Homemade malted barley whiskey with added yeast and sugar (dextrose). Making mash from malt for whiskey at home History of the origin of whiskey

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Prepare homemade whiskey on barley malt- not the easiest task. I will try to describe this process as simply and in detail as possible, so that even a novice moonshiner can use my recipe.

Barley, barley malt and its mashing (saccharification)

If you've decided to make whiskey, you probably already know that the main ingredient for making it is grain. The most popular in this area is barley, which is where I began my acquaintance with grain mash. To make alcohol, barley, like any other grain, must be specially processed. This is due to the fact that grains do not contain fermentable sugars, but they contain a large amount of starch.

Malting barley

The first stage of processing barley is its malting, that is, obtaining barley malt. To do this, the grains are first germinated. During the germination process, significant chemical changes occur, including the formation of a special enzyme - diastase. It is this substance that is the purpose of malting, because diastase is able to break down starch, converting it into the so-called malt sugar - maltose.

If the malt is used immediately after germination, it is called green. The shelf life of green malt is very short - a maximum of 3 days in the refrigerator. This is due to the fact that it is an ideal environment for the reproduction of various microorganisms.

If we plan to store malt for some time, then it must be thoroughly dried. Depending on the drying methods and modes, the aroma and taste of malt may change, which will undoubtedly affect the final drink.

As you understand, barley can be malted at home, but for now I preferred the ready-made one. I bought it at a specialty home brewing store. As it turned out, the selection of barley malt on sale is quite decent, as is the range of prices for it. To prepare homemade whiskey, you can use one or several varieties at once, resulting in different flavor and aromatic qualities of the distillate.

I would also like to note that the malt must be ground for further work with it. Therefore, we must either acquire a mill or grain crusher, or give preference to already ground goods.

Mashing malt allows the starch contained in the grains to be broken down into sugars and produces wort - a solution prepared for fermentation.

How I carried out this procedure is described in the recipe below. But I would also like to say that the wort itself, or rather its concentrate, can now also be purchased in the store. My experience of making whiskey with malt concentrate is described.

Equipment for preparing grain mash

We will definitely need:

The process of preparing grain mash will be greatly simplified for us:

5. If you, like me, will use alembic, then I recommend upgrading its faucet - equipping it with a drain hose. This will make draining the wort from the still much easier.
6. Chiller is a device that allows you to quickly change the temperature of the liquid in which it is immersed. It is connected to a water tap; depending on the temperature of the water supplied to it, the liquid can both cool and heat. It will be very useful in cooking grain mash, since the raw materials obtained after saccharification of malt require rapid cooling. If cooling is delayed, then it has every chance of turning sour.
7. Nylon bag for cooking grain. It is selected based on the size of the wort kettle and is designed for quick and efficient filtration of wort.
8. Saccharometer AC-3. It will be needed to determine the optimal amount of sugar or dextrose that should be added to the mash. If you don't have it, just follow the recipe.

Homemade malted barley whiskey with added yeast and sugar (dextrose) - detailed recipe

