Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

OK Guys here's what and why.
Was watching Anthony Bordain's "No Reservations" recently and he was in Laos.
Seems there is a whole town/village of spirit makers, using rice.... as you would in Asia.
Anyway he showed part of the process and results.
Pot still once, by the looks.
My first thought was "I bet there's plenty of heads and tails taste in that lot."

So I went onto HD and checked out Uncle Remus Rice Vodka recipe.
The problem with that is finding Amylase in Oz.
So onto Aussie distillers and found the Bread Improver thread.
Put two and two together and have come up with.... ten? :wtf:

Off to Coles and bought Bread Improver and 10kg of cheap rice 4kg of sugar

This is what I've done so far

Boil 22ltrs water in SS Keg
In goes 4kg of rice that has been washed 6 times to remove talc and soaked for about an hour.
Stir like a man possessed for 15 minutes
Turn off the heat.
Add 10ltrs cold water to cool it down.
4kg of sugar and 4tablespoons of yeast as nutrient and 2 teaspoons of Epsom salts.
Stir again

Pitch 4 tablespoons Bread Improver at 68C
Nothing
Pitch another 4 tablespoons at 60C
Nothing
Curse -
Top up to 40ltrs total - cover keg and go to bed.

The resulting sludge left from 8.30pm until next day.... 11.30am
Still too warm to pitch yeast, but- looks thinner.

Specific Gravity at 38C.. 1054
Seems too high for 4kg of sugar in 40ltrs of water.... maybe the rice mix is mucking it up.
But it was taken with the rice settled to the bottom.
Which by the way now looks more like a white soup with a few little lumps in it.

Pitch yeast anyway 3tablespoons of bakers yeast
Wait an hour.... some bubbling
Wait another hour.... :happy-partydance: oh yeah... she's away and the party has started.
:D :D

Let's see where this leads us.

DBV

that's really interesting, keep us posted DBV :handgestures-thumbupleft:

sounds like things are happening!

if you couldn't find bread improver the other way you could get sugar from rice is to chew it and spit it into the brew...... :twisted:

Thanks Guys
Yes Invisi I had heard that we all have amylase in our saliva.... but might just give that one a miss :smile:

From the reading I've done, you get a parallel fermentation... IE the starch in the rice is slowly and continuously converted to sugar.
That means the yeast isn't shocked with masses of sugar and therefore doesn't produce as many off flavours.
It is supposed to be a really smooth neutral, no off flavours, minimum heads and tails.
It's all good in theory, but will have to see what happens in the real world.

The guys in Laos looked like they used a really rough pot stilling method.
As I am only using a pot still as well, it will be interesting to see the results.

If all goes well it could be just a great vodka or used as a base for further experiments. :geek:

DBV

i'm not sure about the bread improver, but certainly with the amylase produced by the mould for making shochu, starch conversion to sugars and fermentation of sugars into alcohol happen together. another side effect of this is yield. even with a low alcohol tolerant yeast like an ale yeast, raw sake is typically 18 - 20% abv , and has to be diluted before bottling.
who needs turbos? :teasing-tease:

This link is worth looking at for Rice Vodka
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 8&start=84

As for Bread yeast
viewtopic.php?f=25&t=2203

Bread Improver by "The health Baker" bought from Coles
The ingredients list for the Bread Improver I used is
Emulsifier (481)
Soy flour
Flour treatment agents (516, 300, 920)
Wheat flour
Malt flour
Enzyme (Amylase)

So not a lot of Amylase but plenty of nutrients.... maybe

DBV

Gotta try one of these! :handgestures-thumbupleft: :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Well I thought I'd throw a photo up here just to show how things are going.



Lifted the towel off the rice ferment just long enough to get the photo and
Blasted fly decided to dive bomb head first into the mix. :doh:
Seems I must have a breed of Asiatic flies in my place cause they all love this stuff. :roll: :roll:

Just smells like the Uncle Jesse ferments I've done before.... nothing special
Hope the taste will be good, less the fly juices of course. :roll:

DBV

dogbreathe vodka wrote:
Just smells like the Uncle Jesse ferments I've done before.... nothing special
Hope the taste will be good, less the fly juices of course. :roll:

DBV

Protein's good for the yeast

Hope it turns out nice. I'd like to try this out. :)

Well had a look at the hydrometer this afternoon..... 1.000
Might just get to distill this one tomorrow..... might
Getting just a tad anxious to see how it turns out.

