A video on making rye at Finger Lakes Distilling

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A video on making rye at Finger Lakes Distilling

Unread postby tmckenzie » Fri Jun 12, 2009 7:57 pm

rye making video from Finger Lakes Distilling. http://fingerlakesdistilling.blogspot.c ... secom.html
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Re: A video on making rye at Finger Lakes Distilling

Unread postby tmckenzie » Fri Jun 12, 2009 9:08 pm

We have some old barrels, most are new. They are just turning a dark color. The used ones hold grape and apple brandy. The new barrels are holding bourbon, made to a recipe of 70 percent corn, 20 percent rye, and 10 percent barley malt. We also have some new barrels holding rye, made to a recipe of 80 percent rye, and 20 percent barley malt. We also have some wheat whiskey aging. Our corn whiskey, which we hope to release next month is unaged, and made from a recipe of 80 percent corn and 20 percent barley malt. Unlike a lot of microdistilleries, we use barley malt to convert the starch of our corn and rye to sugar. Most use commercial enzymes. This makes a big difference in taste. We do have some rye in small barrels that is aging a lot quicker than the 53 gallon barrels. We hope to release it a lot earlier than those barrels. We released our 2 vodkas last week. We are in wine country and have access to fine wine that we distill in to vodka. We have Vintners, which is a true grape based vodka, and Vintners Wildberry, where we take our grape vodka, and soak blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries in it, then redistill it. Good stuff. We also released seneca drums gin, a little bit heavier gin, which uses our grape spirit as it's base. We use only local, natural ingredients. However, our malt comes from elsewhere. To answer your question, we double potstill some whiskey, we designed our still so that we could do that, also we can use a thumper. We also run some of our whiskey from the pot through a couple of plates on the column. This actually makes a more full bodied product than than double pot.
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Re: A video on making rye at Finger Lakes Distilling

Unread postby tmckenzie » Sat Jun 13, 2009 1:49 pm

We use a dry yeast that is used by most of the bourbon producers. We have space for about 100 53 gallon barrels and 75, 10 gallon barrels right now. Holstien in Germany built it. We designed it. It is the only one like it in the world. We did not add a doubler, because of the added expense of another still. When we double distill, we put it back in the pot and run it again. Or we can hook the thumper up. The reason we use that yeast is it produces a nice flavor, and it is easily obtainable. Our new 53 gallon barrels come form Kelvin Cooperage in Louisville. The 10 gallon barrels come out of Arkansas. We are doing an experiment with some 10 gallon barrels from a cooperage in Minnesota. They are made with northern grown oak, therfore they have a tighter grain. I am not impressed so far.
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Re: A video on making rye at Finger Lakes Distilling

Unread postby tmckenzie » Sat Jun 13, 2009 2:02 pm

Oh I forgot. The still will hold 300 gallons. But we cook mash in 200 gallon batches. So we generally distill 200 gallons of mash at the time. We ferment on the grains, and distill on the grains. Most of the small distillers say that it cannot be done without scorching, and they say corn is too hard to mash. Therefore they get a brewery to make a wash, and attempt to make something like malt whiskey. I do not know why they think this, we have no trouble at all.
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Re: A video on making rye at Finger Lakes Distilling

Unread postby tmckenzie » Sun Jun 14, 2009 4:10 pm

We come off the still at a low proof, and it goes in the barrel low. In order to retain flavor, also, a lower proof ages matures faster.
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Re: A video on making rye at Finger Lakes Distilling

Unread postby Brewer » Mon Jun 15, 2009 1:25 pm

Tom,

Thanks for the info. Good luck to you& Finger Lakes Distilling. When did you begin operations? Of your whiskey products, are you concentrating more on the rye or bourbon? How long will you be aging the rye and bourbon?
Bob
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Re: A video on making rye at Finger Lakes Distilling

Unread postby tmckenzie » Mon Jun 15, 2009 6:16 pm

We started making in December of last year. Right now we are watching things to see when we will release whiskey. The rye in small barrels is ageing well. We will have to see. We have more rye on hand right now, and the past few weeks we have been concentrating on our unaged corn whiskey.
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Re: A video on making rye at Finger Lakes Distilling

Unread postby mozilla » Tue Jun 16, 2009 10:16 pm

What is your source of water?
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Re: A video on making rye at Finger Lakes Distilling

Unread postby tmckenzie » Wed Jun 17, 2009 8:31 am

town water supply.
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