Grain Bills

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Grain Bills

Unread postby Husker » Sun Nov 09, 2008 2:51 pm

Does anybody know about how much grain is used to make bourbon? For example, how many
lbs. of grain goes into a gallon of 120 proof.

Also, does anybody ferment on the grains or do they all pour off the beef before fermenting?

Thanks

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Re: Grain Bills

Unread postby cowdery » Mon Nov 10, 2008 7:26 pm

Spirit for bourbon typically comes off the still at 140 proof. Typical yield is a bit more than five gallons of 140 proof spirit per bushel of grain.
- Chuck Cowdery

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Re: Grain Bills

Unread postby Husker » Thu Nov 13, 2008 10:00 pm

Thanks, Cowdery. At 52 lbs./bu that's 10 lbs/gal. That's a lot of grain. Do you think it would be fair to figure about 8 gal of low wines to get that 5 gal of spirit?
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Re: Grain Bills

Unread postby cowdery » Fri Nov 21, 2008 11:29 pm

Every distillery runs a little different, but the doubler doesn't remove that much additional water. The second distillation is mostly about fine-tuning the congener composition, and congeners don't account for much volume. It raises the ABV maybe five to seven percent.
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