Flaked Grain handling?

[Jimbo]

I recently bought 2 50lb sacks of steamed rolled barley to make whiskey and beer. I made a pale ale beer first last night with 40% flaked barley to test conversion. I made the beer as usual, but mashed for an extra half hour, 90 min total. Conversion was poor. I usually get 70-75% on my AG beers. 70 when Im not careful, dont stir the mash etc. This time I was careful, stirred, made sure the temp was in range for 90 minutes etc. Is there a trick to getting flaked to convert fully? Maybe grind it up? Im not too concerned for beer, I can throw an extra pound in just as easy. But when I do a 70/30 flaked/malt for a whiskey mash it starts to make a significant difference.

Thanks

[Dnderhead]

where did the rolled barley come from? not all is "cooked"

[Jimbo]

Its this stuff Dnder. Steam Rolled barley. Looks like rolled Oats.

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 6#p7023029

[Dnderhead]

from my understanding there is rolled and flaked..
rolled is just softened and rolled flat
flaked is cooked and rolled flat..
thank of it like "old fashioned oat meal" that needs cooking
and the "instant" that you just add hot water,
Did you use malt with this?

[Jimbo]

Ok the oatmeal comparison makes sense. I'll have to cook this some I guess.

Yes the beer I made had 40% 2 row malt, 40% this rolled barley, and some assorted other goodies, crystal malt, a pound of malted rye, some carapils, standard RyePA recipe I make often. Altho this one was more of a Rye Pale Ale than a RyePA.

http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/r ... 3/rye-pale" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[NcHooch]

I wouldn't think you'd need to outright cook that rolled barley ... after all, regular malt is not cooked and we get 75-85% efficiency with a single step infusion mash, right? I agree we're talkin about a raw grain here and the oatmeal analogy is spot on, but you were mashing for 90 minutes at 150 (?) ...that shoulda got the job done. maybe you've got a grain there that is high in protein and low in carbs, and that had something to do with your efficiency. Maybe a stepped mash woulda helped.

[rtalbigr]

I use steam rolled barley a LOT, it's cheap and works well for all grain whiskeys. It really does benefit from cooking. It's really not at all like flaked grains. Also it really does help to run it through a roller mill. You don't need to grind it just break the hulls, it makes a big difference. I like to get mine up to 190-200F and then let it set there for about 60 minutes.

Unlike flaked grains, steam rolled barley is still the whole grain, it's just been soften and then flattened. The grain hasn't been cooked like in a flaked grain. It similar to the difference in old fashioned oats and quick oats. With quick oats all ya have to do is add hot water, with the old fashioned ya need to cook.

Big R

[Jimbo]

Thanks Big R. Ill run it through the grain mill, and bring the mash water to a boil and toss this in, and let it settle down to 150 before adding the malt. Or do you keep the heat on for the hour you talk about? Also, what % rolled grain to malt have you had success with? Thanks much!

[rtalbigr]

Thanks Big R. Ill run it through the grain mill, and bring the mash water to a boil and toss this in, and let it settle down to 150 before adding the malt. Or do you keep the heat on for the hour you talk about? Also, what % rolled grain to malt have you had success with? Thanks much!

You need to hold temps above 175F for 45-60 minutes giving time for the starches to soften up so they are available to the enzymes. The per cent malted grains you add is up to you, as long as your using enough to get saccrification. You're using all barley so there's no optimal formula. Do some research here on Diastic Power (DP); if you are going to do all grains you need to understand this concept.

Big R

[Jimbo]

You're using all barley so there's no optimal formula. Do some research here on Diastic Power (DP); if you are going to do all grains you need to understand this concept.
Big R

Thanks Big R, yes I understand DP, was just curious what has worked for you. Im gonna go with 5 lbs 2-row (DP134), 15 lbs rolled barley and 1lb rice hulls to help with sparging, ph adjusted mash water and cook the rolled barley for an hour. Thanks for your help, glad I did the experiment with the beer first, phew, there was enough malt in the brew recipe that the beer will turn out fine (altho it will be a damn hoppy pale ale not an IPA as intended LOL) but would have been disappointing if I was doing a larger whiskey mash batch and had that poor conversion.