Ingredients for mash 24 liters of water 4 kg ground barley malt 3 kg dextrose (or 2.7 kg sugar) 70 g yeast for whiskey From the specified amount of ingredients I got about 20 liters of mash.
Preparation Mashing (saccharification) of barley malt 1. Place the kettle for saccharification of malt on the stove. If we have a nylon bag, place it in a pan and secure the edges of the bag on the outside.
2. Pour 16 liters of water into the boiler. Heat the water to 65 °C.
3. Pour barley malt into the kettle.
4. Mix carefully. The resulting mixture of water and malt is called mash.
5. Heat the mash to a temperature of 62-63 °C. We maintain it at this temperature for 90 minutes, stirring the contents of the boiler every 10-15 minutes. To maintain the temperature, I wrapped the tank in a blanket. In principle, this is not necessary; you can warm it up from time to time so that the temperature does not drop.
6. Drain the mash. 7. Strain off the first wort and place it in the fermentation container. 8. Return the malt to the kettle. If we use a nylon bag for cooking grain, steps 6-8 are performed simultaneously. The first malt we drained contains the most important enzymes for fermentation, but there is still quite a bit of sugar left on the malt. To wash them off, we will again fill the malt with water, so there is no point in squeezing it too hard at this stage. For reference: I drained about 10 liters of wort.
9. As soon as possible, cool the wort poured into the fermentation tank to 25 °C. I used a chiller. You can place the container in cold water. Perhaps you can come up with some other quick cooling method of your own.
10. While the raw material in the fermentation tank is cooling, heat the remaining 8 liters of water to 70 °C. I don’t have such a big pan, I heated it in two batches.
11. Pour heated water into the kettle with malt.
12. Mix carefully.
13. Maintain temperature 65 °C within 30 minutes. The point of this action is to dissolve and wash away the remaining sugars from the malt.
14. Drain the mixture from the tank again. 15. Carefully strain off the second wort and add it to the first. 16. We no longer need the remaining malt. The second time I drained almost 8 liters of liquid, the total volume of wort was about 18 liters.
Preparing grain mash 17. Now cool the entire volume of wort to 30 °C. At all optimal temperature for introducing yeast 25-26°C. But we still have to add dextrose (sugar), which will lead to a decrease in temperature, which means at this stage it is better to leave the wort a little warmer.
18. Using a saccharometer, determine the amount of sugar in the mixture. My sugar meter was set at 12%. It must be said that this measurement is approximate, since the measurement temperature is not optimal, and the raw materials contain impurities, but we will still focus on these indicators.
19. Gradually add dextrose (sugar) to the wort, ensuring that the sugar level reaches 20%.
20. Pour 0.5-1 liter of mixture from the fermentation container, add yeast, leave for 15-20 minutes, then stir thoroughly. Not all yeast needs to be fermented. Refer to the instructions on the packaging.

Malt is very useful product, contains a group of B vitamins, as well as phytohormones, fatty acids, minerals, trace elements, amino acids, folic acid, enzymes. And that's not all. Of course, it cannot be otherwise. But the process of its production is very long and painstaking; it is easier to buy a finished product. But those people who make their own malt for whiskey are not afraid of difficulties, since they value it more. Homemade alcohol and baked goods made from your own malt are much tastier.

Whiskey at home: principles of production

Today there are a lot of recipes for making whiskey, the recipe depends on the manufacturer, so when preparing it at home, you don’t have to worry that you will make a mistake with the taste. There are many ways, you can choose any of them. The main thing is to prepare good mash, and this requires good malt. Which malt is for everything? Of course, barley!

The most famous whiskey producers are Scotland and Ireland, but even in these countries the preparation technology is very different. The Scots have a sharper taste. According to the technology, when drying malt, peat is used as fuel, so the drink has a certain smoky taste. In Ireland, whiskey is distilled three times, so it is softer and aged in oak barrels.

In general, the process is quite reminiscent of moonshine brewing, therefore, despite all the technology, aging in barrels, the taste fusel oils I still can't get rid of it completely. The well-known moonshine is used as the basis for the preparation.

Whiskey originated a long time ago; the recipe was brought to Scotland by Arab monks, who adopted it from the Crusaders. Naturally, in those days they did not have serious equipment for making whiskey, therefore, this can be done at home. Homemade malt is used as the basis. This component is very important for whiskey.

Basic stages of making whiskey

Barley grains are soaked, germinated for several days, and dried. This is how malt for whiskey is obtained.
After drying, the malt is crushed to form fine grains.
The crushed malt is mixed with hot water and kept for a certain time.
The resulting liquid is called wort. It is separated from the crushed malt, cooled and poured into a container where the fermentation process will take place.
You need to add yeast to the wort. Leave for several days to ferment.
When the wort turns into mash, it is poured into a still for distillation.
After the first distillation process, raw alcohol is obtained, the second distillation separates the head and tail parts of the distillate.
The resulting distillate is poured into where it finally matures to receive the proud name “whiskey”.

