Bonfire Whiskey

Here's a recipe for a smokey whiskey similar to single malt, but with some sweetness  from corn, spice from rye malt and smoothness from oats.   This recipe is geared for a 15.5 gallon keggle cooker (keg with the top cut out), and a 15.5 gallon still.  Scale to suit.

Ingredients:

• 10 gallons water.
• 2 gallon backset (or 2 gallons water if you dont have backset saved)
• 4 tsp gypsum
• 25 lbs Producers Pride All Grain (corn, barley, oats)  from the feed store
• 4 lbs milled Rye Malt 
• 5 lbs milled  Peat Smoked Barley Malt
• 1 lb milled Cherry Wood Smoked Barley Malt
• 2 lbs  milled 6 Row Barley Malt (or 2 Row if your brewshop doesnt carry 6 Row)
• Also,  macerate an additional 1/2 lb peated malt and 1./4 lb cherry smoked malt in the low wines for 2 days before doing the spirit run.
• Yeast.  Any good ale yeast.  1 packet per 5 gallons (2-3 for this recipe). 

Process:

• Bring 10 gallons of the water, gypsum and backset to 200F+.  (reserve 2 gallons aside for later)
• Turn off heat and stir in the Producers Pride
• Cover and wrap the cooker in a heavy blanket for 3+ hours.   This cooks and gelatinizes the starches in the raw grains so the enzymes from the malt later can get access to it.
• After 3+ hours,  transfer the goo to a 18+ gallon fermenter.   Use the extra 2 gallons reservedeither cold or heated to help adjust the tempertature to 148-150F.  When the temp hits 148-150F  stir in the various  milled malts.  Stir thoroughly for 5 minutes.  Temp should settle around 145F.  You are now mashing.  Holding this temperature for 2 hours is critical, so wrap your fermenter back up in the blanket you used above.   The temp must stay in the 140's for 2+ hours.   I sometimes just leave it till morning, that fine too.
• When the mashing is done you will have a bucket full sweet maltose sugars, husks of the grain and some protein (grain is about 10% protein).  
• Split this thick mash in half and add 2 gallons more water per fermenter.   Now you have a  mash gravity thats ideal for the yeast and later in the process will give you 12 gallons to run in the still.  Point a fan at the fermenters and stir until the temp drops to 80F or below.
• Pitch the yeast,  seal up the fermenters and put a bubbler on it.  Ferment at 68-72F.  Ale yeasts prefer this temp for the best fermentation.  You can also use distillers yeast or bakers yeast, in this case ferment at 80F.
• The fermentation will take about a week, give or take.  When its done, you gotta run it.  Dont let it sit around or the bacteria on the malt will take over and youll have a stinky mess.  Nowhere, from the mashing process forward are you near pasteurization temperatures.  So any wild things on the malt will still be alive in your fermenter.  When the yeast is done, you gotta run. 

Distillation and Aging:

• After the fermentation is done squeeze out the liquid from the grain mass with a large nylon strainer bag, available at your local brewshop.  This is now called 'wash',  that you will 'charge' your still with.  Let it settle out for a day before running it.  The yeast are small and slip through the mesh bag, and you really dont want to boil them in the still.
• It is my experience that grain type whiskeys turn out best with 2 runs.  A 'stripping run'  to pull all the alcohol out of the wash.  And a 'spirit run' to clean it up some more and raise the proof.  Be sure your stripped 'low wines' are below 40% alcohol before boiling it again in teh spirit run, water down if necessary.     You can run the stripping run fairly fast,  but the spirit run should be slower.   
• Also,  note toward end of ingredient list,  macerate additional smoked malt in the low wines before running the spirit run.  It will bring over additional smokeyness into the final drink.
• Make cuts to taste and age on charred White Oak for as long as you can keep your mitts off it.

Yield:  In general,  50 lbs of grain will make a case of fifths at 80 proof,  after cuts, more or less depending on how you make your cuts.  So this 37 lb recipe should make around 9 bottles of drinking whiskey. In practice yiield is a little low,  7.5 bottles, due I believe to a lotof whole oats in teh sweet feed.   Keep the feints (everything you dont keep to drink,  'the cut')  and add them to the next run.  They are still full of alcohol and flavor and will increase your yield next time.

Very Important:

If you're new to distilling,  please read and study the fundamentals until you understand well whats going on at http://homedistiller.org/forum/ or  http://forum.moderndistiller.com/index.php

This blog is intended for personal interest and hobby only,  In NO WAY is this blog intended to provide recipe's for people to brew and sell without proper licensing.   Please visit the links just above for  friendly group of hobbyists who promote safe hobby level legislation, as has been done for homebrewing of beer. 

Enjoy, and cheers!