StillSmart

Have ordered a boiler/masher and some general ingredients, looking at doing some vodka and whiskey to start with potatoes/wheat and corn whiskey. There are alot of recipes out there but they all seem to have corn and sugar or potatoes and sugar, so in some all they are doing is fermenting the sugar rather than coverting the starch into sugar of whatever the ingredient. Is it possible or is it because it just comes out to low and the sugar is used to boost its %. What do companys do, do they use sugar as there primary ingredient ? I still have some more researching to do before starting but i believe amylase converts starch to sugar but is there a simple forumla to work out how much amylase you have to use. thanks

If the corn is not mashed, it is just added to a sugar wash for flavour. If it is mashed (with enzymes or malted barley etc) then the sugar is optional and added by those who want more alcohol for their efforts. Commercial places have large equipment and don't add sugar as it is more expensive.

Chuck

The term All Grain, means just that. You get all the sugars from mashing grain without adding any additives like liquid malt extract, or sugar.
To get all the sugar out of the grain takes time, and you have to be accurate with temperatures - this normally involves much more equipment than other methods (a mash tun with a false bottom or manifold to take the liquid off leaving the grain behind, a wort cooler to cool the wort to pitching temps etc.)

A partial mash is doing a mash but then boosting the ABV with something like sugar t rLME.

A sugar head is a sugar wash, which grain can be added in varying quantities normally just for flavour, there might be some conversion but the quantities of grain used in sugar heads its pretty much all the sugar that makes the alcohol.



If I was to put a 50L sugar wash on I would add 10.5KG of sugar and would end up somewhere around 11%.
If I was doing an AG wash of the same volume the grain bill would be somewhere in the region of 16KG and give me 7%, would take hours to do, and there is all the spent grain to dispose of at the end of the mash.

Sugar heads can produce very good results, and you certainly get more in return volume wise than AG.

I am an all grain brewer and batch sparge my mashes, my kit allows me to produce worts of high gravity and in order to produce 19 litres of beer with an OG of 1060 I would need around 8kg of malt which would go into my mash tun with 23 litres of water this after mashing would be drained into the boiler and the mash tun being refilled with 13 litres of water (batch sparging) this again being drained into the the boiler giving me a total of around 26 litres for the boil, these amounts are beyond the capabilities of most off the shelf brewing kit, my mash tuns capacity is ten gallons and a beer of this gravity fills it almost to capacity, I achieve a reasonable brewhouse effeciency as I have a very well insulated mash tun with a SS false bottom and near zero dead space with years spent fine tuning my kit so I doubt you will manage to achieve what you desire without adding sugar or malt extract if you have purchased the standard 5 gallon boiler / mash tun I personaly would lean towards malt extract rather than sugar if its flavour you are interested in.

With beer brewing you have to ba aware of alpha amylase and Beta amylase being converted and as long as your mash temps are correct there is no worry over them, but to my understanding this should not be an issiue with alcohol being produced for spirits as the undesirable elements should be removed when taking your cuts.

Sorry if the above makes no sense but a 14hr shift and several speckled hen clones might be to blame for it.

Yes I'd rather use malt than sugar, will still do my sugar batches as there quick easy and taste fine but want to feel like I've done it from ingredients using the malt to stop in becoming thick etc, yes it's just a 5 gallon boiler, will get some iodine as well to show whatever I'm using if its been converted to sugar or if its still starch before starting the fermention

Ok if thats your intention I would use the boiler purely as a boiler and for a few quid make myself a mashtun and manafold (filter), for this you need some copper pipe 90 degree pushfit conectors some T pieces a tank connector and a tap in order to make something like this which is a simple manifold but you can add more pipework to increase the effectiveness if you wish with a couple more T pieces and bits of pipe so you cover a bigger area with your manifold.


You then cut slots about a third of the way through the pipe



Drill a hole through the coolbox and using the tank connector feed the pipe out of the box to the tap, the tank conector was the only soldered part of my original tun with all the other joints unsoldered for ease of assembly in the tun and cleaning, the manifold is used with all the slots facing down and your ready to go.

You pre heat your water in the boiler to about 72 degrees and put it in the mash tun followed by the grain (it is ALLWAYS water first as if you put the grain in first you risk bunging up the slots in the pipe) mix well and adjust the temp of the mash if required leave it for 90mins before SLOWLY draining it out, you then add more water from the boiler to the grain wait around 20 mins and drain again, pour all the liquid into your boiler and boil.

THe above method is called batch sparging and I hope i have made it easy to understand, it is an easy project to build the mash tun and for me moving away from the shop bought boiler masher was the best thing I ever did with my brewhouse efficiency increasing by about 40%.

Any question mate PM me with your phone number and I will have a chat to explain things better,or look at http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk this site contains a wealth of information

thanks for the information, i appreciate it and appreciate you know what your doing but quick question, this is what i was planning.

Freeze potatoes to help soften when defrosted,
Cut up and peel.
Put in boiler and slowly increase temperature while occasionaly stirring to boling point
check with iodine starch is present
let cool and move into fermenting bucket
maybe add malted barley ? to convert starch into sugar
check again with iodine that starch is now not present
use hydrometer
pitch yeast
ferment out
strip and then spirit cut

I presume i dont want to filter through carbon and if this is correct how much malted barley would i need to use to convert.

Hi Chas

My advise is. Copy exactly a tried and tested methoed and recipe.
You will learn how to, and also get something safe and tasty to drink.

I am trying to find a recipe but not had much look, all add sugar and looking to do it properly rather rely on the sugar for the alcohol, it would still be safe if I did my method surely ?

I won' t do a big long post on this but don't bother with potatoes, especially if you have malted barley on hand.

Potatoes are a hard and messy slog...a bit like Corn

Aidanmac

I think the use of potatoes for vodka was due to lack of alternatives.

I also have wheat and corn to use, have found a few recipes that look straight forward and quite easy to do, both along the same lines as what I planned to do.

I always say the best way to learn is to do and looks like you're raring to get going.

Sometimes you just got to get things out of your system. Don't forget to post your experiences as nothing teaches us like experience...especially our own experience

AM

I agree with Aidan. I will just caution that wheat and corn is not the same as malted wheat and malted corn. The latter have enzymes (well, some) to convert starch into sugars. Corn traditionally is the fuel (starch) to drive the engine (malted barley). Wheat is for flavouring. It is a deep and complex subject. Experimenting and observing is a good way to learn. Don't forget to take notes.


Chuck

i know and it might go wrong but i might go right haha, well going to start with potatoes as that seem the easiest, i have flaked wheat and flaked maize, so all i do is boil i think to genelatise.