Silk City Distillers

We have noticed 30s being much more flexible with timing than 15s - far wider timing range, much less worried about letting them go longer.

Slightly off topic, but I have done a few runs now of hammer milled grain-in malt whiskey, and I was very, very pleasantly surprised with the flavor of the distillate.  Give it a go, you might like the result.  I generally go out of my way to try to challenge the status quo.  I continually hear that you can't make malt whiskey grain in.  So I said, that sounds like the perfect thing to try out.  Tannin astringency?  Huh?

We tried roller mill variants, that created real headache in pump overs from the tun to the fermenters, from the fermenters to the still, and on still cleanout.  Roller milled malt wants to self-lauter everywhere possible.  Flavor wise, roller vs hammer was identical, and hammer transferred like a traditional grain-in mash/wash.

I think this "myth" has more to do with process implications and traditional production methods than distillate flavor implications - dealing with large volumes of roller mill barley is very difficult grain-in.  I can absolutely see why someone wouldn't do it that way.

We are next door to a brewery, and have distilled similar mash bills on our equipment, so we are familiar with the flavor profiles.  I think this is important, you need to do this comparison on your own equipment to have any real idea.  Comparing two different whiskies from two producers and attempting to attribute the difference solely to in vs out ... not possible.  I don't discount the fact that there are probably a lot of terrible craft malt whiskies made grain-in in the US, that are probably terrible for a host of reasons, the least of which is grain-in.

Maybe I can make everyone mad with this last point.  I've found that UK-sourced malts result in a flavor profile far closer to UK malt whiskies than using US/Canadian grown pale brewers malts.  Running a batch of malt whiskey using Baird's pot still malt was an epiphany compared to grain-in/grain-out.  I mean, pull a chair up to the parrot epiphany and sit there with your head in your hands wondering how the hell it could be so much better.  I'll never make a malt whiskey that doesn't use a UK pot still malt again, it's that shockingly better.  Even worse, using high enzyme "distillers" malt for any portion of the mash bill, blech, high DP malt is awful, avoid it if you can.

Ran a batch last week using 60% of the Inverness heavy peated malt.  I was like a giddy schoolgirl.

Question for the brain trust - we're looking to do some variants of our 100% rye.  Working with a local farmer, we're looking to smoke some raw rye.

Anyone ever gone down this path?  It's not very typical to smoke raw grain, but we don't see any reason to malt, if what we are really after is the smoke.

4 minutes ago, Silk City Distillers said:

We cook at 90c - 100% unmalted - all exogenous enzyme conversion - Beta glucanase, High temp alpha amylase and Glucoamylase.

60 minutes in a rush, but holding at temp for 90 minutes give us yields that are a touch better (2-3%).

We cook at 90c - 100% unmalted - all exogenous enzyme conversion - Beta glucanase, High temp alpha amylase and Glucoamylase.

On 8/20/2020 at 4:44 PM, Cosmic.Distiller said:

I make a 100% Rye mash with no malt with decent yields. The trick is to add enough water so it doesn't get so thick. We bring the temp up to 90c and add high temp enzymes, which I understand is hotter than most people take it, but it works for us *shrug*

Same, we take 100% unmalted up to around 90c as well.  We tried lower, but yields drop precipitously.

Lots of oils and emulsifiers.  Not sure how clear you could get something like that.

There is a decent looking Meadows #35 in Nebraska over on eBay.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/333639315147

Not sure it would hit 5k without the blower though.  Probably has room on the price.

How do you account for that in TTB reporting?  Barrel storage records?

Hornindal in Bourbon Mash - The amount of tropical fruit and dark fruit jam straight through the hearts is nuts.  Some might call those all off flavors.

We will see how those flavors survive aging.

Sent you a message, interested.

If a bottle of Arak falls off the shelf, does anyone care?

Just bringing this back to life.  We did a Bourbon with Hornindal, and have a pack of the Lallemand Voss we'll pitch in another bourbon mash to be able to lay down a few barrels as a "side-by-side" comparo.  Not rum, but continue to be excited by the crazy ester profiles of these.

Evaporate 100ml and give us the mass of the solids, we can run the numbers to see if the solids weight explains the difference in the two measures.

Otherwise it’s a guess.  An error in measurement is just as good an explanation.  Single point calibration of the Snap 50 would not expose linearity errors.

