Oat Sugar Wash

[grumpthehermit]

G'day,

Watching Croweater's - Single Malt Oat Whisky thread, I thought I'd have a go at a white sugar version in the DWWG style.

I've put two 25L washes of this on yesterday.

6kg's - of sugar ( YES, I know, 5KG is the max allot of you use, I am happy with 6KG, works well for me ).
250g - plain untoasted rolled oats
250g - oat bran ( could not find oat germ - was intending to use germ )
1tsp - Epsom Salt
1tsp - Citric Acid
90g - Lowans Yeast

Added half the sugar and the citric acid to the largest stockpot I have, along with the rolled oats and the oat bran.

Brought to the boil and bubbled away with me stirring it every 3-4 mins for 90 minutes before cooling down in a sink of cold water.

Added into fermenter, filled up to 25L, pitched in 90g of Lowans.

Both washes are bubbling away quite well today at 27 degrees. :D

Now to wait and see how they go. :?

Cheers
GTH

[Kimbo]

Good stuff GTH,
Keep us posted mate :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Frank]

Hey GTH
other than alco porridge :teasing-neener: ......what is it you wish to make re distilling here? Scotch/Irish/?

[crow]

Onya grump :handgestures-thumbupleft: , I think ye first gens will be very light on but ye may get a marked improvement from then on . I found that soaking the oat berries imparts a deep flavor and colour to the water so if the flavor is to light on you might want to include some feed oats in down the track (very cheap) @ frank didn't see where he mentioned garden mulch :teasing-neener:

[crow]

Ok I was sorta keeping this a secret but ok I'll fess up . I put to much water in the 80 ltr fermenter and had to remove 10 ltrs to fit in the the last 15 ltrs of mash . Anyway I put that in a 25 ltr fermenter and soaked 2 ltrs of oats in 5 ltrs of hot water and inverted 4 kg of sugar in 10 ltrs and threw it all in the fermenter just to do a comparison Mash V sugar head :D

[grumpthehermit]

Hey GTH
other than alco porridge :teasing-neener: ......what is it you wish to make re distilling here? Scotch/Irish/?

Hey,

I'd love to make something like Jamesons, I do love the taste of the stuff but I'm not seriously expecting to achieve a commercial clone of any flavour I know out of this wash.

I'll be happy if it ferments out fully and am really interested to see how it tastes coming off the potstill. I am definitely going to be going very light on the oak with this I think given Crows info and having read up a few forum threads.

Will be oaking with the french oak staves I got from e-bay ...

Both tubs are still kicking on quite nicely, lots of airlock action, smells good. :D

@Crow, will be interesting to see how both of our sugarheads turn out.

Cheers
GTH

[crow]

Yep Grump and one thing I have consistently read in many reviews is over oaking is very easily done with this , I've even read suggestions about checking it daily which tells me its very very easy to fuck this up with too much oak ;-)

[Frank]

@GTH :handgestures-thumbupleft: mate I hope its a winner
@CE maybe :?: use VERY little oak then....soak duration will not be such a 'stresspoint '

[grumpthehermit]

Quick update.

These appear to have fermented the same as my DWWG's normally do.

A week at 27 degrees, both tubs have slowed right down. Will remove the heat belts over the weekend and let them both drop down to ambient temp ( about 15 degrees on the tiled floor ).

Will probably run both through next weekend and will check to make sure I am at or pretty close to 990 before doing so, but at this stage it looks like I'm gonna be making some oat whisky.

:D

Thinking I will only use a piece of oak about 1/3 of the size I have used in my DWWG's to hopefully ensure no over oaking.

Cheers
GTH

[R-sole]

All you gotta do now is get the wash out and leave the solids behind.

[grumpthehermit]

All you gotta do now is get the wash out and leave the solids behind.

Yeah ...

Not sure how it will clear, "hoping" it settles out like DWWG.

If it does then I think it should be fine.

If not ... UM ... lol ... Might be interesting ...

:?

Once the idea got in my head, I had to give it go, 7 more days and I will know one way or the other. :D

Cheers
GTH

[bt1]

hello grump,

You intending to double or triple run this beast?

+1 on little oak go to this much trouble to get a smooth drop and still hold some grain flavours don't want heaps of oak..

look forward to next weekend's update.

bt1

[grumpthehermit]

Was just thinking I'd do a double run and see how it flavours up on a small amount of oak.

I have not done a triple run as yet. I've only made two lots of DWWG so far and so far have resisted tasting them since adding oak to them. They are coloring up slowly which is good.

I won't have any low wines to add in being this is my first run for oats so from my experience this far I think I'll probably end up with about 3L @ 63% to play with if all goes well.

Both washes have slowed right down now. Will turn the thremostat off today.

:-D

Cheers
GTH

[grumpthehermit]

Update ...

If I ever need to make craft glue I know what I need ... OATS !!!

lol ...

Managed to siphon down from 25L to the 7L mark before hitting sediment in both tubs.

got approx 4L of low wines from each strip, mixed both together for the spirit run and did not need to water back down as they were exactly 40%.

Spirit run started at 83% slowly fell to 70 then dropped pretty quickly to 60% ( sadly ) and ran down to 20% quicker than I expected.

Will air overnight and taste tomorrow arvo, might be closer to 2.5L @ 63% and not the 3L I was thinking originally.

The wash was very milky, would take a month or more to have come anywhere near clear I reckon. A very thick / viscous wash, the bran sat lightly on the glue oat layer on the bottom of each fermenter.

No foaming / puke issues, shame about the amount of wash left behind due to sediment. :crying-blue:

If I do this again I would reduce the oats bigtime and probably still use the same amount of bran.

All good fun ... Only my 3rd spirit run through the "swan" ... Have a small piece of oak ready ... Interested to see how it turns out after a month or three.

Cheers
GTH

[crow]

Maybe buy a bag of feed oats grist a couple of kg soak in hot water and add (less porridge like)

[grumpthehermit]

Pleasantly surprised ...

Very light tasting, kept bottles from my last 82% down to my first 70% and got 3L afterall ... watered down to 63% and threw in my half sized oak piece ...

:handgestures-thumbupleft:

Now to forget about it for 3 months or so ...

Crow, how are yours going ???

:D

Cheers
GTH

[crow]

Yeah G'day mate , back in the land of red sand and spinifex so I won't know how it is till I get home . I can tell you it was ready to run pretty much when I left so I hope its ok when I get back (should be)

[bt1]

Nice work grump

I'm adding this to my list to do b4 Xmas...sounds great...a light whisky for warm summer days...bloody lovely!

bt1

[grumpthehermit]

Thanks :-D

Time will tell.

I definitely would go half as much oats if I did this again.

But I guess it depends on how much wash your willing to lose versus possibly losing a little flavour.

Not that I think you would lose flavour, I doubt the taste would drop enough to notice by halving the oats but I am only guessing ...

Mega sediment !!! :?

Keen to hear how yours tuns out if you do get a run happening.

Cheers
GTH

[crow]

Hey GTH just wondering if you've cranked the next gen out on this yet and if so have ya noticed an improvement on the flavor profile