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Bourbon from Boise Creek
I’ve made this recipe for four seasons now and it’s become a staple on the bar top. I’m about to embark on season dedicated to make only this recipe and filling a new barrel as well as a few gallon jugs. I made enough of this for a 3rd fill on a 5 gallon barrel with supplemental Oak fingers a couple years ago, and I’m down to my last half gallon other than the Badmo I filled last year to sit for 3 or 4 years. Boise Creek Bourbon Mash Bill25 gallon mash 2#/G (1.072 OG 0.998 FG 7 days to finish)Cornmeal 37.5# Rye Malt 6.5# 2 row Barley Malt 6# 25 gallons of waterUS-05 Yeast #4 Char New Oak Barrel (optional). It should take 4 ferments this size to fill a new 5 gallon barrel with some left over for sippin white depending on your choice of cuts so YMMV.Using Easy large batch mashing technique, bring 12 gallons of water to a boil. Dough in ½ the corn mixing to eliminate dough balls in a well-insulated fermenter. Cover the fermenter and bring another 10 or so gallons of water to a boil to repeat the process. Maintain temperature >190f until gelatinized, at 185f stir Sebstar HTL high temperature enzymes into the top few inches of the corn, and cover. Stir well every 30 minutes or so for a couple of hours. Let the corn mash rest until the temp falls to 148f * *Now make a 2 gallon stove top mash of your rye malt with a 30 to 45 minute glucan rest @105 to 110F while the corn gels, using a portion of the total water in the mash bill. Add this to the corn, along with your milled barley malt, at the appropriate temperature.Check for conversion after 3-5 hours of rest and continue to monitor temperatures. Once you have reached full conversion, you can drop the temperature with a wort chiller, and top off the fermenter to your 25 gallon mark.Pull off a half gallon of clear wash and prepare a yeast starter while the temperature continues to drop, and pitch the yeast at 70f. Maintain a steady fermentation temperature of 68 to 72f for the duration of the ferment. Ferment to dry, and allow the mash to clear on its own undisturbed.Rack the clear beer off the top of the grain bed and squeeze the grains to get the rest of the beer, and let it rest and clear in covered buckets in a cool place. Strip, and spirit run on a pot still. A single ferment yields me about 5.5 gallons at 30% for the spirit run plus a few quarts of cleared wash depending on how much patients I exercise letting the trub settle on the squeezins.Aged on 1 oak finger per quart medium toast Char 4 for at least 6 months, but its great after a year or longer.Fear and ridicule are the tactics of weak-minded cowards and tyrants who have no other leadership talent from which to draw in order to persuade.
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12 Replies
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Sounds tasty Do you use refined cornmeal, like what you’d find in the baking aisle of a grocery store, or whole/cracked corn ground to a cornmeal consistency?
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Typically I use 25 pounds of Bob’s Redmill corn meal and 12.5 pounds of whole dent corn that I mill myself to near flour.But I’ve also done it with 100% hand milled yellow dent.Fear and ridicule are the tactics of weak-minded cowards and tyrants who have no other leadership talent from which to draw in order to persuade.
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What is your reasoning for not mixing in your hi temp with the corn and just leaving it on top, rather than mixing it completely with the corn from the start (185°)?
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Just how I do it, and it works.Fear and ridicule are the tactics of weak-minded cowards and tyrants who have no other leadership talent from which to draw in order to persuade.
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The SEBStar HTL enzyme spec sheet specifies a working range of 122F – 194F. More importantly, ‘for liquifaction times exceeding 30 min, the optimal working range of 176- 185F.’ From my reading most members seek 200F to boiling for their corn-based conversions.I have read on a pro distiller’s forum that enzymes are relatively fragile and should be treated with care (I add my HTL at 180F). I have also read of a number of members who subscribe to the procedure you describe and cook their enzymes from cold start up to liquifaction temps. The spec sheet also mentions that temperature inactivation of HTL will begin at 95C (203F) and become completely inactivated within 5 minutes. Since many members bring their corn temps to boiling it is prudent to allow the mash to cool to 180-185F prior to introducing HTL. I am not sure if Deplorable is still using SEB products or has moved on to another vendor’s enzymes but regardless of the enzyme brand, it is prudent to understand the limits of each enzyme rather than not just to ‘save a step’. Knowing Deplorable’s attention to mash/ferment details, I believe in his case its the former.“Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite, and furthermore, always carry a small snake.”- W.C. Fields My EZ Solder Shotgun My Steam Rig and Manometer
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I go 210F.________________I drank fifty pounds of feed-store corn’till my clothes were ratty and torn
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My question I guess .mislead. It wasn’t the temperature I was asking about but the placement. I was just curious if he found a little secret from doing it a few times. My logic is I mix it in quickly with a drywall mixer. Sometimes my logic is way off.
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I took those notes straight from my notes on my 3rd batch. If I recall correctly, I had read somewhere that SebStar products worked best that way.I’ve since switched to FermSolutions enzymes, but other than the temperature at which I add them, I haven’t changed anything. I measure out the dosage and add it to the mash, stir it into the top few inches and let it work. They’ll rip through the starches from top to bottom.You might see a little faster liquefaction by stirring it deeper, but I’m not in a hurry and don’t mind leaving things sit and work.In the grand scheme of things, what’s a few minutes on mash day when it’s going to bee months to years before the real beauty of the work reveals itself?Fear and ridicule are the tactics of weak-minded cowards and tyrants who have no other leadership talent from which to draw in order to persuade.
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Your logic is not way off. Focused on the temp. I read your question incorrectly. My apologies. I’m all for preserving enzymes throughout the mash and ferment. And use a paint stirrer to fully mix them in.“Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite, and furthermore, always carry a small snake.”- W.C. Fields My EZ Solder Shotgun My Steam Rig and Manometer
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Very nice.Probably a silly / obvious question, but just to confirm, no backset to sour the mash and no recycled feints in the spirit run?
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Yes I do recycle feints. However, I put my feints in the next stripping run, not the spirit run. All but the first jar gets recycled. Jar one always goes into the fire starter jug. As far as souring the mash, I only use about 3 quarts of hot backset added to the corn as it’s gelling. My water has a starting pH of 7 pretty consistently. by the time I’m ready to add malts my pH is between 5.5 and 5.8. I’ve never bothered to check the final pH of my mash prior to pitching yeast or racking into the boiler because I’ve never had a problem with my AG mashes converting or finishing dry.Fear and ridicule are the tactics of weak-minded cowards and tyrants who have no other leadership talent from which to draw in order to persuade.
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Cool. Thx for clarifying.
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