What is malt

Malt has been used since ancient times for baking, as well as for distilling and cooking. Today this product is no less relevant. Malt is used for whiskey, bourbon, and is used in cooking and in the preparation of beer and kvass. In Rus', it was popular to use rye malt for it. Malt is prepared from various grains - wheat, barley, rye, oats and other grains. When germinated, an enzyme is formed in the grain that easily converts starch into fermentable sugar. Making malt yourself is not easy; it is a very labor-intensive process that takes a long time. Now you can buy ready-made malt in the store. But, despite this, many distillers and brewers make do with a product made with their own hands.

Malt for whiskey at home: theory

Have you decided to act on your own? Prepare thoroughly for this process. Preparing malt for whiskey is a long and responsible task. The main thing is to stop the seed germination process in time, otherwise they will use up all their nutrients. To do this, the malt must be dried in time.

To make malt, you need to choose the right grain. It must have the ability to germinate quickly. Newly harvested barley has low germination; this ability appears only 2-3 months after harvest. It is easier to work with grains that are the same size.

Malt should be prepared only with high-quality water; it should not contain chlorine or any other heavy metals. Settled or filtered is best.

Before making malt at home, you need to check the germination of seeds. Soak one or two hundred, inspect in two days. How many have sprouted? Out of a hundred, ninety sprouts have excellent germination; if the indicator is worse, it is better to purchase other raw materials.

Practice. Preparing grain for soaking

When starting to prepare malt for whiskey, pay special attention to the soaking process; it must be approached responsibly. To prepare barley malt at home, you need to use clean grain, without debris, sifted. Pour the required amount into a suitable container and fill with clean water. You need to mix the grain well - this way all the empty grains, debris, and husks will float to the surface. Anything that floats to the surface must be removed. Rinse the remaining mixture in two waters. After this, pour clean water so that it covers the surface 5 cm above. Leave everything for 6-7 hours.

After this time, drain the water and rinse the grain well again. To disinfect raw materials, you need to carry out the following procedure: pour 2-3 grams of potassium permanganate into a bucket of water, mix well. Pour the grain with this solution and let it stand for 1-2 hours.

Germination

After the grain has been disinfected, the entire mass must be placed on pallets. The layer should not exceed a height of 4-5 cm. The grain should breathe within 24 hours. It needs to be stirred periodically every 2-3 hours. After this, cover with a damp cotton cloth and leave in a room where the temperature should be 15-20 degrees. It is very important that the air in the room circulates and does not stagnate. Every day you need to monitor the grain, use a spray bottle to moisten the fabric, but make sure that the humidity is not too high. Normal: for 10 kg of dry grain, use 100-150 ml of water daily. On the 3-4th day of germination, the temperature in the room should be increased to 20-23 degrees. During this period, the grain needs to be stirred more often so that the process of sweating does not begin.

How to determine the readiness of malt? The sprout should expand so that it is 1.5 times the size of the grain itself. The greenish malt tastes sweet, reminiscent of a fresh young cucumber. This product is suitable for use in saccharification. But it is stored for only three days. To increase the service life, the malt must be dried. When dried, it can be used to make not only whiskey and bourbon, but also beer and malted milk.

Drying

Before drying, green malt again undergoes a disinfection process. To do this, prepare a solution of potassium permanganate (0.3 grams of manganese per 1 liter of water). The malt is aged in this solution for 20-25 minutes. Drying is carried out at a temperature of 30-40 degrees. If the temperature is higher, the beneficial enzymes will simply die. At home, you can dry it on a warm floor, you can direct a stream of a warm fan. In hot weather, malt is dried in the attic, the main thing is to ensure good ventilation. The malt will dry completely in 3-4 days. The next procedure is to remove the sprouts and roots. This is quite simple to do: you need to rub the grain in your palms, the dried sprouts will fall off on their own.

Properly prepared malt has very high enzyme activity. 1 kg of such a product can saccharify up to 5 kg of starch-containing raw materials. Malt is stored in linen bags or closed containers in a dry place. Ground malt is obtained from the finished grains. For whiskey and beer, this raw material is the best of all analogues. Malt is ground in special mills or crushed in crushers.

