Home Malting with couple of pics

[The Baker]

Geoff,

Okay, so you've now ruined dessert wines from now on! It's like the time I went to a rather famous restaurant near here and had something especially "chewy". When I checked, it was a used band-aid with a blood spot on it. Needless to say, never eaten there again. I don't even want to go look that up!

That's why in our bakery we used the prescribed brilliant blue band-aids!

Geoff

[Swedish Pride]

Indeed: thank you zapata, for your factual information.
I wanted to know if the poison would come over with the distillate, but that is not necessary anymore.

I would still like to know if it comes over, I don't eyeball my grain before i grind it up

[MichiganCornhusker]

Ergot is pretty hard to miss. It grows in place of a seed on the plant and looks to be larger than a seed.
Also dark colored. It would be obvious in a pile of rye grain unless already ground up in it.

[Swedish Pride]

yeah, fair point, but only of there are lots of it in there, if the're just a handfull in a sack I'd miss em.

what is the limit to how many you can consume before you start to leave fingers everywhere?

[HDNB]

Next will be a rye. I will make pictures of it.

Just a heads up...from everything I've read, DON'T SPROUT YOUR OWN RYE. There is a good chance of it having ergot spores...this is the last thing you want growing on you grains...very very dangerous!

+++ There are stories that all the events surrounding the Salem Witch Trials were caused by moldy rye -- a very rainy wet cold year or two around that time and place and the grain was contaminated.

Use another grain to get your malt and then use that to convert fresh rye.

.

malt rye and cereal rye taste totally different in the bottle.

[gsugg]

SP,
I certainly have no authority on this subject and my info is just based on what I saw growing up on the farm. Everybody probably needs to check with their supplier if they're worried. I wouldn't want anybody to have problems that could have been avoided.

Gsugg

-------------------One year I had a disc that ruptured in my neck. My family MD correctly diagnosed it. I was worried though that it might be a tumor. He told me, "If you've got a tumor big enough to cause that kind of problem, you won't have to ask!". I've had 4 more rupture since then, and without a doubt, in the case of discs, he was spot on!!

[zapata]

From:
http://jfoodprotection.org/doi/abs/10.4 ... =fopr-site" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Additionally, the various mycotoxins that have been studied possess wide differences in stability. For example, during the making of bread from wheat flour, up to 100% of ergot alkaloids are destroyed, whereas vomitoxin is stable

Makes me think not. If it's unlikely to survive baking, seems even less likely to survive mashing, boiling, even boiling twice...
If you read the full article, it says breadmaking destroys up to 85% of the ergot in rye bread.

How much would it take to hurt you?
Just using some hand wavey assumptions, ergot sclerotia are 2% alkaloid (max), and a typical toxic dose is 15 mg.
https://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/ ... DOCNO+4076" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Ok, so I'm gonna wave my hand and just say that mashing and distilling is the same 85% destructive as baking. So to get 15mg it would take 5 grams of ergot sclerotia, per serving. But thats if it came over at all. It's a fair guideline for say making bread or drinking mash. 5 grams of ergot per rye bun.

But, ergotamine is an alkaloid, so at universally acidic wash ph it will be in salt form (just wave your hand if you want to quible about pka etc). Ergotamine salts are virtually insoluble in water, and only moderately soluble in pure alcohols (eg 1:300 for the tartrate salt in ethanol). They have high melting points, typically with decomposition before even melting much less boiling. All of which make it a very unlikely suspect for steam distillation. I'd say practically no ergotamine will distill over.

So it's heat liable, insoluble, and not volatile. Pretty much 0% risk. Don't eat bread or drink beer/wash/backset made with more than 5 grams ergot per serving. But I can't imagine not seeing 5 grams of dried fungus in a pound or 2 of grain. Picture a small handful of black/purple horns in a pound of grain, you'd see it for sure.

I couldnt find any info on ergotamine freebase, so if you are somehow distilling a very basic wash, all bets are off on maybe being able to distill ergotamine. But come on, you guys know what happens if you distill a very basic wash, you aint gonna do that on accident either.

[Pikey]

Thank you for a class lecture there zappy

I feel you have grasped the essence of the situation there - What we seem to be saying is "don't worry about it ...". Since there don't seem to be any records of ergot poisoning by spirit consumption, that rule of thumb seems to work.

So perhaps - "don't deliberately pick ergot infected grain to malt, but let's not get over defensive about it either !"

