but do in on the grain. It tastes great so I'm not too concerned about that

Brett is what I refer to as a polite yeast. Polite in the sense that it doesn't start doing its thing til all the other yeasts and bacteria are done with their thing. In a mixed culture pitch, you wont get any Brett character for a couple of weeks. I would be amazed if beam lets their mash ferment long enough for any sort of Brett character to come through in their whiskey. It would need to be at the absolute bare minimum of a month before any distinguishable Brett character would begin to show up in the mash. Interestingly, if you pitch Brett solo, it ferments pretty similarly sacc and much more cleanly than when pitched in aimed culture.

I hear ya but are you talking sach, lacto, Brett, pedio....? Most likely a blend of all of those. Kind of fascinating to me as I have done a lot of research and travel studying mixed culture and "wild yeast" brewing. White labs has some whiskey strains out right now, but not mixed culture. Surely there is lacto in there and of course sach. The thing is, in a typical whiskey mash fermentation, you really shouldn't have enough time for the "wild" yeast to take hold. Lacto *maybe* will have a day or two max to start doing its thing after the sach slows down. I strip my mash after 6 or 7 days. That doesn't allow for much wild yeast to do its thing

It doesn't have a very high alcohol tolerance, which means you end up leaving a lot of good sugar behind that never ferment. I am also not a fan of its aromatic properties in mead. That may be connected to the low tolerance. If you stress the yeast, you get off flavors. If you have your heart set on a "mead" yeast, check out wyeast's dry mead yeast. Great yeast. Makes fast and efficient work of fermentation. I have gotten it to ferment to 16% no problem, totally dry finish

You could use it, but it's not cheap.

Hard to tell but I would lean toward faulty calibration. Try calculating the volume as a cylinder. It should be within a couple gal of actual size

What species of wild yeast?

Can you distill off the mash without lautering?

Sure but it will sound odd to anyone involved in the alcohol business or knowledgeable beverage enthusiasts. The best thing you can do is to get a couple if batches of home brewed beer going. Once you do it a few times, you will see what I mean. If you have brewing questions check out www.brews-bros.com One of the best homebrewers forums online.

I've had no issues with the lentina's tanks from st pats. Although the valves kinda suck. I swapped those out

My guess is they aren't making good cuts.

I've not used it for rum, but I don't like it for mead.

Yeah I read that about calamus after I had ordered some. Oh well. I didn't end up using it. I'll figure something out for it aside from bev use

It's all good natured ribbing! The chocolate malt is chocolatey for sure. Different beast than actual chocolate though

Nice! Who knows with as busy as I've been it might take me that long to get down there lol