Distilling Tennessee Style Whiskey At Home

this is a Tennessee style whiskey and in today's video I'm going to show you exactly how I distilled it how I filtered it and how I'm planning to age it how is it going Chasers I hope you're having a kicker last week I'm Jesse this is still at and today we're going to be talking about how to make a Tennessee style whiskey at home this video is actually a collaboration with clawhammer Supply I was in America a little while ago and I'm in the video on their Channel making a mash suitable for this kind of whiskey so I would suggest you go and check that video out first and then come back and watch this one I recreated the mesh so I can legally home distill it here in New Zealand the only thing that's different is I scaled it up slightly so I had more volume to work with and I decided to test uh new yeast that I've started working with as well fermentation went smoothly and it took six days to go from 1.076 down to 1.004 at which time I used the old fruit press method to get all of the liquid out of the grain because of course I'll be using the claw hammer Supply equipment it's a collaboration with them and I'm not comfortable distilling on grain with this equipment I ended up with roughly 45 liters of usable wash which is not going to fit into this still in one go so I decided to do a half stripping run I took roughly half of that wash popped it into the still run it in pot still mode didn't worry about speed didn't worry about making Cuts I just reduced the volume back down and then I filled the still back up with the leftover wash and the low wines from that original stripping run okay that weird little half stripping run thing I did just to cut down on volume is finished uh I'll be honest with you most the low wines are in there already and I kind of forgot to record them but here is the tail end of that run that can go in as well and now we can build the column with plates I actually haven't used the claw hammer plate setup before so I'm kind of excited to see how this goes to be real and in some ways this design is very similar to others that I've used in the past it's a sight glass with a plate that goes into each and you can decide how many you want to use because the the things modular which is awesome love modular setups the thing that's different to what I've used in the past uh is I have to imagine forced to be so because we're working on this little column which means we can't have a downcomer so the vapor going up goes through a bubble cap but then the vapor going down is kind of interacting more with a Perth plate I have to imagine that Vapor speed is going to be very important when trying to load these plates with the right amount of liquid but I guess we'll we'll find that out together most Tennessee whiskey not all some Tennessee whiskey is double pot still but most is column distilled we already have roughly half the wash that's already been run through the still through a stripping run so if we just double distilled it now we would end up with kind of one and a half distillation for the style of whiskey I don't think that's quite clean enough so what I'm going to do is use three plates to clean it up a little bit more and don't forget we're going to filter this one as well [Music] I'm just getting the plumbing sorted for the cooling and I've done something that I very seldomly do which is I've just decided completely on impulse that I am going to attempt to run this still without any water management between the tap and the still and I'm also just going to run one continuous run of water and what I mean by that is I'm not going to control the reflux condenser and the product condenser separately I have never done that before it seems like distilling on hard mode to me but I've seen a bunch of you people do it and apparently it works okay so if I beg for mercy later on it's it's your fault all right team this is the setup I have ended up with water comes in from the hose into the top of the reflux condenser out the bottom of the reflux condenser into the bottom of the product condenser and then exhausts into the sink out of the top of the product condenser um could have wired this up or plumbed this up in all sorts of different ways my thinking here is that this is a shorter stainless shotgun condenser if anything we're going to need more flow over here than here I think I think that could be different because you know once we depending on how these balance and how much knockdown power I need and so on and so forth I don't know we're going to find out the other thing that we're going to find out is whether or not this is going to leak all over the place when I turn it on and because I'm useless and still haven't fixed the running water in the shed two and a half years later you're gonna see before I do it for leaks so uh let me know I guess foreign no major leaks in fact I think we're leak free which is awesome so let's fire this thing up shall we [Music] 've just started to hit the condenser and I managed to very quickly turn the power down from full power because it was flooding fast it looks like the go at least for the beginning of the run is gonna be around about half power so this is about one kilowatt going into the pot at the moment and it seems to be reaching quite a nice little balance the plan now is to give this another minute or two just to make sure that it actually is balanced and to let it kind of stack and fractionate and then I'll start dropping the amount of water going