Notably, there don't seem to be any in bread consumption either.

[Swedish Pride]

From:
http://jfoodprotection.org/doi/abs/10.4 ... =fopr-site" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Additionally, the various mycotoxins that have been studied possess wide differences in stability. For example, during the making of bread from wheat flour, up to 100% of ergot alkaloids are destroyed, whereas vomitoxin is stable

Makes me think not. If it's unlikely to survive baking, seems even less likely to survive mashing, boiling, even boiling twice...
If you read the full article, it says breadmaking destroys up to 85% of the ergot in rye bread.

How much would it take to hurt you?
Just using some hand wavey assumptions, ergot sclerotia are 2% alkaloid (max), and a typical toxic dose is 15 mg.
https://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/ ... DOCNO+4076" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Ok, so I'm gonna wave my hand and just say that mashing and distilling is the same 85% destructive as baking. So to get 15mg it would take 5 grams of ergot sclerotia, per serving. But thats if it came over at all. It's a fair guideline for say making bread or drinking mash. 5 grams of ergot per rye bun.

But, ergotamine is an alkaloid, so at universally acidic wash ph it will be in salt form (just wave your hand if you want to quible about pka etc). Ergotamine salts are virtually insoluble in water, and only moderately soluble in pure alcohols (eg 1:300 for the tartrate salt in ethanol). They have high melting points, typically with decomposition before even melting much less boiling. All of which make it a very unlikely suspect for steam distillation. I'd say practically no ergotamine will distill over.

So it's heat liable, insoluble, and not volatile. Pretty much 0% risk. Don't eat bread or drink beer/wash/backset made with more than 5 grams ergot per serving. But I can't imagine not seeing 5 grams of dried fungus in a pound or 2 of grain. Picture a small handful of black/purple horns in a pound of grain, you'd see it for sure.

I couldnt find any info on ergotamine freebase, so if you are somehow distilling a very basic wash, all bets are off on maybe being able to distill ergotamine. But come on, you guys know what happens if you distill a very basic wash, you aint gonna do that on accident either.

wow, that is soem awesome , info, Thank you so much for this.
very interestign stuff

[MichiganCornhusker]

Michigan,

I do the same with the oven, only I do about 180 for an hour. I agree with you it helps develop flavor. But I don't like to go so long that it starts caramelizing. Plus, I don't want to lose any enzymes to the heat.

I do the oven heating/drying mostly for flavor, and it also makes grinding up the grain easier the drier it gets.

I understand about using lower temps to avoid denaturing the enzymes. Do you have good results maintaining good DP by keeping temps at 180F?
I stop at 200F because I don't want to intentionally add too much of a toasted or caramel taste.

I've also done some toasting and roasting at higher temps with home malts and they definitely change the character of the whiskeys, even when using relatively small proportions of the homemade "specialty" grains.
Toasted wheat malt adds a nice nutty flavor, as well as a perceived wheaty sweetness. Roasted corn malt really amplifies the corn and caramel flavors.

[gsugg]

Bump to this very old thread because of new trials working for me on malting corn.

I grew up on a farm growing lots of corn and soybeans. It's always amazed me at how hard it can be to malt corn when it's so easy when planted in the ground. I've started ordering 50 lb bags of white whole corn from Honeyville, rather than using deer corn from TS or Agrisupply, etc. Using hydrogen peroxide diluted to 1%, I soak my white corn for 12 hours; then drain for 12 hours. Repeat this one more time. (Only exception to this is if there are no chits by the end of the 2nd cycle; in which case I'd do a 3rd.) Almost always, by the time it comes out of the second 24 hour cycle, I have many small chits. On subsequent days, I "soak", not rinse the corn for about 30 minutes in the 1% hydro solution. Immediately drain it and after it is drained, spread it out about 2 inches deep in a homemade screen tray. Stir it every 6 hours very gently. This once per day soak in the peroxide is done each day until the root is about 1/2 inch long on average. It's ready for drying and removing rootlets several days to a week later. The exact time it takes depends on how developed I want it and what temperature I'm malting at. I usually shoot for 70 to 74 degrees F since that's closer to what it sees in the ground when planted in NC. The cooler temps have also done a lot I think to suppress the mold.

So far, my molding problems have gone away completely; with somewhere close to 90% germination. I don't know if it will, but I hope this helps somebody. I know I fought with the molding problem for a long time.

Greg