We played around quite a bit with ultrasound.  Did some double blind taste tests that saw a statistically significant difference (3 sample triangle test), however the panelists were somewhat split on what was "better".  So while treatment made a statistically significant difference, it was not better.  That said, with further testing, it was clear that the impact was temporary.  After a few months in the bottle, there was no longer any difference between treated and untreated.  We don't use it in production, but I still occasionally play around with it.  My last working theory was that the difference was caused by ultrasound forcing out dissolved gasses, which was temporary until the liquid could equilibrate with air again.

Sugar doesn’t distill - but barrel extractives can obscure proof.  If you have a lab balance or a scale that can weigh accurately in mg - you can try evaporating an a sample and weighing out the remaining solids.  That would answer the question.

How are you calibrating your Snap 50 before measuring?

Even the best meters are going to need to be recalibrated regularly.  The high-end meter manufacturers are likely going to recommend an even more aggressive calibration schedule, daily or weekly.  Many of these higher end meters use refillable electrodes, which is even more work.

Average probe replacement time is 12 months under normal use, I'd day daily use in a distillery would be fairly harsh use, especially if measuring hot mash.  Leaving it out, storing dry, this will kill anybody's probe.  If you are taking pH readings on hot mash - this is detrimental, although we do it all the time.  Needing to cool a sample to room temperature is a real pain, so chalk it up as cost of doing business.

Calibration will tell you when the probe is on it's way out.  Really slow to respond, long time to calibrate, readings far off from expected.

Your mileage may vary, but I say let it ride.  I posted this a few years back on another forum - there is no science behind this, just tasting a bunch of 10g and 15g barrels as they went through maturation.  If you really need to be careful with this, go with @JustAndy 's approach, it will work.

Don't forget about the small barrel maturation curve, it goes like this:

1. Young harsh distillate.

2. Tastes like whiskey.

3. OH MY GOD ITS OVER-OAKED.

4. Wow, that's really good, I now realize that # 2 tastes like crap.

5. Ah christ, now it's really over-oaked.

6. Garbage.

Many pull at # 2, on the upswing of the extraction curve. I feel this is incorrect, misleading. You generally see these as products aged 6-8 months in 10 gallon. What you get it extraction products and color without maturation products. Bitter/Dry Tannin is on the upswing, peaking in # 3. But, it's not until these have some time to oxidize/react, settle down, allow the vanillin/syringealdehyde to come through.

You can’t control the temperature in the kettle, the boiling point is a function of how much alcohol is in the wash, or remaining in the wash.  Turning up the steam only increases the rate of boiling, not the temperature.  Turning down the steam will slow the boil, until it eventually stops.  Either way, wash temperature will slowly increase through the run.  The more alcohol in the wash, the lower the temperature at the start of boiling.  Run long enough and you’ll eventually hit 212f on the kettle, that’s because all the alcohol is gone and you are simply boiling water now.

Vapor temperature at the head is a function of alcohol concentration in the vapor.  Just like the wash.  Less alcohol, higher the temp, more alcohol, lower the temp. 

Increasing the flow to your reflux condenser will generate more reflux down to the plates.  The higher the ratio of reflux returned down to the plates vs distillate collected out of the parrot is called the reflux ratio.  The higher the reflux ratio  the higher the alcohol concentration in the vapor, and a lower temperature at the head.

You can run so fast (high steam input) that you begin to overrun your reflux condenser - because the vapor starts to move faster than the condenser can knock down.  You would see this as lower proof output.

Typical run times on a still are 4-5 hours for a single pass distillation with plates.

Temperature in the onion is largely useless at this point, ignore it for now.

How long?  What ambient temps?

We have gone 18-24m in 15g Char 3 & 4 without over oaking.

We find we need to run a screen one size smaller with rye - so it doesn’t fall through.  Recently though we’ve found that if we run the corn and rye through together, we don’t see those whole rye getting through the larger screen.

I’ve never had an issue with oils, but my use of cucumber is as a minor player.  You could look to remove the seed and maybe even skin to reduce the potential.

IMHO - vacuum distillation of cucumber yields the truest aroma.

The skin, flesh, and seed all have unique aroma. One of these is a negative, removing it improves the distillate aroma tremendously.  I won’t tell you which.

If that’s not an option, I’ve found maceration to yield a better profile than high temperature vapor distillation.  For me, cucumber can take on a stewed profile, where you lose that crisp aroma of a fresh cut cucumber.

59 minutes ago, Roger said:

Why not just use the diluted fake craft that's left in the pot, as the water to reduce the fake vodka down from the 140+\- that the pot distills over. I wonder if Mr. T does that ?

Mind ... blown

I was able to get in, awesome presentations today!