Jump to content

Seattle Spirits

Members
  • Posts

    14
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    seattle

Seattle Spirits's Achievements

Contributor

Contributor (2/3)

0

Reputation

  1. We looked into it as a way to meet the 51% state raw materials law but the regional malt house now sells identity protected malts so we dropped it. We found that modern information on small scale malting is very thin but if you go back to the early 1900's there is significant information. As an example google books has "American handy book of the brewing, malting and auxiliary trades" for free that explains a lot of the process. There are several others like The Practical Distiller which explain the old crude process well. In my opinion; unless you have a regulatory reason to malt your own barley or if you really need to to fit your branding I would think that it would be difficult to justify on a cost basis especially for barley. Modern malts are wonderfully converted and allow you to get high extraction rates from simple single infusion mashing, IMHO you will never get to that level of perfection on a small scale for a reasonable cost as malt is rather inexpensive when you realize the amount of labor involved in a small malt house.
  2. bradocaster: DMS is the part of the smell of cabbage or part of the smell of when the tide goes out, or if you have ever been to a town with a large pulp mill it is that smell. It all depends on how long you age the product and what you want as a flavor profile etc.... Are you running a 100% barley malt mash, typically you use distillers malt because you have unmodified grains that need the increased diastatic power over the typical 2 row that is used for beer malt. Six row has a larger husk and less starch and more protein then two row so if you are 100% malt you will get a higher sugar yield with just pale two row. This may change the flavor in a way that does not fit your palette. The length of your ferment also depends on the original sugar content, the temperature and the yeast. I would highly recommend testing out different variations at a small scale to see what you prefer.
  3. WI, I should clarify, the smaller barrels were only for that run, we will be using 53 Gallon barrels.
  4. Marteau, 2 years 3 months at this point, they were 15 gallon white oak with a "medium" char. It is at a warmer place then we will have here in Seattle, we are guesstimating 4 years, unfortunately those barrels with my recipe are sitting in a place of the country that has little in common with our temperatures here in the NW.
  5. We are just about to sign a lease and apply for our DSP, the recession slowed us down for a few years. In those years I have been working on fermentation and grain bill side but the woods flavors are the big unknown for me. I know how new/used and char effect beer but that is of little use for whiskey. A friend who has his DSP and has been kind enough to run a few barrels of my recipes in trade for me teaching him how to improve is mashing ability and I have a good solid feel for what we need to do to make a sell-able product but that "new charred" requirement does seem to blow a lot of flavors away. At this point I am tending towards used barrels but the whole "MALT WHISKY" vs "WHISKY DISTILLED FROM MALT MASH" label issue worries me, the average consumer won't care but I wonder about the foodies and whiskey geeks. Thank you for the feedback everyone.
  6. So the volume of data and material about historical methods and current "big guy" methods is massive but the bit I really want to come out of this movement is creativity and an expanded flavor profile. I know we are all just grasping to pay the bills or even figure out what tails smell like but I wanted to start the discussion about moving it to the next level. My primary interest is in Whiskeys which is as broad as saying "wine" but aged brown liquors of grain. My palate is not good at all with the scotches however I can tell when a whiskey comes from four roses or buffalo trace and I appreciate the quality and the epic challenge of producing a good product at such a massive scale but I feel like that we should be mixing it up a bit. They have huge operations and huge warehouses and they can blend barrels like crazy or sell ones they don't want on the spot market (bullet is still OK after they moved to the spot market btw) but we don't have the restrictions they have. Even if you are mashing 30bbl we can add a sack of Munich or crystal malt if it would carry over, I want to explore those not cooperage flavors and see what goes on. Do you like how the melanoidins from a dark malt carry over or is do you think the flavors that do carry are overblown by the woods contribution to the end product? The big distilleries have to move product out of the fermenter as fast as possible so their mash is going to be full of Acetaldehyde (grass flavor) which is an intermediary between sucrose and ethanol, so letting the fermentation sit a little while should help reduce it right? Or how about Dimethyl sulfides, the beer guys get rid of them by boiling but distillers depend on aging. Would the addition of a 60 min boil help reduce the aging time by a year or so? Is that energy worth it? In my testing it helps but has anyone else worked with it? (I do wish people pushing white dog would boil) How about Diacetyl (butter popcorn)I have found that the "distiller yeasts" actually produce a lot of diacetyl especially when they are under pitched which is unfortunately common in the distilling world. There are a lot of beer yeasts that are available now that tolerate high gravity and high alcohol levels and are a LOT cleaner then the traditional distillers yeasts in my mind, like Wyeast Rogue Pacman 1764. 1764 is not available for commercial brewers but there are lots of options to Wyeast Eau de Vie or Champagne (4021); both of witch i'm not sure come across the way I personaly like.
  7. PeteB, If you aren't sparging I assmue you are just draining the Lauder Tun which should get you about 60% of the dissolved sugars. If you do what they call batch sparging and fill the tun again, stir and run off you should get 60% of that remaining 40%. Fly sparging is where you basically slowly run off the mash in a way that the two waters work like a black and tan beer or any layered mixed drink. you match the incoming sparge water with the rate that you are removing the water. This will significantly increase your extraction if done correctly but may dilute your mash too much to justify the additional sugars collected. Even if you don't have direct heat on your Tun there are ways to up the temperature and the homebrew beer guys have it pretty down pat now. You can do what they call a decoction mashing where you drain off part and heat that to boiling and return it or you can use pumps (google RIMS and HERMS) I was wondering, rice hulls do help prevent stuck sparges but is there any reason you couldn't keep some of the chaff and mix it in with the mash?
