on the road to AG

[WooTeck]

following on from my equipment upgrade New equipment, AG is my destination . I'm on my way.

the recipe Ive put together on brewers friend is:
40l of fine Scottish water
7.5kg flaked corn
3kg rye
2kg 2row pale
with 500g of rice hulls

@100% brew efficiency it should work out at 10.06% abv
or
@ 75% brew efficiency it should work out at 7.55% abv

]BigR has a stepped corn cooking method that works really well (heat to 130F pause 30mins, heat to 165F, pause 30mins, heat to 200F, pause 30mins. Done.

following this method for the mashing of the corn.
*adjust temps as necessary for your own equipment.
all the corn in the tub. add 22.5l @60°C
mash @54°C
drain off as much as possible in my case +-10l add 10l and bring to 76°C
mash @74°C
drain off 17.5l add 4.5l bring to ??°C
mash @93°C
add 3l of cold water
then bang in the barley @64°C and the rye @60°C.
ill be adding in Amylase in the grand hope for 100% brew efficiency.
going to leave it over night to let the grain fizzle out and add yeast in the morning.

*note* i skipped the 93°C mash because of work commitments. fucking work lesson learned don't start if you don't have an excess of free time. going to let the corn soak for 24h

7.5kg of flaked corn and ?g of rice hulls

40l of watter in with the corn.

will update as i progress

eck

[hellbilly007]

You should be good skipping the 93*C step, as your flaked corn has already been cooked.

Are you draining off due to your brewing vessel size? It seems you're losing some of the corn's starches for the conversion doing so. I'd suggest using a larger vessel. *Edit- Are you heating what you drained and adding that back or replacing what you drained hot water?

All in all, you should still end up with a good product. Perhaps just a lower SG then calculated. Speaking of SG, be sure to record yours, I'd like to know how this turns out with this method. Thanks for sharing.

[SoMo]

Dude that's confusing, but good luck AG's are a breeze once you finger it all out, you might try using a large cooler as a mash tun. Let us know how she goes.

Edit: was the steep and drain do to low volume capacity in your mashing vessel, using flaked grains everything but the malt could have been hit with boiling or close water then cooled to mashing temps, with chiller or stirring and a fan.

[WooTeck]

the steep and drain is because i only have enough capacity to boil about 25l at a time and the end goal is 40l the vessel is 60l.
every thing that comes out of the tun goes back in.

wish i had thought about it being flaked yesterday would have saved me some time

eck

[SoMo]

You probably got every bit out of it could, some times we overlook the obvious in trying to get it all right.

[frunobulax]

You should shoot for 70% efficiency, and if the OG is too high, you can water it down and just have more product. Once you get your process dialed in you'll know what to expect each time you use different grains. 100% eff. is grandiose and impossible to hit.

[SoMo]

Here's a chart for whole grain gel temp, flaked just needs 160-170*f to gel and bring down to mash temp.

[Halfbaked]

Wootec yea that method takes a long time and heating on grains you run a risk of scorch. Give this a read, it does the same thing with zeor chance of scorch and lots easier. http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 14&t=48126

[WooTeck]

You should shoot for 70% efficiency, and if the OG is too high, you can water it down and just have more product. Once you get your process dialed in you'll know what to expect each time you use different grains. 100% eff. is grandiose and impossible to hit.

I do realise that’s its a ridiculous hope but I figure if it works out lower then the yeasties wont get stressed in the same way as if it was the other way around. 7% would do fine .

Here's a chart for whole grain gel temp, flaked just needs 160-170*f to gel and bring down to mash temp.

Ive been using this one.

Wootec yea that method takes a long time and heating on grains you run a risk of scorch. Give this a read, it does the same thing with zeor chance of scorch and lots easier. http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 14&t=48126

Ive skim read that in the past. that’s kind of the method I went for in the end left it wrapped through out the night and for the foreseeable next 3 hours. Going to get the rye and barley in after work. ill reiterate a point from earlier... fucking work

eck

[WooTeck]

Due to some compactions I only managed to get the mashing done last night. The stuff is solo thick. I put my spoon in try and stir and it looks like a seen from sward in the stone. its more solid than liquid. Is this a problem? And how would you go about fixing it? Think ill just have to add more water

[SoMo]

Due to some compactions I only managed to get the mashing done last night. The stuff is solo thick. I put my spoon in try and stir and it looks like a seen from sward in the stone. its more solid than liquid. Is this a problem? And how would you go about fixing it? Think ill just have to add more water

Have you added your malt yet? If not you've got to get the mess back up to mashing temp. Hear and add water or heat the whole mess some how.

[WooTeck]

yeh the mash has been done found it really hard to get a SG. Not sure if it’s an accurate one. Couldn’t keep the rice hulls out and the drain tap was being shit. it came in at 1.043. Next time I know what ill be fixing in the production.
Have a photo ill post later


eck.

[SoMo]

Did the yeast start?

[WooTeck]

haven’t checked it yet. had to go to work this morning and was running late so couldn’t look every thing ive done so far has always fired up fine.

[WooTeck]

yeah started up and going fine. on other my other front a gumball i started a short while ago from spent ale grain is done

eck

[WooTeck]

running my sugarhead. its coming through tasty and burning a beautiful blue no beard. only thing is that in the jars with product have a slight film on them. so pleased first thing ive had with delicious drips

eck

[DAD300]

+1 on those that said you don't have top cook flaked grains.

With flaked grains I heat water to 200F / 93C, turn of heat. Mix in grain, mix occasionally and wait for it to cool to next required temp.

[Jimbo]

hell I do that for corn too. Except maybe closer to 210, and wrap a big ass old quilt to hold temp for 3 hours. works fine to gelatinize even stuborn ass corn.

In other words I dont 'cook' anything. In the strict sense of cooking grains over fire.

[DAD300]

+1 Jimbo...You can't scorch it if the flames out!

[WooTeck]

ok, i was planing on squeegeeing out the grain from this batch today. haven't touched the ferment since i loaded it with yeast last week end. its still bubbling up from the bottom (where most of the corn is) and has a sg of 1.020. the corn has mostly passed the vomit smell that i was enduring early/mid week.

if you leave it to ferment out dry 5-7 days the yeast will add more fruityness (a good thing). Commercial distillers would like to do this but dont have the time, for economical reasons. Some push to 60+ hours to try and get more fruit. We do have the time But watch it and dont let it go longer than 7 days ever. The corn was pastuerized, the 8 lbs malt not, so the bugs will take off on you and feed on the yeast autolyses products and youll risk ruining a batch of nice bourbon fixens.

my issue is when should i squeeze it out as tomorrow is day 7 should i just leave it and attack it tomorrow(sat) would it be ok to let it go till Sunday/Monday to try get more the sugars fermented? i have taken a sample of just liquid and put a balloon over the top with the theory that it should blow up.

side note has a wee sip smells interesting tastes good, real sour but good.

eck

[Jimbo]

If youre at 1020 at 7days and its still bubblin give another 2-3 days

[WooTeck]

much appreciated jimbo. thanks for weighing in here.

eck

[WooTeck]

down to 1.018 added some fresh yeast in the hopes that it may be able to convert some more sugar.

eck

[WooTeck]

finished off squeezing the grain. sitting back and sipping an older run. getting ready to fire up a sugarhead. life is good