[rtalbigr]

Thanks Big R, yes I understand DP, was just curious what has worked for you. Im gonna go with 5 lbs 2-row (DP134), 15 lbs rolled barley and 1lb rice hulls to help with sparging, ph adjusted mash water and cook the rolled barley for an hour. Thanks for your help, glad I did the experiment with the beer first, phew, there was enough malt in the brew recipe that the beer will turn out fine (altho it will be a damn hoppy pale ale not an IPA as intended LOL) but would have been disappointing if I was doing a larger whiskey mash batch and had that poor conversion.

Good. A lot here, even some beer brewers, don't know about DP. I really don't have a special grain bill. I tend to go with 35-40 average DP more often than not. But a lot of times it just depends on what I have on hand and how my wallet is doing. The last all barley I did a couple of months ago I actually had an average DP of only 24. I just help it at mash temps a little longer and was able to get 7.5% out of it.

Big R

[Dnderhead]

as far as I know there is no limiting power to enzymes.. DP is a time thing*..so you could in theory convert any amount of grain with any amount of enzymes/malt.this is why some ferment corn "on the grain" corn has a low DP,so it takes a longer to convert or could.so if you use malted corn what did not convert while mashing can during fermenting .you dont want to do this with most grain that has halls as you start extracting tannins.contrary to some using spent grain does not add flavor, it adds tannins and can make you brew bitter.
* there can be circulation problems,depending with the thickness of mash..

[rtalbigr]

as far as I know there is no limiting power to enzymes.. DP is a time thing*..so you could in theory convert any amount of grain with any amount of enzymes/malt.this is why some ferment corn "on the grain" corn has a low DP,so it takes a longer to convert or could.so if you use malted corn what did not convert while mashing can during fermenting .you dont want to do this with most grain that has halls as you start extracting tannins.contrary to some using spent grain does not add flavor, it adds tannins and can make you brew bitter.
* there can be circulation problems,depending with the thickness of mash..

Yes, technically that's correct. Theoretically, you could convert with just one enzyme molecule, it'd just take one hell of a long time. Practically though, there is the time element and eventually enzymes will degrade, heat being the main culprit but also other enzymes and proteins. So, the 30 DP standard is more for practicality than anything else. Deviating below that standard is mostly just knowing that and knowing what to expect.

Big R

[Jimbo]

Alright lads, I made my flaked grain AG Barley mash this weekend. 15 lbs rolled steamed barley and 5 lbs 2 Row malt. (Avg DP 35.3)

I started by grinding the rolled barley a bit in my grain mill with the rollers scooted closer together than a typical malt grind. Barley came out nice, cracked it up some. Then boiled 15 lbs of this for 15 minutes in 10 gallons water, and let it steep with an insulator on the mash barrel, stirring occasionally, about 200 degrees. Hello oatmeal.

Nice grain on my tiger striped maple mash paddle tho eh?

Pulled insulator off and stirred more often to drop temp to 151, dumped in 5 lbs malt and stirred for 5 minutes, it started to thin up pretty quick. I then wrapped a foil keg insulator blanket and a quilt around it and mashed it for 3 hours, stirring every 30 min. It started at 150 degrees and ended at 141.5 after 3 hours. I was hoping with the beautiful St Pauli Girl watching over things the mash would thin out a lot.

No such luck thinning out much, this crap would have nothing to do with sparging in my false bottom mash tun keg. Trying to sparge just gave me slippery slimy goo the consistency of motor oil in the winter.

So I said to hell with it and dumped the whole lot in a barrel, added 2 more gallons water, cooled it to pitch temp with my wort chiller and pitched a huge starter of US-05 (half gallon). We'll see what happens and hopefully I can get the result to strain through a mesh bag. I'll report back in a week. Wish me luck.

