StillSmart

Well, its time to get the Corn on, or Maize as we call it this side of the pond.

Last year's mash was done following the normal procedure for all grain beer making - mistake!

It seems this method is just making hard work for myself so I'm going the Moonshine route.

Tonight I'll set up my boiler with 30lt of water and set the timer to have it boiled and ready for me at 08.30 tomorrow.

6kg of Flaked Maize will be pre-wetted with a little cold water in a 50lt barrel to make sure there are no clumps or dry spots.

I'll then be adding 20lt of boiling water and 6kg sugar and after a good stir the barrel will be closed up and left for a good 60mins soak with just one stir in that time.

After the soak I'll be adding cold water to bring the volume up to 50lt and, if necessary, using a wort chiller to cool the wort to 67oC so I can add 1.2kg of malted barley to provide the enzymes to convert the starches from the Maize to fermentable sugars, the grain will also drop the temp to around 64oC - perfect for the enzymes to get to work.

I'll also be adding separate Amyloglucosidase (AG).

I'll be testing the wort with Tincture of Iodine to ensure starch conversion is complete before pitching.

Yeast is Saccharomyces cerevisiae var. bayanus a Champagne yeast by Bioferm which has a high alcohol tolerance although I'm not expecting a high yield.

Any comments suggestions welcome.

AM


Much simpler method and I'll let you know how it all turns out.

AG likes some Calcium in the water (at least I think it is AG) so you may want to add some depending on your local supply. And it likes a 4-5 ph. I got some cheap litmus papers and my yeast and enzymes seem a lot happier with the correct ph. Most of my recent washes have seemed a lot dryer and I suspect that AG is what is achieving this.a


Chuck

Hi Chuck,
It took me a while to get to grips with this area but a pH of 4-5 is a bit too acidic for ideal fermentation conditions. Calcium raises the pH and my local water is already pH neutral which makes it too alkaline for making wash.

5.5 is supposed to be the ideal pH and you can buy buffers which will ensure your wash starts at exactly 5.5 regardless of other conditions. I use a little lactic acid to bring down the wash pH when everything except the yeast is in.

Used to use pH papers but found them unreliable so I bought a pH pen from my HBS for €20 (about £15) less than a box of lab grade test strips.

On the AG - it took me a while to find out the workings of this enzyme but this is the bottom line. AG is only useful in grain mash because the one and only thing it does is convert parts of the starch into fermentables that Alpha Amylase can't convert so pH doesn't come into this enzymes work which is done and dusted before pitching.

AG in a sugar wash is a waste of AG.

Hope this is of help.

AM

Murphy's Law says that anything that can go wrong probably will!

Today was a Murphy's Law day and nobody told me.

Everything started off well enough. The boiler was ready when I was. The Maize and the Malted Barley were all pre-measured last night and off we went....

Maize in sprayed with cold water as I poured it in to prevent clumping. Open the boiler tap and run in 35lt water @90oC stirring all the while.

Sofar-Sogood!

Wait 60 mins then check the mash - thick, smooth, hot, lovly jubly



Time to top up the water so I can add in the sugar. I had decided to use cold water to adjust the water temp down to 70oC so that when the Malt was added the grain would cool the mash to around 64-67oC - perfect for the enzymes to work.

In the hour since starting temp of the mash had dropped dramatically and was now 50oC - too low for the enzymes. Unfazed as I was - cool under pressure - I decided to heat water in my boiler and add enough to bring the temp back up where I needed it.

I loaded the water into my boiler and put it on full power to boil. Unfortunately, by the time the water would be hot enough the scheduled 15lt left to be added would not be enough to get the mash temp back up to 70oC so I upped this to 25lt.

I then took 25lt of wort out of the barrel and put it in my old plastic boiler the one with the washing machine element...this one...



…..which I then connected to my power controller and ran the power up to 50%. It took 40 mins to get the temp of this wort up to 70oC without burning and it worked a treat. At the same time the water in my keg boiler had reached 98oC.