Chateau malt for whiskey

Those who find the process described above too time-consuming and tedious can buy ready-made malt. Many companies specializing in the preparation of malt offer ready-made varieties to customers. This business is widely developed in Belgium. Chateau Whiskey malt is very popular. It has a smoked taste, which is unlikely to be made at home. Chateau Whiskey was developed specifically for the production of whiskey. During drying, it was fumigated with Scottish peat, thanks to which it has not only a smoky taste, but also a longer shelf life. To make whiskey at home, you can order this type of malt for yourself through the online store. The cost will be approximately 160 rubles per 1 kilogram.

How to make mash from malt

Making mash from malt for whiskey is quite simple, and if you follow all the points, everything will work out. To prepare you need to prepare:

6 kg malt.
25 liters of clean water.
300 g pressed or 50 g dry yeast.

Cooking steps:

Grind the malt into cereal.
Pour into a large saucepan, add hot water (45-50 degrees). Stir the wort until you get a homogeneous substance.
Heat the mixture to 65 degrees. Stir and close with a lid. Reduce heat to low and keep the wort at a temperature of 55-60 degrees for an hour. Stir every 15 minutes.
As soon as the flour porridge settles to the bottom, the top layer of the wort becomes light, you need to cool it to 25 degrees as quickly as possible. To do this, remove the pan and place it in a container with cold water (bathtub, bowl of ice).
According to package instructions, ferment the yeast.
Pour the wort into a fermentation container, add the prepared yeast.
Install a water seal on the neck of the mash. Transfer to a dark room where the temperature should not be lower than 20-25 degrees.
Fermentation lasts 3-6 days. During this period, the wort must be stirred daily.

Sugar mash with malt

Classic sugar mash is prepared like this:

Ingredients:

3 kg sugar.
1.2 kg of malt.
15 liters of water.
300 g pressed yeast.

Heat water to 40 degrees, pour into a fermentation container. Add a third of sugar, crumble the yeast, and pour into the mash. Mix well. Grind green malt into grains and pour into the total mass. Stir everything well and leave in a warm place for 3 hours.
If everything is done accurately, during this time the fermentation process will begin. After this, the remaining sugar is added, before which it must be dissolved in a small amount of warm water.
Braga is ready. Transfer to a dark and warm place and wait for ripening, which will last 4-5 days.

Braga for classic whiskey

To make real homemade whiskey, which is not inferior in quality to Scotch, you need to use only ground barley malt for whiskey. Sugar is not needed in this classic case.

You will need:

Malt - 8 kg.
Water - 32 l.
Pressed yeast - 300 g.

Preparation:

Heat the water to a temperature of 70 degrees.
Pour in ground malt in a thin stream. Stir constantly with a wooden spatula. The result will be a homogeneous mixture, reminiscent of porridge.
Warm up to 65 degrees, reduce heat, cover with a lid, leave on the stove for 1.5 hours. Stir constantly.
Remove from heat, cool to 25 degrees.
Pour into a fermentation container, add fermented yeast. Stir everything.
Install a water seal on the neck. Leave the container in a warm, dark room.

Depending on the sugar content of the malt, yeast activity and temperature, whiskey mash matures from 5 to 15 days. To avoid souring, the wort must be stirred daily.

Barley malt concentrate (barley malt extract) – YASK (KZYAS)

Description.It is a viscous, thick, brown syrup with a sweet taste. The concentrate contains carbohydrates (maltose - malt sugar), proteins and amino acids, minerals, organic acids, vitamins and enzymes characteristic of sprouted grains. That is why barley malt concentrate is a natural product that has high biological activity and has a general strengthening, tonic effect on the body. 100 grams of barley malt extract contain: potassium – 351 mg; phosphorus – 100 mg; sodium – 85 mg; magnesium – 37 mg; calcium – 10 mg

Compound: barley, brewing barley malt

Taste and aroma: clean malty-bready, sweet taste and malty-bready aroma

Production. Barley malt extracts are produced by mashing crushed barley malt and barley flour with water. The mash mass is kept in the mash tun for certain periods of time at a given temperature according to the programmed brew diagram. At this time, the dissolution and breakdown of the constituent substances of malt (starch, water-soluble protein substances, flavoring and mineral substances) occurs. Next, the process of saccharification and filtration of the mash mass occurs to obtain liquid wort. After this, the wort is boiled gently to bring the percentage of dry substances to the standard value. This allows you to preserve all the beneficial substances contained in cereals.