[Usge]

Do know about barley, but I use flaked corn almost exclusively for AG. And I find that along with figuring out how much of it vs water you can use before you get glue (we've all done it) pre-malting helps and straining it in a bag is essential to making it work if you want to get anything back at the end. I line my mashtun with a nylon mesh grain bag before I get started...so all I have to do is lift and press it after. The flaked grains (well corn at least) tends to "hold" the sugary wort. Trying to sparge it the water just runs off the side of it. When I first open the spout...I get maybe 2 gals back before it just won't release anymore without pressure. Pressing the bag against the false bottom of my mashtun...the wort pours out and by the end after some work...I get back about 5.25 to 5.5 gals off a starting 6 gal mash. It's worked well for me, but I would not consider using it (flaked corn) without the bag. That's just my experience...other's may differ.

[Jimbo]

Thanks Usge. I have a couple large bags. Ill put them to use as I chew through 80 more lbs of flaked barley I have . I did punch down the head on the fermenting blob yesterday (against better judgement, as I never normally bother a fermenting wort/mash/BarrelOfGoo) cause I wanted o see if it was thinning out. Luckily after only 2 days its very thin under the krausen. Watery thin. Thank god. next weekend Ill scoop it all into bags to strain it out and fire up the still.

[GuyIncognito]

I do basically what you are describing, but with rolled oats instead of barley. They are raw grain (uncooked) so they need cooking before you'll be able to get much conversion with malt/enzymes. I found about 45 min above 200 to be right, but have to stir pretty frequently the whole time to prevent scorching which sucks ass. As Usge said, pre-malting (adding a couple lb of barley malt or some Alpha-amalyse enzyme) while you are rising the temp to 200 helps keep it liquid and stir-able.

When doing 100% rolled oat mashes, it's obviously pointless to sparge and I just ferment the whole glorpy mess. I found it necessary to do punch downs, as the husks from the oats will float above the water line and mold over. I keept Star-San mixed in a spray bottle, so I'll just spray down my Big Spoon before punching down which makes it less of a hassle/worry. When making beer with rolled oats, I've found I can use up to about 30% if I dump in 2 lb of rice hulls and still be able to sparge effectively.

[Jimbo]

.. but have to stir pretty frequently the whole time to prevent scorching which sucks ass.

Laughing my ass off over here. Thanks. Ya that was pretty much my sentiment too when I was cooking this gloop. its on day 5 now and the krausen is gone and the gloop is now very liquidy. I think its about done fermenting. Been punching it down every day or 2. Saturday Ill strain it out and throw it in the still. I tasted some mash, and while a yeasty malty grainy raw mash isint something we're exactly accustomed to eating, it tasted as I would expect, and not at all bad. Id call the whole damn exercise a success, so far, altho I was bewildered a bit during the initial fun, being a beer brewer and not at all used to high non -malt content glue in my mash/wort.

I picked up another 50 lb sack of malt to get through the rest of the 80 lbs of rolled barley and a 50 lb sack of crack corn. My intent here is to do an AG Barley, Corn, Wheat, and Rye separately and do side by sides to see what my taste buds like. Hadnt thought of Oats. Tell me more Incognito. Hows it turn out? Potstill or reflux, single or double run and how do you age it? Thanks

[GuyIncognito]

The results so far have been positive, great smell and very unique oatmeal taste (not really any other way to describe it). I've made about 6 mashes of it and run it through a simple-pot, I've got 1 more mash left bubbling away and then I'm going to rerun all the feints and 80% of the hearts to get the final product. My potstill is only 6 gal, so I gotta do a lot of runs to get where I have enough to really play with. I plan to leave most of it white and probably sweeten a bit of it with honey. A local distillery around here makes an unaged 100% oat whiskey from oat flour which I think has a great flavor. It works better white than the rye or barley whiskey they make, as it is fairly sweet and doesn't seem to have the rough edges of the others.

[Jimbo]

Sounds delicious. Making me thirsty and its only 10AM here. Hell, its noon somewhere in the world right? Im gonna run the barley AG tomorrow, and then do another batch with some backset to help my mash pH. Ill post up results.

You should build a half barrel 15.5 potstill Best thing I did. Its my 3rd still after 2 gallon and 8 gallon ones that were both total PITA.

How much honey do you use?

