Need help - Non-sugar wash with feed store ingredients only

[BrewVegas]

So, I've got a few sugar washes and molasses washes under my belt and want to try all grain only, non sugar wash.

I have the following ingredients from a feed store: cracked corn, whole oats, whole barley and dried molasses. I was going to make my own version of sweetfeed, but need help with the the SG. I know it's difficult to get fermentables from cracked corn and the barley and oats are unmalted...so, I'm kind of stuck.

As a test, I took 4 parts (16 cups) cracked corn, boiled for 90 minutes, then in a different pot (didn't have the space with the cracked corn) separately heated 1 part (4 cups) barley, 1 part oats and 1 part dried molasses at 154 degrees for 60 minutes with 2 tsp of amylase. Then I added it all in a bucket and added water to 5 gallons at 154 degrees. The next morning, the resulting SG is 1.020 (approx 5%?). Is this the best I can expect without adding sugar? How can I extract more fermentables from any of these ingredients? Also, I don't want to buy malted 2 or 6-row, I'd like to make something with what I have on hand, if possible.

Thanks!

[Uncle Artie]

Have you considered malting some of your corn and using that?

[BrewVegas]

It's already cracked, but could possible malt the barley...but, I'd rather not go down that road just yet. I also read to not attempt to malt the oats (or rye, if I had any). I was thinking maybe my problem was that it wasn't all mashed together (with the corn) in the pot, but the temp did hold when they were all combined in the bucket.

[bentstick]

Need some malt, try malting the barley, or buy some!

[astronomical]

Need some malt, try malting the barley, or buy some!

Why wouldnt store bought enzymes be sufficient?

[Uncle Artie]

Well they don't taste as good in the finished product. In regards to this question though, he's trying to use what he has on hand.

[heartcut]

Most all living seeds produce the enzymes to turn their starch into sugar- barley get's made into malt more often because it makes a lot of extra enzymes. You'll need to convert the starch in grain with enzymes from somewhere, if you're doing it with what you have on hand you'll probably need to learn to produce malted something.

[Prairiepiss]

So, I've got a few sugar washes and molasses washes under my belt and want to try all grain only, non sugar wash.

I have the following ingredients from a feed store: cracked corn, whole oats, whole barley and dried molasses. I was going to make my own version of sweetfeed, but need help with the the SG. I know it's difficult to get fermentables from cracked corn and the barley and oats are unmalted...so, I'm kind of stuck.

As a test, I took 4 parts (16 cups) cracked corn, boiled for 90 minutes, then in a different pot (didn't have the space with the cracked corn) separately heated 1 part (4 cups) barley, 1 part oats and 1 part dried molasses at 154 degrees for 60 minutes with 2 tsp of amylase. Then I added it all in a bucket and added water to 5 gallons at 154 degrees. The next morning, the resulting SG is 1.020 (approx 5%?). Is this the best I can expect without adding sugar? How can I extract more fermentables from any of these ingredients? Also, I don't want to buy malted 2 or 6-row, I'd like to make something with what I have on hand, if possible.

Thanks!

So did you add all the grain together before you added the amylase? Most of the time when figuring grain bills and such weight is used. Them is some good reading on the parent site for grain mashing.
http://homedistiller.org/grain/wash-grain" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[bentstick]

Need some malt, try malting the barley, or buy some!

Why wouldnt store bought enzymes be sufficient?

It would he wanted to use what he had!
I bought 50# of malted barley about 42.00 ( base malt) dont know all types or differences just learnin from a AG beer brewer.

[NcHooch]

So, I've got a few sugar washes and molasses washes under my belt and want to try all grain only, non sugar wash.

I have the following ingredients from a feed store: cracked corn, whole oats, whole barley and dried molasses. I was going to make my own version of sweetfeed, but need help with the the SG. I know it's difficult to get fermentables from cracked corn and the barley and oats are unmalted...so, I'm kind of stuck.

As a test, I took 4 parts (16 cups) cracked corn, boiled for 90 minutes, then in a different pot (didn't have the space with the cracked corn) separately heated 1 part (4 cups) barley, 1 part oats and 1 part dried molasses at 154 degrees for 60 minutes with 2 tsp of amylase. Then I added it all in a bucket and added water to 5 gallons at 154 degrees. The next morning, the resulting SG is 1.020 (approx 5%?). Is this the best I can expect without adding sugar? How can I extract more fermentables from any of these ingredients? Also, I don't want to buy malted 2 or 6-row, I'd like to make something with what I have on hand, if possible.
Thanks!

