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Came across this the other day at a beer brewing forum, thought it might be of interest here as well.

Thanks for the chart FW.

Great chart. I will use this baby!

Thanks man this helps a ton!

Great!

I was just about to search for this.

I'm wondering what is the meaning of the asterisks alongside several items.

I can't believe Rye only needs 142F. Does anyone know how long you have to hold these temps to achieve gelatinization? The standard hour or hour and a half?

i found at temps given ,grain will gelatinize but it takes an exstended time.

Could u effectively use one temp for all grain types? Say 180F or so...

For barley and oats that temp would be ok, they're both fairly easy to get them to gel. I don't know about wheat, haven't used any except malted. With corn it's really tough, ya pretty much have to boil it for a good while, or use steam injection, at least 30-45 minutes, often longer, to get the starch to gel out.

Big R

Mashy wrote:Could u effectively use one temp for all grain types? Say 180F or so...

No. Lets say your doing a oat or unmalted barley whiskey and the hulls are still with the grain. A temp of over 170f will extract a lot of tanning from the hulls and will give you a harsh taste. If your using a high ratio of grain with hulls you don't want to go much past 170f.

If your cooking up say a bourbon that's say 60% corn 20% rye or wheat, or whatever then ya cook the hell out of it.

if i was to do corn /rye ,id cook the hell out of the corn,then add the rye
and cook some more.

Geez, ya, RD"S got it, don't know what I was thinkin', just didn't think about the tannins, and I'm always so careful with my sparge h20 temps because of the tannins. W/ barley/ oats ya really don't need to go much more that 150-160, they gel really easy but corn ya gotta really cook.

Big R

RD and Dndr,

Thanks for the reply. Yes, if was distilling anything but water it would be bourbon so that's probably why the high temps stuck in my head. Got the organic cracked corn now just have to wait for the cereal rye to hit the feed store. $30 for 55lbs when they come in July. I do know to add the malt around 150 so you don't kill the enzymes. I made a couple all grains but cheated and used flaked grain so all I had to do was raise temp to around 165 shut her off and dump grains basically. However the flaked grain seemed to soak up damn near half my water and getting that water out of there was a huge pain in the ass. Like squeezing a bag of cream of wheat.

Just got 56 pounds of rye for $15 w/tax.

I am really confused about preparing corn for fermentation. First off, I don't know what 'gelatination' means.

Second, when I cook corn according to the instructions given by Dixie Drifter and Hawke, all I get is a mass of cooked corn --- no wort. What do I do, add more water? 12 quarts of water for 10# of corn, plus 3 quarts after adding PH buffer gives me a rock!

How can you find the SG of such thick stuff? I added 6 more quarts of water and still couldn't squeeze out a half gallon of juice.

Cal Smith

Sorry I don't know how Dixie and Hawke do it but I've never managed to good with cooking corn. You're doing 3.3 pounds of corn per gallon of water? Maybe cut the corn amount in half and use some malt while you're bringing it up to boil. This helps to keep the corn/water fluid. When I used to do corn, I always flew from the seat of my pants. I would also have a pot of boiling water and add a ladle or two to the cooking corn whenever it got too thick. It also keeps the corn mixture loose and also brings up the temp. Others will be more helpful.

""all I get is a mass of cooked corn ""
having fun yet??? use 1-2 lb of corn to the gallon of water,, after cooking grains you need to convert,,that is adding enzymes,usually 20% malted barley grain.
this is done at 140-150f /60-66c..
when cooking it helps to add some enzymes/malt..this helps from getting thick and burning.

So would you say adding enough water to end up with 50% liquid on top of the grain a reasonable target?

add about 2 gallons water,,more wont heart for your first time..

Many thanks. This isn't any easy hobby to master. I've been reading as many Dndrhead posts as I can.

I've been reading as many Dndrhead posts as I can.

Good idea. You're gonna be a good while at the screen

Holy Cow! An overdose of Amaylase and PH stabilizer brought all the liquid back!

cals wrote:Holy Cow! An overdose of Amaylase and PH stabilizer brought all the liquid back!

It's Magic! Ya, it always amazes me as well.

Big R

cals wrote:Many thanks. This isn't any easy hobby to master. I've been reading as many Dndrhead posts as I can.

I haven't read where this is easy...

Sounds like you're working things out... Keep us posted...

It has been my experience with micronized flaked barley that it does not gelatinize completely at mashing temperatures.

According to this reference* barley starch gelatinizes over two different temperature ranges. The larger starch granules gelatinize first at 59–62°C and the smaller granules gelatinize around 71°C.

*Goode, D. L., Rapp, L., Schober, T. J., Ulmer, H. M., and Arendt, E. K. (2005). Development of a new rheological laboratory method for mash systems—Its application in the characterization of grain modification levels. J. Am. Soc. Brew. Chem. 63:76-86.

I've been using about 1.70 lbs of corn in my mash before adding malts. The cracked feed grade corn gives a very low yield and I end up with about 3% abv. I'm going to up the ratio sone to see if it helps.

your doing something wrong.as 1 lb per.gallon should give you 3% most likely in the cooking.

Horse_Shoe, ya gotta cook the hell outa corn. It's a real pain in the ass. Pre-soak it over night, or even 24 hrs, before cooking. Jake-leg says soaking in backset helps loosen things up, but ya still gotta cook it really good.

Big R

rtalbigr wrote:Horse_Shoe, ya gotta cook the hell outa corn. It's a real pain in the ass. Pre-soak it over night, or even 24 hrs, before cooking. Jake-leg says soaking in backset helps loosen things up, but ya still gotta cook it really good.

Big R

When you say "really good" do you mean boil it for a while then hold at over 200*F? How long would you say "really good" takes?

its not that it takes a high temperature to "cook" corn but its a "hard" grain.this makes it hard to brake up to git to starches.
this can be done with boiling,,extended cooking (at 180f) or grinding fine.each has its benefits and drawbacks.