[Jimbo]

Incognito, you piqued my interest so I hit up Binnys and loaded up on some stuff to try including an Oat based whiskey. Been wanting to do this for a while. I bought an Oat, Wheat, Rye and standard Corn based bourbon and compared all against Jack Daniels and Jamesons.

Im not gonna say a lot since Im not qualified or know all the right words to describe the many flavors, but I'll say a little on my subjective opinion. The Oat is from Koval in Chicago (Lions Pride Dark Oat). The Wheat is from Breuckelen in Brooklyn (New York Wheat 45%). Those 2 were incredible. I may never buy a bottle of Jack again, it was flinty and plain compared to all the others, altho smoother on the swallow than any. The wheat was my favorite, holy shit good, sweet, floral, like vanilla and toffee mixed with juicy fruit gum. That bottle isint gonna last long. The oat was similar but with a distinctive oatmeal nose, candy, grainy, some white dog, very complex, my 2nd favorite. 3rd was the Temptation bourbon (75% corn, 20% rye, 5% barley malt), lots of Oak and a depth that Jack and Jamesons couldnt touch. The Rye was good, crisp as expected, but not a whole lot else going on. I liked it over Jamesons but maybe just because it was different and interesting. Jamesons 5th, Jack came in last, I think you all know what they taste like.

Today I'll strain and distill up the Barley AG in this thread and and then make another batch with the backset to help my mash pH. Next will be Corn based AG, then 3rd Wheat on the priority list since I enjoyed that one so much. Oat will follow then Rye last. My project here is to do AG's based on all the major grains. Thank God for the long Thanksgiving weekend coming up, Ill be busy More soon.

Cheers.

[Jimbo]

Ok, The barley AG is strained and cookin.... Of 15 lbs Rolled Barley, 5 lbs 2 row malt and 12 gallons water I strained and squeezed out 10.25 gallons of 1.002 for the boiler after a week fermenting.

After I strained and squeezed it through a mesh bag I poured it through a paint strainer that sits in the top of a bucket. Damn handy these things.

All set up and cookin...

Running, into the hearts now, tasting fine. I think Ill keep a quart of this on oak and cycle the rest as feints into the next batch.

Cheers!

[GuyIncognito]

I've not had Koval's, but the local Oat whiskey I was referring to is made by people who took the distilling training course at Koval and use that method so I bet they are more similar than different. I'm not a big fan of rye whiskies typically, I find them to be overly astringent and straightforward tasting.

I've done/am doing basically what you are planning, and have completed sample batches of corn (malted and unmalted), oat, rice, rye (malted), and barley (munich malt, pale malt, and 6-row). The oat is the last one still in process, I'd like to do wheat as well but will probably smoke it (basically making a gratzer and distilling it). Oat, rice, and non-malted corn were done with an enzyme/cooking method. Rye, barley, and malted corn were done with beer mashing procedure.

I found malted corn to be exceedingly mild but very pleasant, light and smooth and sippable after minimal oaking. Malted corn has more corn aroma which I like but some people who tried it didn't.

The rye is still mellowing (been on various flavors of oak cubes for about 18 months), it is very sharp tasting and feels hotter than it is. For me rye doesn't work as a stand-alone grain and needs something else to broaden the flavors.

Rice tasted much more like vodka, not a ton of flavor besides ethanol. It's going to be used as a base for gin or absinthe or something. I've made rice spirits with koji (like shochu) which had a lot more flavor and aroma, but not many people like shochu I am finding out...

Barley malt is barley malt, sort of a bench mark flavor that I judge the other grains against. I didn't think munich malt would be exceedingly different from pale/6-row, but I liked the results and they have taken to oak better.

I'm excited to hear your results!

[Jimbo]

Awesome incognito! Im sitting here watching the tails run and sipping my quart of hearts LOL, its freakin good! Might not make it on oak for long LOL.

I agree on rye. From limited tasting, its just sharp with little flavor. I was hoping to see more spice like everyone writes about. Oh well. That Breukelen wheat is insane, you should try a bottle. I cant even tell you how good it is, its crazy.