Sounds like you have some powdered enzyme on hand, so I'd prolly suggest something like this...
crush the barley and oats.
boil the cracked corn, barley, oats and molasses, i get good results with the 130-wait30-165-wait30-200-wait30 method , and I'd recommend you do this too in order to break up the proteins in the oats , you'll prolly need to do some pre-malting to thin it out during the cook.
let cool , or add enough water until 145
Add the enzymes and mash until the starch is gone.

'course the other variation is 4 parts molasses to 1 part corn, 1 part barley, 1 part oats....that should get your gravity up

also, check that hydrometer again, 1.02 doesn't indicate 5% on any of my hydrometers
hope that helps

[BrewVegas]

boil the cracked corn, barley, oats and molasses

what is your suggested corn to barley/oats/molasses ratio...4:1? without leaning on the molasses

some pre-malting to thin it out during the cook

Can you explain this, pls...Is this traditional malting of the barley, which I am trying to avoid?

I will try your method of step mashing 130 to 165 to 200 with 30 min intervals, sounds good to me. I would also like to try it without any of the molasses, too.

Thanks!

[NcHooch]

I think your existing 4:1:1:1 ratio was fine, but it seems like you didn't get much conversion, you're going to need some decent diastic power to convert all that starch to sugar, so keep that in mind.

If you've ever boiled a batch of cracked corn, you know how thick it gets once it gets to the gel point.
Pre-malting is adding enzymes or malted barley to the corn when it gets to that point for the sole purpose of thinning the corn out. It breaks up starch chains and loosens the corn up so you can stir it.

[BrewVegas]

Yes, the cracked corn did get REALLY thick! I will definitely add the enzymes to the cracked corn during the boil. Last time I added it to the bucket when all the ingredients were mixed together and at 154 degrees. This clearly didn't give it enought time to work.

On a side note, I decided to malt some of the barley I had on hand. I didn't realize you could use it green and don't have to mess around with drying it. This seems a little easier to me so I'm giving it a try. I will still try the route with amylase only, as per the original question in this thread.

I remembered that I had some trays for growing wheat grass (it sucked...don't try it ) and they work perfect for malting. There is a tray with holes that sits inside a try with no holes. I just lift it out of the water and repeat the cycle. Each tray has 4-5 cups of whole barley and about half a gallon of water.

Soaking in water

top tray with holes sitting on top of bottom tray with water

barley before sprouting

So, far I soaked them in water before going to bed, then I took them out before going to work, then soaked them last night before going to bed and took them out this morning and started to see little sprouts. I'll post pictures when I get back home.

[Uncle Artie]

Nice setup. Let us see how it turns out.

[Prairiepiss]

Those trays would have been nice when I was malting my wheat. Those are nice. I'm gona give the Dnderhead 2 bucket method a try next time. Same principal as yours just using buckets. I'm still sitting on 5 lbs of malted wheat. It's waiting for me to get moved and finish my grain mill. So I can mash it up.

Good luck. Let us know how it works out for you.

[BrewVegas]

Here is what it looks like this morning. You can see the chits now. I think this is 3 days worth of in/out of soaking. Before I left for work I put them back in the water. Now, do I remove them from the water and keep them damp to finish germination until the sprouts are the length of the grain?

[BrewVegas]

NcHooch, now that I'll have some malted barley handy, when do you suggest I add it to your 130, 165, 200 method? Also I should probably bump up the barley to 20% of the grain bill, right? I will try the same method with and without the malted barley to compare results.

[BrewVegas]

Here is a picture from this morning. The trays were left out of the water overnight. I now transfered them to a pillow case this morning and it is sitting on a wire shelving rack. This will help air dry them from both sides. The pillow case is now 3-4 inches thick. Also, I started out with 2lbs of dry barley in each tray. It looks like the sprouts are long enough to stop germenation. I'll probably put the bag outside to dry out more, but need to hide it from the dog!

[Uncle Artie]

Lookin good. Let us know how it ends up working in your mash.

[BrewVegas]

Alright, I have 6 lbs of malted barley that I want to use in a mash with Corn and Oats. I'm going to hold off on the dried molasses for now. Any suggestions for my new ratio? I have enough space to mash in a half barrel keg and ferment in two 6 gallon buckets. I'm still going to use NcHooch's 130-165-200 degree for 30 min intervals mash method.

The PPG for flaked corn is 33. Does anybody know what the PPG would be for cracked corn? I'm also assuming that the barley I malted would have a similar to 2-row pale at 32 PPG. Then I need to figure of the PPG of unmated oats, too. Flaked oatmeal is 28 PPG, is that close to unmated oats?