-
New Louisiana Craft Distillery Presents Agave-Based Spirit
Hello all. I’ve been on a quest to make a high quality “Tequila”. I’ve read many posts on this site that have given me inspiration. With all the reading I came to realize that fermenting agave is much the same as making mead so I decided that would be my approach. I used https://www.meadmakr.com/batch-buildr/ as my guide and acquired my ingredients.From 21 missions agave: Real Wild Heirloom Raw Blue Agave Nectar 41 Raw Agave Azul Terpene NectarFrom Moonshine Distiller TEQUILA YEAST – SAFTEQ BLUE 25GI used half the agave nectar and 1/3 of the quart of Terpenes. I added 1 tbs of yeast superfood, 8 grams of epsom salts and water to bring the volume up to 10 gal at a temperature of 90 deg. I airerated the wash appropriately and direct pitched the yeast. IAW the meadmakr procedure I fed, degassed every 24 hrs using fermaid k/DAP. In addition, each day I airerated, tested pH and adjusted pH with Pickering lime to keep the pH between 4.2-4.6. I maintained a fermentation temp between 90-95 deg. My OG as 1.093. At day 5 the gravity was 0.9887. I gave it 4 days to cool and floculate. I then did a single run in my column/liquid management still (unpacked), maintaining 65% ABV output. I did cuts as normal. The results were outstanding. A very smooth, flavorful agave spirit. My yield was 1.2 gallons. I split the batch and bottled some proofed down to 40%abv and the other I proofed to 60% and put it in one of my hybrid 1 gal barrels for reposado. I took a bottle of the blanco to one of our local distilleries and asked the owner to taste and give feedback. To my surprise he told me he thought it was better than theirs as mine tasted more traditional. He was very surprised to learn it was my first attempt. So, my next goal, confirm repeatability! I did the second batch exactly the same, OG was slightly lower at 1.078. However, with adding the heads and tails from the first batch back in, my yield was the same and the taste, mouth feel etc was also the same. So here is the ultimate test. Is there anyone out there who would be interested in trying this recipe/procedure and see if they achieve the same results? Hit me up. Here is a pic of my still for ref.
- Attachments
-
7 Replies
-
Nice work and thanks for posting your recipe and process! Looks interesting. I may give it a whirl once I work off a stockpile of grains. To confirm, you used 1/2 of the 21missions Real Wild Heirloom Raw Blue Agave Nectar 41 container, which is 41 lbs (says 25 Kg on label in photo)?BTW: this is currently posted in the Tried and True section – it’ll probably get moved over to the recipe development section until a few more folks get a chance to try it.
-
Thanks, I’m pretty new here so I guess I should have posted elsewhere. No problem if it gets moved. Yes 1/2 of the container, just under 2 gals. It would probably 25 kg if the container was full. It’s not full when they ship it. I’ll look for recipe development section next time. Very excited for someone else to try.
-
Thanks BoilerMaker …. We missed that . Rappell , your recipe sounds interesting . Curious about your choices and amounts of Agave that you chose and used .My recommended goto .wiki/index.ph … ion_Theory
-
Yummy – no worries, maybe one day will be a T&T!Rappell, I’m also curious about the quantity of terpenes: adding a larger amount to the ferment, vs a smaller amount to the spirit run. I think I read somewhere here of it being done both ways tho will have to go back to my notes to recall details and the pros/cons. Any thoughts about it one way or the other?
-
So, if you read the posts on here and read the instructions/suggestions on 21 missions website, they recommend using x number of mls per gal. After tasting everything prior to my first batch, I disregarded their recommendations and took a SWAG at it on my own in reference to the amount. I love the flavor it produces. All my brewing buddies that have tasted it agree. I have not tried adding it to the boiler. I’m afraid to change my process since it works . I’ve been a brewer for 20 years. I’ve always tried to get all my flavor into my beer starting with fermentation. Hard to change my process. However, as the terpines are not fermentable per the sellers description, I assume it may not matter. I hope you try it and let us know…….
-
Thanks BoilerMaker …. We missed that . Rappell , your recipe sounds interesting . Curious about your choices and amounts of Agave that you chose and used .To be truthful, I was just taking a swag at it base on my experience making mead. The 21 missions website recommends keeping the OG at 1.046. So I would have to make two batches to get the same yeld. Once I decided to use a mead process I figured I’d bump it up to the 1.090s. I also figured, if it doesn’t work the I can always go back to the recommended process. I got lucky I guess That’s one reason I’m hoping someone else will try my process and hopefully prove the concept….
-
Thanks so much for sharing your process! I can tell you put a lot of thought and experimentation into developing this recipe. Taking some guesses and trusting your brewing instincts clearly paid off – it’s awesome your first batch turned out so well. And kudos for being willing to put it out there for others to try. I may give this a shot myself once I finish up a few other projects.
Log in to reply.
English 
Spanish 
German 
French 
Russian