To get back on track I ran the 25lt of boiled water into the 50lt barrel and added a further 4kg of sugar. This brought the mash back to 68oC – perfect for adding the malt to convert the starches.The 25lt in the plastic boiler was transferred to a 33lt fermenter and 1kg of malt added to that. I now had a Tale of Two Buckets and a total of 85lt (including grains) instead of the planned 55lt but had recovered the mash from the jaws of disaster.



Both were left for an hour then stirred to let the enzymes complete their work and after a further hour I introduced the wort chiller and cooled both batches to pitching temps in just under 40 minutes.



With the end in sight, I added Amyloglucosidase (AG) to both containers to break down the last of the starches that the Alpha Amylase cannot convert. Next I tested and adjusted the pH and took gravity readings.

The 50lt has become 60lt and I pitched this with 28g of Saccharomyces cerevisiae var. bayanus, a Champagne Yeast from Brouwland under the brand name Vinoferm.

The 25lt fermenter I pitched with Alcotec's Single Strain Whiskey Yeast...and I was just about done.

Instead of the usual airlock I fitted each container with a blow tube which goes into a bucket of water and allows CO2 out but also allows for foam expansion should the ferment get 'lively'.

I had started at 0830hrs in the morning and, after near disaster, recovery and clean-up, I finished last night at 2050hrs – knackered!

The moral behind this long and sorry tale is, if you're doing corn this way don't take your eyes off the temp of the corn mash at any stage and make sure you have enough HOT water ready to bolster your mash temp until you get the malt in and working. It's easy to cool the mash but quite difficult if you have to heat it up again.

This morning it's a new dawn, both fermenters are fizzing and bubbling away. Both have a good cap on top and and are blowing CO2 at a goodly rate.

Maybe there are some useful lesson for others in my record of cock-up and recovery. I know I've definitely learned lessons here.

AM

Day 8 - both worts are running at 22oC and producing a steady flow of CO2. I haven't tested the SG as the cap has not fallen on either and there is steady activity below.

Aroma from the airlock tubes is very corn like but not a strong smell.

I'm expecting another week before the ferment ends.

AM

Day 13: Ferment appears to be finished. Looks like 11.5%ABV which is better than I was expecting.

The wash is very different to a sugar wash - well it would be, wouldn't it - it has spent barley floating on top and all the Maize has settled out.



This bucket had 25lt total volume but as you can see the Maize accounts for 5lt of the finished wash.

Can't wait to get this lot in the pot. Speaking of which I made a pretty major modification to my pot and I've posted details under here viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1066&p=9148#p9148. Some may find this interesting....or not


AM

good stuff - I found when doing grain\sugar washes that the last 5 lts was just not recoverable.
I've posted this in another thread somewhere, but what I did was to boil the grain for the next generation in a mixture of some fresh water and backset from the previous wash. I would then filter the grain out before topping up with cold and pitching.
A few generations in, and it had loads of flavour without the need for fermenting on the grain.
I have a sack of maize waiting to try a bourbon-ish whisky, but my cheap-o grain mill can't handle the large grain size, so its on hold for now.

Disaster Struck!

My lovely Corn wash was all ready to run and I opened the barrel yesterday morning to get started. As there was 60lt I decided to do 2 X 30lt runs. I pumped the first 30lt of lovely, clear, golden wash into the still and started it up. The yield was a little disappointing but not unexpectedly so.

To facilitate another wash I wanted to put on I moved the remaining 30lt of Corn wash to a smaller fermenter until it could be pumped into the boiler.

As the still was running I noticed the remaining wash in the bucket starting to get darker and darker. By the time I was ready to add more wash to the boiler my lovely Corn wash had turned olive green

I've never seen an infection take hold so quickly. Had to spend hours sterilising everything from scratch, even though I'm reasonably certain it had to be something airborne that caused this problem.

On a lighter note, I boiled up some water in a pot and added a Cornflour mix to thicken it until it was almost too thick to stir..

...at 70oC I added some high temp powdered amylase and the cornflour just broke down into a thin liquid in seconds...

A quick test with Tincture of Iodine confirmed that all the starch had been converted... so now I can make spirits from a few bags of Cornflour without the faffing around with grains

AM