Home Distillation of Alcohol (Homemade Alcohol to Drink)

Preparing Grain Worts or Mashes

Summary
To make a grain mash for whiskey : Heat 4 kg cracked or crushed malt with 18 L of water to 63-65 °C, and hold there for 1-1.5 hours. Heat to 73-75 °C, then strain off and keep liquid, using 250 mL of hot water to rinse the grains. Cool to below 30 °C (should have an initial specific gravity of 1.050). Add hydrated yeast & leave to ferment.

Only use a grain mash if it is cheap than sugar to do so, or if you are using a pot still (and want to retain the flavour).


To make a grain wort requires Malting, Gristing, Mashing, Brewing, and Fermenting. Check beer related books, homepages or discussion groups (eg Alan & Melissa's Homebrew, Spensers Beer page) for heaps more details, but don't get put off by some the minutia they sometimes get into.

Only use grains if you are using a POT still & after flavour, or if for some reason they are really cheap for you to obtain. Generally, a reflux still will strip out all the flavours and leave a neutral spirit. But, you can actually use a reflux still to make flavoured spirits such as whisky, provided you detune them a little, and then carefully pay attention to how you make the cut. Details are given by Ian Smiley in his book "Making Pure Corn Whisky" (http://www.magma.ca/~smiley/main.htm)

Big tip ! It generally pays not to distill a grain wort with a still with an internal element. You get too many solids / complex sugars remaining that WILL burn onto the element. The whisky will stink, and the burnt flavour can't be removed. And its bloody difficult to clean the element properly & remove all the char (trust me). The one thing all the old time moonshiners always talk about is the skill needed to "fire a still without scorchin' the whiskey". Jack has a theory "everyone should have 2 stills: one column equipped, run on heating elements (for sugar spirit), and one stovetop potstill (for whiskey and rum mashes)".

Grain Recipes

I'd be really keen to hear if you've had success, experience or otherwise using either just beer kits (liquid malt), or partial mashes of kits and a small mash. Please e-mail me with your comments.

Donald advises ... A mate of Jacks has had sucess with just using malt extract ...
If you are planning on using a malt extract, make sure that it doesn't contain any hops ! They will do serious bad things to the flavour, and basically ruin any chance you had making a half-decent product.

Jack suggests about this is ...
Not all the grains in each recipe require malting. As long as some (at least 20%) have been malted, there should be sufficient enzymes (amylase) present to convert the starch in the other grains. Note: this is why you can add amalyse (Speedase? - commercial name ) to help speed/complete malt and grain beers & worts, but it won't do a thing for thin sugar based worts (no starch to convert).

Yield from Grains

How much alcohol can you expect to make, based on your Grain recipe ?. Check out Mash Effficiency and Yield which I have stolen in its entirety, from a posting from John Palmer which was sent to the rec.crafts.brewing discussion group. Sorry, but its still in imperial units (points/pound/gallon (ppg)).

Malting

Malting is the process of allowing the grain to start to germinate & sprout, so that it will generate enzymes (amylase) to convert its store of non-fermentable starch to a sugar.

Jack advises ..
I haven't done the following, as malted grains can normally be bought from beer-homebrew shops. Check beer related homepages for more details; I've summarised the following steps from a couple of books. Drying the grain isn't always necessary if you're going to be using it all straight away. Ted advises .. Ups gives his method for malting ...

Gristing

Gristing is cracking/crushing the grain to expose its center. You can use rolling pins (tip: put grains in a zip-lock bag - no mess), coffee grinders, mills, etc. Again, home-brewers get quite detailed (fanatical ?) over exactly how this should be done. Just get it broken into 3-5 pieces, but don't turn it to dust or flour.

Mashing

This step converts the remaining starches to sugars. Heat the grain to 62-63 °C for 45 min to 1 hour (stir occasionally), using 4.5L water per kg grain, then strain out the grains (use a kitchen sieve), keep the liquid (the wort/mash). Some methods involve bringing it to temperature, then holding it there for 2 hours in a big pot etc in the oven. When straining out the grains, rinse them several times with a small portion of the wort to fully wash them clean. Take care when heating the wort - it will easily boil over, quickly getting you banished from the kitchen. Watch it carefully, and enjoy the aroma.

When due to separate the grains from the liquid (lautering), raise the temperature to 75-77 °C. At this "mash-off" temperature the wort viscosity is favourable for quick & complete separation, enzymes are mainly inactive, and bacterial action is precluded.

There are two enzymes which convert the starches to sugars & dextrins. Alpha-amaylase "chops" the long starch molecules in half into shorter chains, whereas Beta-amaylase "breaks off" the branches in the starch structure. Working together they do a great job, and convert 60-80% of the available starch to fermentable sugars.

Alpha-amylase works best between 65-67 °C, and dies within 2 hours at 67 °C.
Beta-amylase works best between 52-62 °C, deactivating within 40min at 65 °C.

(To understand how enzymes work, see Enzymes, a useful email from Stephen Alexander to the Homebrew Digest about enzymes, explaining how they affect the rate of a reaction, and how they work in the conversion of starch to glucose.)

The higher mash temperatures (65-70C) will produce dextrinous (heavy bodied beers, lots of "mouth feel") in a shorter period, whereas lower mash temperatures (62-63C) will produce more fermenatble (more alcoholic) beer over a longer time period. So go for 62-63C.

If you don't want to use malted grains, you can use amylase from a packet. Ted advises ... You can use Iodine to test for starch - add a couple of drops to a spoonful of wort; if it turns blue starch is still present, and it needs more mashing. It has no reaction / colour change if there is no starch present. Iodine is poisonous, so toss away the sample you tested.

Jacks "No Cooking Needed" Mashing Technique

If you've read Enzymes, you'l know how how they affect the rate of a reaction, and how they work in the conversion of starch to glucose. The normal temperatures recommened are those at which the alpha and beta amylase work fastest. If you're prepared to wait a little longer, and not get quite the same conversion, you can mash without cooking. Jack reports ...

Basic Whiskey Recipe

So a "no frills" whiskey recipe might go as ... Jack recommends (highly) .. Rob advises .. For quite a large scale operation, The Household Cyclopedia recommends to make Malt Spirit by ... Another helpful post from Jack offers ... Blueflame uses his cousins corn whisky recipe, which ... Yet more recipes from Jack ... Jack on how to do a bourbon/sourmash ...

Poitin

Jack writes ...

Jack Daniels Black Label Recipe

Jack advises ...

Bushmills Black Bush Recipe

Moonshine

A "genuine" moonshine recipe, as still being used by Deb Brewer is ... MooNShiNeR reckons ...

Sour Mash

One style that is sometimes used for whiskey is that of a "sour mash".

Jack explains ...
Ted Palmer advises Brad also adds ...

Scotch

Jacks recipe for "liquid golden heaven" ...

Russian Vodka (Samogon)

Volodia reports ...

Rice

Jack experiments again ...
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