  8. How many Watts are you putting into the still, that actually matters more then the batch size. Also are you doing to do a counter flow or do you want to use a traditional worm in a barrel? What would your cooling water's temperature be? Basically you need to remove as many BTU as you put in, I know there are losses other places but it is a good ball park number.
  9. PeteB, yes Secale Cereale is a noxious weed in my part of the world, we are in an area where the battle is to keep things from growing, rye is extremely viable and good at self propagation. Now others in here will disagree with me on this but I come from a home brewing background and so take this all with a grain of salt but I do get conversion in my mashes. I do not claim expertise, but this is what worked for me. With self malting you are not going to have fully converted malt and thus you will greatly improve your yield if you do a stepped mash with a protein rest. The nice thing about using green malt is that you will also have more of some protein enzymes that are denatured by kilning. I would try a long protein mash, it destroys the head foam in beers but you will actually want this as it will reduce the krausen and may prevent blow off. But the main benefit for you will be: a) the amino acid nutrients are released for yeast. the endosperm starch structure will be broken down releasing more of the saccrification proteins This protein step is not only for protein breakdown but for the beta glucanase enzymes that like a similar temperature as they break down starches and can reduce that gluten mess that can cause stuck mashes. I know that you are adding beta glucanase at your sacc rest temp but I think it denatures pretty quickly at that temperature but I am sure someone can correct me on this if I am wrong. You say that you are using rye meal, in my experience I get a far better yield from a crush vs a meal/flour. When you are sparge you want to wash the sugar off the grain if the grind is too small the sparge water will just go around it Are you using a lauder tun and if so are you doing a fly or batch sparge? Do you have heat on your tun or do you need to add water to hit temps? I would try to hit 45C (113F) for 60 min and move up to someplace below 66C (150F) until a drop of iodine (in a tester vessel that that is tossed after the test) does not change color or up to 120min if that gets you a better conversion. In most beer brewing you want to be in a mix of the ideal temperature for both alpha and beta-amylase because you want some unfermentables to provide mouth feel. If you don't need that body for your end product or feel that it doesn't add the character you need and prefer to optimize for alcohol production I would stick to 63C (145F) as a strike temp if you don't have control over your mash tun temp, or 60C (140C) if you do. Of course this will slow the alpha activity but that is preferable to denaturing the beta especially seeing as in distilling and not boiling like in beer brewing you will have active enzymes in your fermenting mash and should up your extraction. For what it worth, with soft wheat and about a 2/3th acrospire which was the sweetest point in my taste testing testing; crushing unmalted grain in a 2 roller mill and "pulsing" the raw malt in a food processor for a few seconds I could hit 80% conversion with batch sparging. Our regional malt house now sells "identity preserved" malt that helps us meet our state mandated 51% in state raw materials law...so we stopped working on it. Best of luck and I am very interested how your yield/flavor works out this year.
  10. Thank you Mr Cowdery for catching my typo, you are correct. DD, I just poured a bit of your of your gin I hope to taste your whiskey someday, but being in a control state I am just happy to get one of your products.
  11. I should be clear and say that is why I think they are doing it. Remember that Mr Crow died in 1846 and Pasteur didn't write his paper proving that yeast were alive until 1857. Past that I'm trying to be polite. FYI, you are one who does know how to mash, I am happy that the WLCB is carrying your product up here now! I buy one of everything I see that comes in and is not produced by the big three...although I do buy their products too. Stranahans is rare product in that I have bought a second and a third.
  12. Foxed is a term from pre-germ theory brewing days and describes a spoiled wort or gyle (mash) lactobacilli when pitched with the yeast will not have much of a negative effect on the fermentation and some people may like how it effects the end product. A mash pre-infected with lactobacilli as would happen in this case has been shown to significantly reduce the ethanol yield. In this study it reduced it by over 1/5th http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11348444 Sour mashing effects the flavors mostly due to the PH change and the resulting change in the yeasts fermentation but that in the most part can be accomplished by most acids. It really depends on your product and your grain bill but most top fermenting yeasts will drop the PH of the mash quickly if pitched at a proper rate quick enough to prevent infection. IMHO sour mash is all about marketing and a free source acid to reduce the PH of your wort.
  13. Remember that Congress DP number, while usable for for malt product comparison have little to do with the mashing schedule/quantity a typical brewer/distiller would use. The water content of a Congress test is 3X what we would use and it has already been soaking in water for an hour before they start the clock to count the saccrification. What is your mash in temp? are you doing a protein rest? If you are trying to go straight for the saccrification rest your efficacy is going to be pretty poor as you will be working with partially unconverted grains. As for the wet malt the main reason to kiln it is because of spoilage, the main concern being ergot fungus, but I assume being a rye farmer you have a way to detect it? Oddly enough Rye is considered a noxious weed and I have no access to the seed but I have had good success on a pilot level with wheat and barley. Also make sure that you are watching the acrospire and not the first rootlets, the rootlets may be quite long and you will have little or no conversion, wait until it is the length of the grain and taste it, it should be sweet. Best of luck.
  14. I do wish I could afford their marketing department the next time I'm waiting for a tank to drain on a Friday '“Bottled in Bond” at 100 proof.' they like to barrel at 125 proof, maybe didn't hit their typical TG due to the infection? I think the proper historical term is in this case is not sour but foxed.
×
×
  • Create New...