Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

G'Day Guy's,
Ran the first generation yesterday and started the heatup at 9am and it was after 3pm before I shut it down :handgestures-thumbupleft: Did the cuts just now and ended up with 6 litres @65% which is close to 2 litres more than the sweet mash first run :handgestures-thumbupleft: So filled a 5 litre demi and put the last litre into a big moccona jar with 5 thin dominos from my big domino. So this litre should age that much quicker and around xmas will be the first dram to check the progress.

The second generation is going gang busters with the airlock going off it's tits :laughing-rolling: so I wouldn't be surprised if this gen finish's in short time.

Cheers Bryan

Just took 4 kg of barley out of water after steeping in water for 8 hours. So the adventure begins

Spread the swollen grains with chits showing out in the old worm farm. Bit tip for new guys looking to do this.
THE GRAINS GET BIGGER lol, now some of you may well be saying derrr, of course, but this little black duck did not consider that small, not insignificant detail, so the worm farm is now fuller than recommended. Still that’s what we do things for the first time. Roots are growing nicely and I should be right to start the drying process on Sunday.
What a great way to pass the time, sit and watch the malt grow, so much more interesting than sitting and watching the grass grow.

Wellsy wrote:
What a great way to pass the time, sit and watch the malt grow, so much more interesting than sitting and watching the grass grow.

Watching the malt Grow :scared-eek: :scared-eek: :scared-eek: man this lockdown sure has someones brain twisted :teasing-neener: :teasing-neener: :teasing-neener: it aint malt until you kill the grains and dry them out mate just so you know :handgestures-thumbupleft:

No way, it’s malt now lol
Once I wet the barley it stops being barley so it must be malt. Either way it is a great way to pass the time lol

well getting the grains nice and fat is the easy part of the journey mate :handgestures-thumbupleft: it's the killing and drying part thats the most important part of the process. Take too long and the mold sets in :puke-huge: and yes it does smell like that :laughing-rolling: Go too quick and just end with burnt bits or as some say choccy malt but it aint as good as that barley charcoal is a better term.

But eh as your cooped up like a chicken going cluck cluck what do i do next cluck cluck :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: I'm sure one eye will be on a temp gauge and other on what one hope is a good beer and honestly VB aint fit to anything let alone drinking :laughing-rolling:

But eh mate I'm sure you will get the hang of it one day :laughing-rolling:

VB is mother’s milk to most of us here. Just like xxxx to Queenslanders.
Being from SA I am not sure you are in a position to give anyone a hard time about state beers lol

Will be turning the grains again today as they are getting quite warm in the worm tray.

Wellsy wrote:VB is mother’s milk to most of us here

It has been said that VB tasted like goats piss so does does make VB drinkers all the Kids of few goats :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:

On a more serious note just make sure all the grains keep around the same moisture so they all germinate at the same time or you will find 50% or more are developed enough to make the malt where the rest are just fat swelled seeds that are taking their time to sprout.

Thanks Bryan
I will post up some pics today, I even cut a seed yesterday and the aspire, no idea on spelling sorry or correct term, was about half way along the seed. So it is getting close. The starch was starting to smear as well but mostly it just clumped. We take photos and post for all those keen to have a go at this.

Thanks again Bryan for sharing your thoughts that have got many of us interested

Started with this

After soaking and spearing in the worm farm turning the seeds twice a day for 4 days I have ended up with this

The buggers swell up so allow for it lol

So the aspire sorry for spelling and possibly incorrect description needs to be about 3/4 the length of the seed inanideal world but they all grow at different rates so there is a bit of averaging needed.

The other test to see if it is ready for the next stage is to open the seed up and if the white enter , starch, can smear on your fingers it is good to go. If it stay firm or just balls the seeds needs more time. Not the one you opened obviously lol

So the next step is to dry the seeds out to stop the growth. I need to do a bit of searching to get the correct temp then to sieve out the rootless then final toasting. Again I need to research the actual temp for this and times. I will post up those when done.
Massive thanks again to Bryan for starting my this thread and all the tips he has shared

This thread is making me itchy to give it a go. I have wanted to try malting corn for quite a while.. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

G'day Guy's,
Finally got around to decanting last years batch and it was 17 to 18 months old aged on French Oak :handgestures-thumbupleft: After decanting to 40% ended up with close to 14 litres so that should keep me in AG until the next batch is ready :obscene-drinkingchug:

With the next gen on my ferment I'm going to get 5kg's of rye so i can crush it and add it to the generation just so I can add that rye twist for the first time. This has freed up several 5 litre demi's which I need for this years batch as i am to get 5 of them going for 25 litres in total. I'm sure by the 5th generation this ferment should be pretty funky :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:

Cheers Bryan

Jump in Bluc the water is fine. Beside we got life guard Bryan on stand by if the water gets to cold and deep lol.

Ok update on drying process still no idea so have thrown the whole lot under a small Aldi $20:00 portable hothouse. I think I will have a couple of beers and think what to do next. It is just under 40 in the hothouse so a day of that and then so toasting tomorrow might even do it in the pizza over/slow cooker and throw some apple smoke at it to see what happens

I am definitely in a hurry up and wait sort of mood today.

I initially dried my malt in a dehydrator set to about 35 degrees for 24 hours & then slowly took the temp up as high as it would go (about 70 degrees from memory) then transferred it to the oven to finish off the kilning process. Works well for small batches (I did about 2kg of Rye at a time) but a complete pain for larger batches. Have a look on the "brewing beer the hard way" website https://brewingbeerthehardway.wordpress.com/, it will give you some great ideas along with temps/times for kilning all types of grain & styles of malt. Eg pilsner, ale, chocolate, crystal etc, very useful website.

G'Day Guy's,
Well I didn't bother roasting my malt I just got it dried out then I put it thru my corona mill on a loose setting. Then it went into a 10 litre plastic bucket and when I had 2 of those buckets I did the mash. I found all the chits and roots just rose to the top of the mash tun so I scooped them out, I found after giving the mash a good mix with my paint stirrer any remaining ones rose to the top where they were collected.

By far this was the best mash I've done and it was done before I knew it, a starting SG of 1085 was gained after filling the fermenter to 55 litres and adding 4kg of inverted sugar to get the SG up to where I wanted it. By going with the higher starting SG was a trial to see just how the yield went and I was pleased with the result, the yeast didn't mind and it just keeps going on :handgestures-thumbupleft: . Where the first ferment stopped on a high FG the first generation went down below 997 and with the second generation it has slowed down from the fury but at 1002 and with grain still present ontop the ferment is far from finished.

For PH control I just chucked in 2 oyster shells and the PH hasn't been a problem at all :handgestures-thumbupleft:

For me going the AG way won't have me going back to using breakfast cereals to make whisky as the results of 18 months aging has shown this is world class whisky made without all the bells and whistles of expensive setups.

So for those that want to bite the bullet and give it a go but think it's too hard well if Wellsy can do it anyone can :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:

Cheers Bryan