georgiabooze

How many are using a mash meaning fermented grains, not a wash, in a direct fired pot still, or for that matter a steam heated still. Why have I read that it burns?

Fine you go ahead and buy a facility three stories high and toot your horn.

If I re-distill and taste everything and worry about my cuts and flavor profile and aging, but buy GNS am I cheating? do I not look at the Merck index or other things? Do I succumb to this petty argument yet again? If you have your mother raking the grain across the floor is the quality better simply because her feet walked upon the malted grain?

looks like I throwed the fat in the fire. The truth hurts don't it.

I know this is like beating a dead horse, but we cannot let the discussion die. I just read a post on not buying a still yet, just buying in gns. That is a bunch of crap. Make it yourself or do not get in the business. The way things are going, pretty soon we will see someone buying in gns and putting it in a barrel and calling it whiskey, or rum or brandy aor something else. This has got to stop.

I recently read in the adi newsletter about a whiskey made with sugar and cornmeal in california. I thought it may be commonplace.

To make whisky:

(assuming all malted grains)

1) mill the grain to expose the starches while leaving the husks intact

2) combine grain and hot water to "mash" the grains - industry term for converting the starches into fermentable sugars.

3) (optional) drain the sweet wash (called "wort" in beer brewing) from the grains (this is called "lautering")

4) cool your wash

5) pitch your yeast

6) allow it to ferment

7) distill

8) age in oak barrels

So, to answer your question, you need a mash tun to mash in (where step 2 occurs)

To answer the unasked question, you would need a lauter tun for step 3.

That's the quick and dirty...there's a whole bunch of minutiae about each step, but that's the basics.

of those making whiesky, how many are adding sugar to the mash?

Why, would you require a mash tun to make whiskey?

Again, I am kind of new to this, but ain;t the definition of setback, the spent grains after they have been through the still?

I'll weigh in on enzyme usage. There are many bases that require enzymes for conversion that aren't normally there.... you could add distiller's malt to that base to get full conversion or you could just add enzymes. Many producers, big and small, use them. A hot and fast fermentation would not require a back-set (sour mash) and would benefit from additional, or readily available, enzymes to ensure full conversion.

A single malt sour mash just isn't pretty IMHO.

let me get this sraight in my head. sour mash still has active enzymes in it? also a hot fast fermentation would not require a mash to be sour? the barley malt does or does not add flavor to say a bourbon mash?

How do the people on this forum view the use of commercially produced enzymes, instead of the very expensive and time consuming malt method? Also how many are using sour mash?

Hello all! I am strting a distillery in Albany Georgia.