Application.

1) In bakery , promote more active growth of yeast, thereby increasing the volume of baked goods. Maintains the elasticity of the crumb. Help improve appearance, achieve uniform porosity, crispy crust, beautiful color, fluffiness, taste and long shelf life of baked goods

2) In the production of flour confectionery products , such as cookies of long varieties, biscuits and crackers, gingerbread, biscuits, muffins, corn flakes to give a brown or golden color, golden brown crust, malt taste and aroma, greater rise in the oven, as well as to increase the shelf life of products -

3) In the production of sugary confectionery products (fudge, caramel, chocolate bars) to add malt flavor and aroma, caramel flavor and color. It is possible to replace starch syrup in known recipes

4) In brewing , as a raw material for a shortened production cycle (the crushing department, mash and filtration tanks are excluded) or as an additive to the finished wort to increase the productivity of the brewhouse, because YASK is actually a concentrated unhopped beer wort obtained from barley brewing malt and barley, and it only needs to be diluted with water in the required proportion, boiled with hops, cooled, added yeast and fermented

5) In the alcohol industry , for the production of whiskey, as a base, and balms, liqueurs, as a malt flavoring and color additive.

6) In diabetic nutrition as a source of valuable nutrients and malt sugar - maltose, as well as enzymes that ensure the complete breakdown of sugars.

7) IN baby food, in dairy production as a complete source of carbohydrates and vitamins, complementing taste and aroma, providing an environment for the proliferation of lactic acid bacteria.

8) In yeast production as an ideal environment for yeast growth

9) In pharmaceuticals, as a source of sugars and valuable nutrients for the reproduction of microorganisms used for the production of antibiotics.

Malt mash is quite difficult to make and further distill, but it gives the future whiskey an interesting taste, which is worth a little sweat. We We will describe the entire recipe in detail step by step., so it will be difficult for you to make a mistake. It is important to have in your arsenal a thermometer with a probe that will allow you to maintain temperature conditions (this is especially important for malt wash).

If you don't do the classic perfectly sugar mash with yeast, then we would not recommend that you immediately switch to malt. The approach we are describing is quite risky, since malt wort is much more susceptible to souring. In view of this, you need to monitor it and immediately predict how it will behave. Therefore, get ready for serious work right away, otherwise there’s no point in starting.

Used as a basis malt, which you can make yourself or buy in a store (from 50 to 200 rubles per kg). We recommend purchasing a ready-made mixture so that the mash is made from high-quality and exceptionally good raw materials.

Malt - 3 kg.
Water - 20 liters.
Sugar - 2 kg.
Alcoholic yeast - 25 grams.

Experienced moonshiners mix different types of malt to obtain one or another flavor of the distillate.

Preparing malt for fermentation

The consistency of the malt should be similar to coarse flour. In the store, it is most often sold in this format, and if you make it yourself, then use a blender, coffee grinder or meat grinder to bring it to this condition.

After this, it needs to be soaked in warm water, boiled and quickly cooled. The instructions are as follows:

Try not to rush while mixing malt and water.

Pour the malt into a dry and clean pan. Add hot water at a temperature of about 55 degrees.
Stir the wort intensively until smooth. It is important to avoid lumps, because they will cause problems in the future.
We heat the porridge to 63 degrees, then maintain this temperature for one hour. Stir vigorously every 10–15 minutes.
After cooking The wort must be cooled quickly until it gets infected. This should be done using a cold bath, where you need to lower the pan until the temperature drops to 25 degrees.
Having reached the desired temperature, pour the wort into the fermentation container, add water, sugar and activated yeast.

We put a lot of emphasis on two things: avoid lumps when mixing with water and cool your brew as quickly as possible. Otherwise, the base for the mash will burn or become completely unsuitable for starting fermentation.

Fermentation and distillation

If you did everything correctly, then in front of you should be a fermentation tank with fresh mash, which slowly begins to hiss.