DBV

Did you get to run it mate? :think:

Haven't run it yet
From the 45 litres I ended up with 25 of clear yellowish wash and 10 litres of murky white now partially settles.
Am waiting a bit to see if it clears any more.



Getting the rice out and keeping the wash is a bit of a task.
If I had muslin or similar it might be better.

Am going to add 4kg of sugar to the left over rice, top it up to 40 ltrs and see what happens.
The reason is that it doesn't seem to have taken much out of the rice.... so there should be plenty of nutrient left in it.

This is turning out more like a rice UJSSM than anything else. :roll:
Hang in there and we will see what happens
:D :D :D

DBV

dogbreathe vodka wrote:Getting the rice out and keeping the wash is a bit of a task.
If I had muslin or similar it might be better.

with sake they traditionally put the rice lees into a cloth bag and squeeze the bag to get out the liquid left. when i do my shochu i was planning to tie the end of a brew bag round a piece of broom handle or something, fill it with the rice mush and tie the other end round another pole and twist. you should be able to pick up a bag used for "brew in a bag" from most hbs or failing that there are plenty of hbs around the country that do mail order. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Hey Gents
Well I let the wash sit for a week and see how well it settled....... not much more than you saw in the above photos.
Ended up with about 30ltrs of clear wash which is currently distilling.... yes I can see it from where I am now.

As for draining the last little bits out of a wash.... too much work for me.
I think a change of procedure is in order.

So in the future I will get a larger fermenter drain most of the wash off
Let it clear and only use the cleared wash.

This time
Out of a 45ltr wash including rice getting 30ltres of clear is good enough for me.

Not going to bother squeezing and stuffing around with the last few litres.
The time and effort just isn't worth it.
It really only works out to about 5 ltres or less and at 8% - my time can be better spent doing whatever the hell I want. :teasing-neener:

The foreshots didn't smell like it does with corn or barley
Just took a 400ml jar of heads.... can't really taste the heads like in UJSSM.
It is a reeeeeally clean wash. Very impressed so far.
No obvious off tastes at all, even a hint of sweetness.

Just tried a double distilled white dog from twelve months ago and can definitely taste the barley/corn mix.
Not so with the rice straight from the still.

DBV

don't know if this contributes or not, but i noticed "dry beer enzyme" for sale at the hbs. i suspect that it might be beta amylase, not sure though.

Dogbreath.

How much and at what % Alcohol did you get from the 40L.?

Overall how long did the entire process take?

Thought of using brown rice as the husk contains heaps of good stuff? May make the flavours a bit nutty, possibly.

Bringing up an old post, however very interested in having a crack at this to make some nice Vodka, without the need to add anything else to it.

Hi Welly
The guy you want to talk to is invisigoth
He started a really good thread on this.... well he was looking for Sake, but it is relevant.
This one viewtopic.php?t=3303

I found it too much work for too little reward. :handgestures-thumbdown:
From memory it had a distinctive and nice flavour... but the work I put in to get it was over the top.

DBV

I read on a book on making alternative whiskies that you can use Beano in lieu of alpha amalyse. Beano is a product to help stop flatulance but apparently it is just a combination of powerful enzymes that include alpha amylase. And you can buy it anywhere. Supposed to be very useful for Rice and rice vodkas. You can buy it in liquid or tablet form. 3 or 4 tablets in a 50l fermenter really gets things rocking along.

DonMateo wrote:I read on a book on making alternative whiskies that you can use Beano in lieu of alpha amalyse. Beano is a product to help stop flatulance but apparently it is just a combination of powerful enzymes that include alpha amylase. And you can buy it anywhere. Supposed to be very useful for Rice and rice vodkas. You can buy it in liquid or tablet form. 3 or 4 tablets in a 50l fermenter really gets things rocking along.

How about poping into the welcome area and introducing yourself ;-)