From what youve said and what I tasted I might skip the rye. I have a shitton of rolled barley, cracked corn and 2 row to get through, then Ill pick up a bag of wheat malt. I gotta try and duplicate this Breuckelen 77 New York Wheat, its jsut too damn good. And only 222 days old, marked on the bottle, and the darkest whiskey in the bunch, crazy. Not sure how he pulled that off. Maybe stuffed the barrels with oak sticks too? haha,

I did a similar experiment with different malts for beer, and Munich rose to the top. Even as a base malt for IPA's haha, I love it, really great flavor.

[Jimbo]

Tonight I did a cracked corn AG mash. It went really smooth. A lot easier than working with super sticky rolled barley. For $11 a bag for cracked corn this could become a regular for me.

The quantities below worked out perfect for a 15.5 gallon keggle. I wont change a thing next time. the level was about 2 inches from the cut off top. I expect 10 gallons wash at 1.068, about 6.5%. In a stripping run this weekend it will give me 1.5 gallons at 40%, ish.

16.6 lbs cracked corn (1/3 bag), 12 gallons water, 5 lbs 2 row, 2 tsp gypsum, 2 quarts backset from a barley AG I did 2 days ago. I have ziplocks with 2 quarts backset each frozen now for doing these AG mashes (to lower the pH).

* I brought the 12 gallons water, gypsum and backset to a boil.
* Added the corn and stirred constantly until it returned to a boil. Then shut off the heat. Done for now, went upstairs to watch TV and have a beer, going downstairs every 30 min or so to stir the goo.
* After 3 hours I used a wort chiller to finish dropping the thick gelatinized corn to 149. Damn it smells good, like corn bread. Then I slowly added the 5 lbs malt, stirring constantly to avoid clumping.
*wrapped it up tight with a quilt blanket, and let it sit. It settled at 148. Done for tonight. Ill stir a couple times but then going to bed. Tomorrow morning Ill pitch the yeast.

Thats it. Simple.

Cheers.

[Usge]

What was your actual measured (not estimated) OG (SG)?

[Jimbo]

Not as good as I'd hoped, 1048 this morning when I pitched the yeast. But the mess is pretty watery with 12.5 gallons liquid in there (water and backset). I think Ill change that part, its a bit thin, I calculated 1068 for 10 gallons with that grain bill. Ill see what I can strain/squeeze out next weekend, but I think a gallon less of water would better. For the rolled barley tho, good christ glue, need that much water.

[Usge]

...I'm not a big fan of rye whiskies typically, I find them to be overly astringent and straightforward tasting. !

If you can find it...try Sazerac Rye. Just the standard one (not the fancy limited editions, etc). It's not at all like you describe. It's like candy. And it's addictive!

[Jimbo]

...I'm not a big fan of rye whiskies typically, I find them to be overly astringent and straightforward tasting. !

If you can find it...try Sazerac Rye. Just the standard one (not the fancy limited editions, etc). It's not at all like you describe. It's like candy. And it's addictive!

Thanks Ill try that. A friend says Templeton is good too, had that one?

[Usge]

Not as good as I'd hoped, 1048 this morning when I pitched the yeast. But the mess is pretty watery with 12.5 gallons liquid in there (water and backset). I think Ill change that part, its a bit thin, I calculated 1068 for 10 gallons with that grain bill. Ill see what I can strain/squeeze out next weekend, but I think a gallon less of water would better. For the rolled barley tho, good christ glue, need that much water.

That pretty much mirrors my best experience using cracked corn as well (1.040-1.050). I find getting over that increasingly difficult. But, I keep trying .

No haven't had templeton...they were always out. I've had Bulleit Rye. It wasn't too bad. But, did have a bit more spice/tannic note than the Sazerac. I've had other single barrel, etc...$$$ ryes...and thought they were all too sharp, headsy. I had a Rye that was gov bonded that was supposed to be good and also thought it was sharp. You just have to find the Sazerac. It's one of my favorites to keep around for sippin.

Pappy Van Winkles Rye is supposed to be superb also....but it's very pricey.