Hi, like the subscribers here, I got into this hobby recently to go down the Single Malt Scotch path. I got my peated malt from
http://www.esbrewing.com.au and they even crack it for you at no extra charge. I'm about to do my first mash this week and the recipe I've chosen is below. It's not mine but I'm sure the person who developed it won't mind me sharing it with you. I'll let you know how things go in a couple of weeks. Cheers, SW
"Malt Whiskey Pot Still Recipe
Making decent Scotch whisky is very easy to do at home (provided you know something about all grain beer brewing). Even if you don't all-grain brew, peated malt and malt syrup can be made into a very nice Scotch. Mash preparation will be first, then distillation:
The easy way of making Scotch is to go to the homebrew shop and buy 2 kg of peated malt and Steep it for a half an hour in 15 litres of water at 68 C. After steeping (nylon stockings work well as a giant "tea bag" for the grain), remove the grain, pour another 4 litres of hot water over it (no hotter than 75 C) to rinse out any more flavour. (You should never allow the 4 litres of rinsing water to go above 75 C because it will leach tannins out of the grain husk and it'll end up so astringent that it tastes like straw). Bring the 19 litres of water to a boil, take it off the heat source (this is done to prevent scorching the extract), and dissolve 5.5 kg of pale malt extract (UNHOPPED!!) in the water. After the malt syrup is dissolved, cool the mash. After it is cool add your yeast. This is the same technique used to add "specialty grains" to homebrewed beer made with malt extract. I just found it worked well to put the smoky flavour into malt whisky as well.
Once the mash is fermented, load it into a pot still (making a heavier Scotch from the start is best- if it's too strong you can blend in some polished neutral spirit later on). If you have done a 19 litre batch, distil the mash until you collect 6litres of "low wines" (it will be anywhere from 17 to 30%abv). After the batch has been "reduced" it can be stored with no danger (not flammable - can't spoil, etc) but it must not be ingested (it will likely be cloudy - this is the heavy alcohols and we'll get rid of them next). Take the 6 litres of "low wines" and put it back in your pot still, distil until you collect 1.5 litres of Scotch. On this second run discard the first 100 ml of spirit that comes out as "foreshots"- throw them out. The 1.5 litres you collect is to be checked to see what strength it is (typically about 70% abv) - water it down to about 60% and age it on some toasted American oak (heavy toast - if you can find it). Age it in the bottle at about 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of oak per 750ml of spirit. Every month, add a little water as it ages. One month at 60%, one at 50%, and the final at 40%, will extract both vanillins and sugars from the wood, and be very smooth for its age.
This is a wasteful, low yield method, but it produces the smoothest spirit (close to Glenmorangie). A splash of port or sherry (1.5ml per bottle) is also a nice touch.
Keeping the heads and tails (those you don't use for blending) should be added to the next run to develop the flavour and get a bit more alcohol out. Apparently this is what the Scots do to make their stuff so wonderful :0)
The pot still should ideally be on a burner - it should definitely not be an open element-run still. (Too much risk of scorching the whisky)"All the heads and tails should be kept for blending to suit your taste and the remainder added to the next run. This improves the on-going flavour and is apparently what the Scots do to get the last drop of alcohol out and produce the flavours that make their stuff so drinkable :0)