into the condenser slowly until we get to the point where Vapor starts coming over the top and going through the product condenser [Music] we've been in full reflux for five minutes and the plates have stayed nicely balanced I've slowly inched the amount of water going into the reflux condenser down over the last two minutes and I'm just starting to get to oh yeah that's hot up there so I'm expecting oh there we go it's already happening first drips are coming out of the still just take off speed is actually not bad I'm pretty happy with that for this sort of size still and size column it's maybe just a little bit too fast but it's so close and that tap outside is so touchy that I don't want to touch it right now I'm just going to write it out for a little bit what I do think it is time for is to switch out from four shots oh I don't know man like maybe maybe uh 80 mils if you want to know more about what I'm talking about here with four shots there's a link down there in the description but to spoil that video basically I think it doesn't matter because I'm going to collect a buttload of heads already and not put that into the final product anyway so sure it's nice to take a little bit off and just get rid of it out of the system you know out of your workflow instead of keeping it in faints but if you take a little bit too much or a little bit too little what does it matter anyway this flow rate's great the way that I'm going to balance this still today is essentially I'm going to use the little knob up there in terms of changing how much power goes into the pot to make sure the plates stay balanced and then use the tap outside tiny little like micro adjustments to change the water flow to adjust the off take speed obviously I've got a little bit of wiggle room like right now I could potentially turn the power down slightly to lower the the off-tech speed as well but for the most part I'd like to keep the the water as off take speed and the power as plate balancing oh I forgot to mention too this plate up top is not a plate it's just a sight glass so put it in there to essentially adjust the height of the the off tank spout over here so let's just settle in and uh get ready to try and find Our Heads two hearts cut shall we [Music] that measurement was actually a little bit higher up than this because I missed around getting all that b-roll for a while but I've collected I'm gonna say like 400 mils but we're just starting to get to the point now I think we're very very close hold on I did another jar all right I have a hunch that is going to be my cut to Hearts but let's uh give another little taste I think we could I think we're good all right so uh beginning of heads came through just minerally and harsh and cleaning product and straight up nasty uh soon after that it got deep heavy into that kind of like um inner tube like weird rubber smell almost to the point of wait is this Burning am I am I scorching something here uh but it wasn't it was just heads that Bernie flavor cleaned up and I started getting kind of like a neutral to Corn flavor but on the tongue on the palette it was kind of harsh and acrid I guess you would call it and then once that acridness cleaned up I'm pretty confident yeah that's 100 uh Hearts now bam Parts baby generally I start looking for Tails uh when these things fog up these are fogging up already I don't know why so I'm not going to be able to use that trick later on we're just going to have to do it through taste over here you may also notice that this plate down here is still loaded yeah it's still bubbling but it's starting to empty out a little bit in fact all of them are emptier than when I last looked at them so what I'm going to do is bump that power up just a little teeny tiny bit and I've actually noticed too that my off-tech speed is crept up so I'm going to bump the power up a smidge and then I'm going to bump the water up a little bit as well like more water higher flow rate uh I theft around with the power and the water for about a minute and it looks to be right around where I want it this did get a little bit too full but it's slowly draining back out now I'm pretty happy with that this one's solidly bubbling again and off-tech speed is where I want it to be interestingly enough too having these two things plumbed in series is wicking fine this is like just kind of like this is kind of lukewarm I guess you would say which is right around where I want it to be uh it feels well it's hard to tell from feeling the outside on this one but yeah it's tasting good really corn Brady interesting it's gonna be very interesting to see what happens uh when we filter this what flavors stick around what flavors get taken out I don't know we'll just have to wait and see [Music] it I had to be dead last night so I had to shut things down and start up again tonight not a problem just turned it off uh let it cool down turn it back on again today took about 60 mils uh off the top just tastes a little bit weird 69 ABV still tasting pretty good uh it's quite creamy actually almost almost cocoa-like with the corn which is very interesting I would have thought I would have hit Tails solidly by now uh running three plates down at 60 ABV all three plates are loaded and the off-take speed isn't that fast so this is a little bit of an odd one but if I'm getting good quality stuff down here why fight it I guess I'll just I'll just roll with it [Music] I'll come back to you when it tastes like ass all right team it's been only