Home brew whiskey

[Mick]

Hey fellas

My first post since I usually ask questions through the other two. Anyway we've temporarily aquired a top of the line super reflux distiller and I've decided I want to try my hand at some real whiskey. We have made moonshine with whiskey flavouring in the past and the results were average. This is well before we really got into brewing. Anyway my plan is a simple:
- 23L, 5kg pale malt mash.
- Ferment with SO5
- Put it throught the still until so I get back the distillate.
- Re boil whats left at the bottom of the still until it thickens slightly
- Recombine some of the residue with the distillate, add water to 40% and filter.

What does everyone think?

Also I was thinking of trying oats or something since they did our modified stout wonders. I dont think adding specialty malt will do any good.

[JoKing]

Whatever you do, don't add the crap you left behind in the still! It is vile shit... why go through all the effort removing the alcohol from that stuff in the first place?

Trust me mate... I have about 7 litres of home made whiskey at home that I made from cheap Gladfield Malt (my stuff is pretty average btw). There is plenty of flavour in the distilate on its own.

If you want to add colour, soak the distilate in some Jack Daniels wood chips from the home brew shop. If you want something that tastes quite Scottish, add some smoked malt to the grist.

Cheers!

[Mick]

Cheers for this. Yeah I wasn't sure how good the stuff left behind would be so I would have made that call on the day. Smoked malt sounds tempting. I will add some whiskey chips at some stage aswell.

[Fairlane]

I think you may want to run it through the still twice also....the first distillation run will have the heads (methanol, aldehydes etc) coming off first and the tails (higher alcohols, fatty acid esters) coming off last. In the second run through they tend to both come off in the beginning and are therefore more easily disposed of. You may want to add some water to your distillate for the 2nd run through as well...
Also, if you have a winery near you, ask them for some oak chips if you are going for a scotch style and add them to your spirit for as long as you can...

[Mick]

Thanks for this. I will make sure to do it. I can get the chips from the YourShout if need be.