Liquidised Sweetcorn Sugarhead
Posted: Thu Oct 24, 2013 1:00 amI have read various posts on here about folk wanting to make corn washes for American style whiskeys,how difficult flaked maize is etc.
I have looked at UJSSM,- why learn to walk when you can try to fly?
Why fall flat on your face,when you can land on your head from a great height?
I have just done several mashes using frozen sweetcorn,liquidised,for maximum taste/possible conversion,as I also wanted to see how much difference amylase enzyme makes to the brew,- should produce more alcohol,but strip some of the corn flavour.
At this point,being a long time user of Turbo yeast,I decided to put it head to head with bread yeast.
Four mashes,two yeasts then.
Redneck procedure:
Defrost corn,and in this instance,leave sitting around for two days.
Put in food processor/blender,with a little water.
Liquidise,do this several times ; I used just over 8Kg sweetcorn.
Put half the result in boiler,heat to 66°C ,add amylase enzyme,hold it there for an hour,give occasional stir,and as it slowly cools.
Make four mashes of just under 24 litre,two with liquidised corn; two with liquidised and amylased corn.
One of each with half a sachet of turbo,and one of each with half a tub of bread yeast=62.5g.
All four had 5Kg sugar added.
Didn't bother with hydrometer reading from sweetcorn soup,there's too much suspended solid,and a floating head of husk.Wait for strip run to assess amount of ethanol produced.
Hope it is as tasty as expected when spirit run happens,the smell from the soup is lovely.
Leave husks floating,as under cold Northern skies it looked like buckets of sunshine,in the bread yeast fermenters they sank towards the end .
To my amazement,it was the bread yeast that took off first,in both the "cooked" and uncooked mashes,but then was overtaken by the turbo,which by day 5 was ready to rack,at .990.
Ferment temps were around 22-25°C.
The Allinsons yeast took 14 days longer,even with later applied modest heat.(TBH,given my new experience of hydrating and growing yeast up,I think this time could be dramatically reduced)
A whole week of settling saw all the washes clear the top 3" only.I decided not to bother with fining.
The smell from all racked and strained washes was well sour.
About 3 -3.5 litres of lost sludge in the turbo fermenters,almost 5 in the unamylased bread yeast,and 3.5 in the amylased bread yeast wash.
I racked into the boiler.leaving the worst of the sludge behind. Individually of course,for strips and spirit runs; this was to be a trial by alcohol and taste.
I wander here from fermenting to distilling,forgive me.
Approx 24 litres mash became approx 20.5 Lt in the boiler.
By far the murkiest washes that I have ever distilled. I simply turned the power down to 1500W for the uneventful strips to 5%,and then four spirit runs,at 700W.
Yes,a lot of work,and posssibly a wasteful exercise.
There are differences in the raw spirit.A little more alcohol,10% ish from the amylased corn,and certainly less flavour.I can't decide in the current state if any one of them is much better than another,certainly some interesting tastes in there.Sure beats a sugar wash for interest,and only doubled the cost,still peanuts (anyone tried a peanut wash?).Time to put them to sleep with some barrel chunks,and come back later.
Oh well, it keeps me off the streets..
Robert.
I have looked at UJSSM,- why learn to walk when you can try to fly?
Why fall flat on your face,when you can land on your head from a great height?
I have just done several mashes using frozen sweetcorn,liquidised,for maximum taste/possible conversion,as I also wanted to see how much difference amylase enzyme makes to the brew,- should produce more alcohol,but strip some of the corn flavour.
At this point,being a long time user of Turbo yeast,I decided to put it head to head with bread yeast.
Four mashes,two yeasts then.
Redneck procedure:
Defrost corn,and in this instance,leave sitting around for two days.
Put in food processor/blender,with a little water.
Liquidise,do this several times ; I used just over 8Kg sweetcorn.
Put half the result in boiler,heat to 66°C ,add amylase enzyme,hold it there for an hour,give occasional stir,and as it slowly cools.
Make four mashes of just under 24 litre,two with liquidised corn; two with liquidised and amylased corn.
One of each with half a sachet of turbo,and one of each with half a tub of bread yeast=62.5g.
All four had 5Kg sugar added.
Didn't bother with hydrometer reading from sweetcorn soup,there's too much suspended solid,and a floating head of husk.Wait for strip run to assess amount of ethanol produced.
Hope it is as tasty as expected when spirit run happens,the smell from the soup is lovely.
Leave husks floating,as under cold Northern skies it looked like buckets of sunshine,in the bread yeast fermenters they sank towards the end .
To my amazement,it was the bread yeast that took off first,in both the "cooked" and uncooked mashes,but then was overtaken by the turbo,which by day 5 was ready to rack,at .990.
Ferment temps were around 22-25°C.
The Allinsons yeast took 14 days longer,even with later applied modest heat.(TBH,given my new experience of hydrating and growing yeast up,I think this time could be dramatically reduced)
A whole week of settling saw all the washes clear the top 3" only.I decided not to bother with fining.
The smell from all racked and strained washes was well sour.
About 3 -3.5 litres of lost sludge in the turbo fermenters,almost 5 in the unamylased bread yeast,and 3.5 in the amylased bread yeast wash.
I racked into the boiler.leaving the worst of the sludge behind. Individually of course,for strips and spirit runs; this was to be a trial by alcohol and taste.
I wander here from fermenting to distilling,forgive me.
Approx 24 litres mash became approx 20.5 Lt in the boiler.
By far the murkiest washes that I have ever distilled. I simply turned the power down to 1500W for the uneventful strips to 5%,and then four spirit runs,at 700W.
Yes,a lot of work,and posssibly a wasteful exercise.
There are differences in the raw spirit.A little more alcohol,10% ish from the amylased corn,and certainly less flavour.I can't decide in the current state if any one of them is much better than another,certainly some interesting tastes in there.Sure beats a sugar wash for interest,and only doubled the cost,still peanuts (anyone tried a peanut wash?).Time to put them to sleep with some barrel chunks,and come back later.
Oh well, it keeps me off the streets..
Robert.
not the same thing as using raw corn and converting the starch 