five minutes since I last talked to you and I think oh yeah oh yeah there it is wow that's so crazy how it kind of sneaks up on you like that so five minutes I was saying this is crazy why haven't I hit Tails yet uh about a minute ago I turned the camera on because I thought I smelt tails and now totally Tails this smells like stale old nasty weet-bix if you guys don't have weet-bix where you're from I'm looking at you America I think do you have I don't have wheat backs who has Wix tell me down there Australia and New Zealand obviously because kiwi kids or weet-bix kids right like Dusty old wheat brand that your Nan's had sitting in her cupboard for like eight years because she thinks she use it and she doesn't laughs that's what I would say this is like now and to be honest even this yeah bugger all right I left this a little bit long I don't think I'm not gonna use that not gonna use it all right team we've reached the end of the Run um here comes the fun stuff I guess we have a fresh distillate right here and wow that's like a corny cappuccino where did that chocolate flavor come from here is the deal team generally generally for the Lincoln County process which is this process we're about to do you're going to use maple charcoal and can you go out and buy maple charcoal I don't know I guess so but that's boring let's make our own so we're gonna need is some maple obviously and we're going to cut that down into relatively small bits because I don't want to be here all day I'm going to do small batches that take a little bit quicker and we need a tin that's going to seal well I'm going to chuck mine in the fire for like an hour start with just to burn off any crap the paint and whatever was in the tin beforehand uh burn that all away then we're going to take the lid of the tin and put a tiny little hole in it uh dealer's Choice how you want to do that I just banged a nail on through a small drill bit will do the idea is that we only want gas vapor to be able to escape not to get in then you're going to stack your tin full of the Maple and me I'm going to add a little bit of a Twist on this and add a little bit of New Zealand Manuka wood and a little bit of American White Oak why because I freaking can and if you can once again this is up to you guys do as you please with your wood selection uh stack it all into the tin put the lid on and pop it into the fire You're Gonna Want This relatively hot obviously a fire that would burn the wood that you're putting in there do not let the lid come off and keep on cooking it until you see absolutely no Vapor coming out the top I did the first batch that I made for three hours the second batch I made for two hours and the third batch for one hour and for my fire and the size of wood I was working with all of them were fine but another little tip when you take it off the fire let it cool down for 20 minutes before you mess with it the last thing you want to do after all this hard work is pop the lid off straight away oxygen gets in there and it you know it ignites and slowly Burns away without you realizing to know if it is ready you want to be able to snap it relatively easy it's going to be black all the way through and it is going to almost sound like chalk when you rabbit together it's there's going to be very little to it in other words I break mine down into small little pieces I didn't want powder I just wanted very small little chunks and I built a weird little filtering system out of other random claw hammer parts and a little tap that I got of the ends a couple of bits of coffee filter shoved down the pipe are they are mostly to stop the charcoal just falling out and to filter it a little bit I also have a a pot sitting under the filter with another coffee filter attached to it and I ran two lots of water through it relatively quickly just to flush it all out the reason I'm aiming for 63 is there is some water in here when I put it in it is going to get poofed down somewhat but honestly if I'm anywhere between the 58 and 63 ABV range I'm gonna be happy so anyway let's carry on getting this proof down oh that might have been a bit much that's what happens when you don't measure that is 62 I'm happy with that we can get the water out of here I'm going to fill that up to exactly one liter so I know how much is in this and I'm going to tip it on into my makeshift filter so that full to the absolute tippy top is 700 mils uh and of course of course we need to save some of this to compare a b compare later on okay hold on hold on uh oh this will do Empty Bottle actually I really don't need much of that do I I'm torn see I am quote unquote making Tennessee whiskey here but this is delicious and I just kind of I want to age some by itself and I have a small jar in a large jar and I'm really wanting to put the the large jar AS uh unfiltered but I won't actually no I will because I can only fit 700 mils in there right all right here is the plan this I'm going to age an American White Oak that has been charred not toasted although I did take a good long time to char it to sort of uh get a nice gradient of Redwood on the inside of The Stave that is the plan generally for the Lincoln County process uh this is well this I guess two main ways that they do it one is that they will tip all of the new make liquid in on top of the charcoal and let it sit for like seven days and then drain it out the bottom I think I think dickle do that the other way which is the gym beam way is to once again take roughly seven days