Cornflakes whiskey

Name: Cornflakes whiskey
Prep time: 1 h
Total time: 6 d 1 h
Yield: 20 L of wash
Ingredients: 500 g Cornflakes (Kellogg's); 3.5 kg Sugar; Yeast; 20 L Water

Where good corn is hard to come by, Odin found that 500 grams of breakfast cornflakes gives a sugar wash a corn whiskey's sweetness and depth. Five days to ferment dry, two runs, and in his words: “darn good”.

Recipe by Odin

Makes: Corn whiskey
Still: Pot still, strip and spirit run
Ferment: About 5 days
Wash: about 9% ABV
Difficulty: Easy

About this recipe

Odin, distilling in Europe, struggled to make a good corn whiskey: the corn available to him was animal-feed grade, and both UJSSM-style and all-grain ferments gave a meagre flavour. Cornflakes are corn that has already been cooked and rolled, and his experiment with them gave the best all-corn white dog he had made - sweet, very much "there", fresh, and with real complexity.

The sugar provides most of the alcohol; the cornflakes give the corn character, and their added vitamins feed the yeast.

Original recipe discussion ↗

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Units

01Batch

Water

Sugar

Kilograms

SG –Potential – Inverted sugar

Ingredients

Cornflakes (Kellogg's)Plain cornflakes; their added B vitamins help the yeast.	500 g
Sugar	3.5 kg
Yeast	your choice
WaterOr 15 L of water and 5 L of backset.	20 L

02Fermentation

Yeast

Fermentation temperature

Start date

Ready to distil–

Fermentation time–

Starting gravity–

Wash strength–

Pure alcohol–

03Distilling and bottling

Still

Hearts strength (% ABV)

Bottling strength

Bottle size

Hearts from the still–

Water to add–

Spirit at bottling strength–

Expected cuts

Foreshots–Discard

Heads–Keep as feints

Hearts–Keep

Tails–Keep as feints

Volumes are typical for the still chosen. Make the cuts by smell and taste, never by volume alone - the guide to making the cuts shows how.

Estimates for planning, assuming a healthy fermentation. Your settings are remembered on this device.

Method

Crush and cook the flakes. Crush the cornflakes and cook them in some of the water - or in hot backset, if you're using it.
Add the sugar and cool. Dissolve the sugar, let it cool, and add the rest of the water.
Pitch the yeast. Add the yeast once the wash is at a comfortable temperature for it.
Ferment. It ferments dry in about five days.

Fermentation

A bowl of golden cornflakes beside a fermenting bucket with a foamy head flecked with cereal, and a small glass of pale gold whiskey. — A bowl of cornflakes is enough to give a sugar wash a corn whiskey's sweetness and depth.

A straightforward, quick fermentation. Using 5 L of backset in place of the same amount of water gives a sour-mash version with more depth.

Distilling

Odin stripped slowly, making a small foreshots and heads cut, and collected down to 10% ABV - about 6 L at 30% from one wash. He added some backset to the low wines and did the spirit run, collecting the hearts at around 63%, then diluted to 50%.

It's good straight away, and better after two or three days to air and rest. Odin expects it to benefit from some ageing on oak, such as chips from a used whiskey barrel.

Fermenting a wash is legal in many places; distilling it often is not. Distil only where it is legal to do so, and check your local licensing first.

Troubleshooting

The flakes turn to mush.

That's expected. Strain or rack the wash off the solids before it goes into the boiler.

Variations

Sour mash: 15 L of water plus 5 L of backset in place of 20 L of water.
Frosted cornflakes have been suggested, though the added sugar coating changes the balance.

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