My Thoughts On Sugar Wash For Distilling

we are talking sugar washers what they're good for and uh my general thoughts on the topic let's get stuck in how's it going chases i hope you're having a kick-ass week i'm jesse and this is still at the channel all about chasing the craft the foam distillation and making it a legitimate hobby all right i have had a bunch of questions on sugar washes lately and my hypothesis is that we've got due to current events around the world and people being stuck at home with more time on their hands so on and so forth a whole lot of new distillers getting into the hobby and sugar washers obviously are a really attractive way to get into this hobby a sugar wash utilizes sugar obviously instead of a grain or whatever else you're going to use to supply food to your yeast to turn into alcohol and there's two reasons you'd want to do this number one as it is a whole lot easier you don't have to go through the process of making a mash to convert starch into consumable sugar for your yeast and number two is it is a whole lot more cost effective than uh you know what it takes to to do it with grain for example there's kind of two different avenues that we can go down here with sugar wash one is for vodka and then the other is to appropriate i guess would be the best word or imitate a whiskey-ish kind of product or a product that's generally made with grains let's talk about the vodka first so first of all i have yet to make a vodka with anything but sugar so that's probably something i should get onto doing if there's something you guys want to see me make a vodka out of other than sugar drop a comment in the comment section down below i'd be interested to see what you have to say part of me thinks that at some point in time i have to do potatoes i just i feel like i have to at some point anyway back to sugar washes like i said i've yet to make a vodka with anything but sugar and the reason for that is that when i'm making vodka i distill it to a high abv i'm not really looking for a huge contribution of flavour from the wash although i really think that the idea of any spirit that is not influenced by what is in the wash a completely neutral spirit i i just don't think it exists everything i've had so far has had some influence from the wash but i'm not looking for a big influence i'm looking for a little bit something like teddy sands fast fermenting vodka something like the tomato paste wash i know people talk really highly of the kale wash as well the idea here is that we're just putting something in there to give the the yeast enough nutrients to do their job and the things that we use to give the the nutrients to the yeast have some impact on the flavor and kind of molds the finished product in a certain direction some of them take a little bit further like teddy said's fast fermenting vodka which that is what i want in a vodka i want it to be easy to make i want it to be cheap i want to be able to make a fairly large amount of it so i can have it sitting i've got 10 liters of 95 sitting over here at the moment to make you know like the fishy mango stuff that went horrible a week or two back i've got some berry vodka on the go at the moment i like making gin out of it that's what it's for it sits over there and i use it for other things so a sugar wash is perfect for that in my opinion if you're really into vodka and you really want to make a vodka that's just just the way you want it maybe you want to look at doing all grain vodka or making vodka for something else that's entirely up to you and like i said maybe i will try it at some point in time anyway back over to this side which is the the grain impersonation the grain appropriation sort of side of things now we're talking very much about something like ujssm i think is a perfect candidate for this most of you guys will know what it is if you do not check this video out up here where i made some and from the get-go i have to say this is an awesome recipe and i think it has a huge place in home distilling but let's have a little talk about it first of all let's have a look at the plus side of something like this like we said before it's cheaper and it is easier and for people that are getting into the hobby that is a huge advantage a huge advantage being cheap means that you can experiment with things and the cost of experimentation the cost of messing up the cost of you know things just not working out quite the way you wanted them to go way down so i think for people getting into the hobby that's awesome that's a great thing and the second thing the the time involved is exactly the same if you're new to this hobby and you want to experiment if you're new to the hobby and you want to try different things distill it different ways mess around with how you age it all of those sort of things the amount of time that you put in if that's smaller it means that it's just easier for you to back off a little bit let go and just try things without it having to be right does that make sense i hope that makes sense and because of those two things i think it's an excellent gateway recipe for people to move towards making or impersonating whiskies that they already like you know there's stuff that they can buy off the shelf or stuff they've had from other people or whatever it happens to be and i also think considering how it's made it can actually make a really nice product it can make something that is quite nice but at the end of the day do i think it is as good as something that you could make with all grain no i really don't think it is for me but remember guys this is a completely objective hobby you're making it for yourself it's for personal use only right like that's what we're here we're here to make stuff for us to drink so everything has to be enjoyable for you that's for you to work out that's for you to figure out so if you enjoy the process of making ujs sm and you loathe the process of mashing then what's the problem keep making the uk sm if you love the way that the ujssm tastes same deal keep making the uj ssm there's nothing wrong with that there's no there's no like you need to level up to all grain it's not how this works it's for you do it your way but when people get in touch with me and they say there's just something missing from my uj secm it doesn't taste quite the way that i want it to taste at the end of the day i just i just don't feel like it is ever going to be as good as a product that is made uh as well as an all-grain recipe that's just my thoughts that's the way i see it and from the things that i've tried the things that i've tasted the things that i've made the things that i've sampled from other people that's the conclusion that i've come to i can't quite put my finger on it and explain it it's hard to explain but there is a lack of flavor and complexity to me in a sugar wash appropriation or approximation of a whiskey for example there's a there's a slightly less depth flavor and i think it's probably got more to do with the mouth feel it just doesn't feel as it just doesn't feel as thick and full and rounded to me and i kind of feel like there's something going on with sugar where it gives you a slightly odd mouth feel it's kind of something similar to a stringency not that it's in any way actually similar to astringency but what i mean is that it it's not really a flavor it's not really a mouth feel it's kind of somewhere in between and i talked to beard and board about this recently and he suggested i experiment with inverted sugar so that might be something i'll do some so that might be something i'll do at some point as well i just wanted to kind of get that off my chest put it out here in a video so that people are asking this question of me i can direct you here so you can get a bit more of an in-depth idea of my thoughts on the topic rather than you know a two-sentence type that i can do in facebook or whatever so i need to say a huge huge thank you to the patreons thank you so much team i cannot do this stuff without you and i really really do appreciate your support that's so great if you're finding value in the videos the podcast the website whatever it happens to be and you'd like to help directly contribute to the channel you can go to chasethecraft.com support to find out all the different ways that you can help out one of them being if it's right for you patreon uh just a reminder guys for those of you that are on patreon we have the new chase the craft yeti merch and the way this works team is when you sign up if you sign up to a tier that has that reward on the third month that you're signed up patreon will send that directly out to you so uh i'm working on getting some sample stuff in here so i can so i can show you guys anyway so i hope if you're new to distilling and you're trying to decide which way you want to go whether you want to stick with sugar washers for a while whether you want to jump straight into oil grain i hope that helped out a bit uh to summarize all grain i think it's better objectively i just think it tastes better for my taste for my preference but there's a whole other learning curve that comes along with that that can be tricky sugar washes are a great way for the new distiller to get into the hobby to learn it to hone their craft to chase that craft before they tackle the next sort of hurdle and the next learning curve which is making your own matches anyway guys if you liked the video give it a thumbs up that helps me out a whole lot drama comment in the comment section down below if you have something to say about this if you have something to add to it or if you have a question and if you like these videos and you want to make sure you keep seeing them hit the subscribe button down below that'll help me out a whole lot i'll catch you next time guys keep on chasing the craft see ya

Channel: Still It

Views: 130,023

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Id: oPqEHm2Z9bY

Length: 10min 1sec (601 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 11 2020