Gang, just going to say right now that the yeast starter attacked the F out of my wash and beat that thing up! it Chubbled hard for a day and a half and is doing nothing today! I almost want to see what the gravity is now, to see how effective the Red Star Distiller’s Yeast was. I did go ahead and boil a half gallon off the batch, so I was starting with a gravity of about 1.050 rather than the dismal 1.045 I had initially. The hope is to have a peaty flavor to my whiskey when it’s done and aged for a year or so (yes – a year is the minimum you should wait if you’re trying to age and make your own whiskey, don’t fuck around)

So my mentor in producing alcohol Neal and I had a couple beers tonight at Resurgence Brewing here in Buffalo, and once we started talking shop, I fessed up to him and mentioned the terrible yield on my mash. But I did it in a roundabout way in that I said I wanted to get rid of all this extra grain that I had, and asked what he would suggest. Come to find out, the malts I used (C-60 and Debittered black) do not generate a highly fermentable product on their own. The roasted malts have been compromised and are more for flavor than adding sugar to your batch! That would explain why for 10 lbs of grain I ended up with a shit gravity.  I did not know this information – and I hope it helps. Two words – Base Malt.

On another note – I’m happy to report that Resurgence has a couple DENK ass IPAs on tap right now – the ‘head in the clouds’ is killer. Super chewy and resiny. mosaic hops are the best. The balance is great, it doesn’t finish like a normal denk IPA that almost burns your mouth with the alpha acids, it just finishes nice – you wouldn’t think it’s a super strong beer as it is.