uh but slowly let it drip out the bottom I don't have enough room in this filter to put all of the liquid I want to age in there so my plan is to fill it up like I have done now let it sit for 12 hours drain it fill it back up with the other liquid that's been waiting let it sit for 12 hours drain it and just keep switching the batches back and forth [Music] whoa [Music] okay uh so this is where we're at Team uh the first batch has already been filtered twice which means it said 24 hours on charcoal in total and it has been through the charcoal twice the second batch I've just pulled out from having exactly the same thing uh so this has been on Oak for about 12 hours since late last night and what I want to do before we do anything else is taste it next to the White uh whiskey the White Lightning whatever you want to call it uh that has not been filtered and see if we can detect a difference interesting um instantly different so different this the uh straight off the still uh white dog whatever you want to call it is heavier it's oilier it's more voluptuous it's slightly jaggier on the back end and it has more straight up raw powerful grain flavor this is the opposite of that lighter prettier even less jaggy and alcohol burning on the back end slightly mostly though the weight of the spirit is just being dialed way down in terms of the intensity of grain uh and the like the the heavy oily solid mouth feel so this was not by any means a full treatment like a full Lincoln County process treatment for Tennessee whiskey it was only a couple of days uh as opposed to like seven but the difference is quite traumatic I have to say uh and it is like you could taste it blind 100 it is definitely prettier it is you could put the label smooth on it comparatively already uh and you would not be wrong what am I going to do with this I am going to age this on American White Oak and for those of you that are interested we've got a little a b going on here this is definitely not uzo I cleaned the crap out of this jar before I switched it over maybe take that off this is the unfiltered white dog I want to age the two next to each other and see what happens differently over time but but what I also did is took a little bit of that first batch uh and gave it a a very quick like 20-minute ultrasound treatment plus a 12 hour heat treatment two kind of force age it not not uh let me iterate again not to try and make a delicious whiskey straight away I don't think that's really that possible but the reason I do this is to try and kind of hurry things along a little bit to get an idea of what these Spirits might turn into over time so this to be clear is the filtered vision the nice is pretty similar slightly more fruity and obviously with a little bit of wood influence on it some of that kind of like raw grain Funk has dialed down a little bit that is very very light and very drinkable already uh it's actually slightly astringent probably because there's too much Oak in there and I hit it a little bit too hard with the uh the heat as you can see by the very intense color but I see no reason why this won't turn into that by the astringency in six to 12 months that's my guess and it's the Lincoln County process is gonna just dial a spirit down it's going to make it Smoother by removing a lot of the larger Bolder characteristics in that Spirit I'm not going to say if this is a good thing or a bad thing I think it's a preference thing personally a lot of the things that it takes out of a spirit are things that I love in whiskey I might say it's a bad thing but someone else who doesn't like those bigger crazier flavors and want something that's just kind of prettier and easier to drink would say it's a good thing it's also inarguably I think a step to make a product smoother quicker so in some ways this is kind of a cheat code to aging Spirits quicker it's not going to give you the the bolds interesting complex flavors that are true long-term maturation will give you but it is going to make things just generally more approachable it's going to be very interesting to taste it in six to 12 months against the uh the bigger grungier oilier version and if I had to put money on it I would say that I am going to enjoy this version the most in 12 months time but who can say we will have to find out then I guess I hope you've enjoyed this video guys and if you haven't already make sure you go back and watch the clawhammer supply video making the wash that was a whole bunch of fun thanks so much for hosting me uh Team I I loved hanging out with you and I hope we'd get to do it again in the future I need to say a huge thank you a huge huge thank you to the patreons thank you so much patreons for being the people that support us day in day out that's very kind of you and uh if you at home are finding value in these videos you can join up as well there's a link down in the description uh we're now doing weekly q and A's uh on patreon as well so there you have it still Tennessee style whiskey I hope you found it entertaining I hope you found it enjoyable if you've tried something similar or you'd like to leave some comments drop them down there that's what the comment section is for and okay next time guys keep on Chasing The Craft see ya

Channel: Still It

Views: 101,876

Keywords: whiskey, Tennessee Whiskey, filtered whiskey, how to make whiskey, still it, chase the craft, clawhammer

Id: 01PbvaN3-9M

Length: 26min 25sec (1585 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 21 2023