After distillation, the whiskey will have a clear color. We will get a noble brown shade after infusion

As soon as you mix all the ingredients, immediately install the water seal. It will prevent excess microorganisms from entering the container and will also maintain fermentation at an optimal level.
The mash will ripen within 5–7 days. At this time, it should stand in a dark place at a temperature of 23–27 degrees.
When fermentation subsides, a sediment forms and the upper part of the wort becomes lighter, the mash will need to be drained from the sediment, filtered through cheesecloth and poured into a distillation cube.
We will do the first distillation quickly and without dividing into fractions. We drive the moonshine until the strength in the stream drops to 30 degrees. After this, dilute your distillate with clean water to 20 degrees and send it for re-distillation.
The second time you need to divide the moonshine into fractions.
The first 100–150 ml will be “heads”, which are not suitable for drinking.
Everything else, until the strength in the stream drops to 40 degrees, will be your “body” intended for drinking.
The remaining low-alcohol distillate can be collected and added to the next distillation as “tails”, which will increase the alcohol output, but this step will reduce the quality of the product. We do not recommend that you do this.

The whiskey base is ready. In general, this drink is famous for the large amount of “fellow” in its composition, supposedly it gives it a unique taste, but we are still for high-quality alcohol, so we recommend double distillation.

If you want to get a larger “yield” of alcohol, then perform only one distillation, but with separation into fractions. This will be enough to remove most of the harmful substances from the distillate.

Obtaining a noble whiskey color

Since the distillate has a transparent color, even an interesting taste is not enough for us to call it a full-fledged whiskey. We need to achieve a dark brown shade. You can do this in two ways:

Infuse moonshine in oak barrel . The longer it sits there, the stronger the aroma and richer the color. Duration ranges from 3 months to several years.
Infuse moonshine on membranes walnut, wood chips oak or shell pine nuts. These ingredients give color within a few days, so determine readiness by eye. In any case, it is much better not to pour it in, since they give off color very quickly.

For clarity, I am attaching a video from the Youtube channel Distiller. The author describes the technology for making whiskey based on base and chocolate barley malt. This information will probably be useful to you if you are interested in preparing this drink on your own.

For the production of all types of malt, pre-sprouted grains of cereal plants are used. One of the most popular and in demand is barley malt, which is widely used in the baking industry and the production of numerous types of drinks - both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. To produce high-quality barley malt, manufacturers use sprouted and then dried barley grains.

Since ancient times, our distant ancestors began to actively use barley malt for baking. homemade bread- it turned out very tasty and healthy. Many other baked goods were also prepared on the basis of barley malt. But, truth be told, this was not its most important purpose. According to numerous experts, barley malt is best suited for making beer of the highest quality. For these purposes, wort is used, to obtain which barley malt must ferment naturally for some time.

Barley grains are characterized by a fairly soft shell, thanks to which the resulting malt is simply ideal for areas such as brewing and baking.

The high popularity of barley malt, as well as stable demand for this product, has been maintained for several hundred years. There are many reasons for this fact, one of which is that barley is one of the most unpretentious cereal crops on our planet.

Indeed, this popular cereal plant is absolutely not afraid of climatic conditions that are characterized by increased severity. But the well-known wheat, for example, for successful growth requires compliance with certain levels of temperature and humidity.

It should be noted that the quality of finished beer drinks, as well as baked goods, is influenced by the initial characteristics of the natural raw materials used to prepare barley malt. Moreover, there are different varieties of barley malt that can be obtained from a single variety of cereal crop.

There are certain differences between all varieties of barley malt, which are associated with the different period of time required for roasting the raw materials. The fact is that the longer the malt has been heat treated, the darker the beer will be, as well as baked goods made from it.

As a rule, barley malt is prepared on the basis of those varieties of barley that differ in the content of a minimum amount of protein. It is also necessary to take into account that the grains, which are characterized by a thick shell and glassy texture, are far from the most suitable option for making barley malt. And in order for the finished beer to be of the highest quality, it is necessary to choose barley malt that was obtained from spring barley varieties.

Checking whether barley malt is of some quality is very easy and simple. To do this, simply lower this product into small quantity water - if it does not sink, it means it is of high quality. At the same time, it is important to pay attention to the taste of barley malt. A truly high-quality product has a very pleasant, slightly sweet taste.