Flaked corn!

[Dancing4dan]

Have been using agricultural feed grade cracked corn so far. Its a lot of work and time to get good conversion.

Its pretty pricey stuff here in the North but I bought 50 pound bag. Flaked corn could easily be worth the extra $. A test of 4 cups boiling water and 1 cup flaked corn as a test this morning.... became breakfast!

Damn! does flaked corn ever behave differently than cracked corn! Gelatinized very fast and became super thick.

Really looking forward to giving this a try.

[6 Row Joe]

I tried some flaked corn and had issues. Yes it turned to muck and I never did get it under control. I think I will try again with less. I only had 5#/5 gal. though.

[Magic]

as far my understanding flaked corn has already been cooked so no need to add boiling water. but then again im still learning so i could be wrong

[Dancing4dan]

Muck. Yeah I’m a little nervous about the muck. Because it can be so difficult to strain I will try BIAB and ferment on grain. Malted barley AND Milehigh enzymes to break down the starch. Rice hulls may also be in the plan.

My first large BIAB with corn was a huge amount of work because it would not strain out at all. Hoping this goes better.

[MartinCash]

Gelatinized very fast and became super thick.

Flaked corn is already gelatinised. You should be able to mash it without any boiling.

[Dancing4dan]

Gelatinized very fast and became super thick.

Flaked corn is already gelatinised. You should be able to mash it without any boiling.

That’s what I’m going for. Add hot water and stir!

[Dancing4dan]

There are 16 pounds of flaked corn and 6 pounds Pilsner malted barley fermenting in my basement 60 litre BIAB. Much easier to work with than cracked corn... So far. Test comes when it is time to strain out the corn and barley.

Added all of the corn to the BIAB and fermenter then poured on the water. Didn't have to much trouble overcoming the clumps with a drill and mortar / paint mixer. Had to be careful not to snag the BIAB with the mixer. Added the enzymes and barley at the appropriate temperatures on the way down from the initial boiling water temperature. Both malted barley and Milehigh enzymes were used. PH adjusted to 4.5 before adding the GA. The iodine still turned black after 2 1/2 hours but hydrometer was reading 1.07 before I topped up the water with 15 Litres and I didn't check it after topping up. My thinking is that the enzymes are possibly going to continue working although at a much slower rate even as fermentation starts. Pitched Fleishman's bread yeast. It was slow to start but going good now. Smells good.

It will make what it makes. Should be enough for just over two stripping runs.

Thanks for the help from members. Any additional help and advice is very welcome.

Have a good day everyone.

[Dancing4dan]

Pretty happy with how the ferment went. Al the action stopped so I pulled out the BRIAB. Hardly any corn and barley left! The enzymes and malted barley appear to have really ripped apart the starch.

The big test was would it strain through the bag? YES! Just squeezing by hand got it as dry as you see in the photo.

The wash is a very nice light yellow and there is lots of it! Most of the water/wash was recovered from the corn and barley. You can see the fluid level in bottom right of photo. I had left about six inches of head space incase it wanted to foam up during ferment.

It looks like it is fermenting again but likely just giving up some CO2 from being disturbed. Will let it sit for a few days to see what it does and then rack it off to clear on its own.

Thanks for looking in.

Have a good day everyone.

[Deplorable]

Your enzymes will(and obviously did) give a false starch reading if the sample isn't clear. You likely had solids in you sample. Yes?

[Dancing4dan]

Your enzymes will(and obviously did) give a false starch reading if the sample isn't clear. You likely had solids in you sample. Yes?

Thanks for the tip. No solids but the sample was plenty cloudy. I use a very fine metal coffee maker screen to get clean solid free samples from ferments that I pull off with a wine thief.

After reading your post I got curious and checked the SG. 0.999. So it looks like it fermented all the sugar that was present.

Will be interesting to see how much it distills off.

Due to the high presence of starch when I pitched it seems like the enzymes really continue to work even during fermentation.

[8Ball]

Your enzymes will(and obviously did) give a false starch reading if the sample isn't clear. You likely had solids in you sample. Yes?

Well that is a good nugget of info! Clears up a question I had on why I had a black iodine sample on an all malt mash awhile back. I have plenty of enzymes so I always toss in a little as insurance while fermenting on the grain.

[Deplorable]

Haha. Yeah I struggled with it on my CROW mash and had to do some digging on the HB forums.

[Dancing4dan]

Cold crashing in the cold room! It’s to cold to even think about distilling! We will be minus 30 Celsius again tonight. I’m not set up for electric or I would distill indoors and use my wort chiller for a out door cooling coil for the condenser . Probably need to circulate glycol though to keep it from freezing up!

[Dancing4dan]

Heed the Warning!

[Dancing4dan]

The last batch seems a little sour to me. Might have some lacto going on early in the ferment. It is all racked off and stored at 8 Celsius waiting to get stripped next weekend. 40 L of nice clear yellow corn wash.

Another ferment on the go. Same 16 pounds corn and 6 pounds Pilsner malted barley in 55 liters. Used MileHigh enzymes as well. I sanitized the hell out of everything to try and reduce the lacto. Will save some backseat for next batch.

This time the fermenter is in the den sitting in a horse feed / water thing. Giant blue bucket. In the horse bucket is a water bath and a 300 watt fish tank heater holding at 30 Celsius. Ferment is pretty active but not insane. I’m trying to get better temperature control.

Used 350 ml of the wash to make the starter. 1 1/2 Tbsp Fleishman’s yeast and 1 tsp of turbo.... yeah I know! Weird. But it is working great. Smells great!

This will make 95 liters of wash from flaked corn to strip.There are two gallons of low wines from cracked corn that will join the flaked corn low wines for a spirit run.

Thanks for looking in.

The flaked corn is amazing but... pretty pricey! $117 for 50 pounds! I can get three 55 liter ferments from that but pretty pricey. $18 for 50 pounds cracked corn. That’s the reason for a steam build that is coming along. The future may be cracked corn, flaked corn, and barley when steamer is ready to run.

My apology for the metric and standard measurements. I am from the generation that made the change to metric and still use both. It’s a Canadian thing, we are bilingual. Even engineering is using both systems.

[zed255]

Ha! I do the same thing, mixed imperial and metric. Only taught metric in school but all older relatives still worked in imperial units, proper gallons an all...

[MartinCash]

Another ferment on the go. Same 16 pounds corn and 6 pounds Pilsner malted barley in 55 liters. Used MileHigh enzymes as well. I sanitized the hell out of everything to try and reduce the lacto. Will save some backseat for next batch.

Most people don't worry too much about the lacto, and I can think of a few commercial distilleries in my area that have very obvious lacto when you taste their beer as it goes into the still. It doesn't seem to adversely affect the character.

[Dancing4dan]

Another ferment on the go. Same 16 pounds corn and 6 pounds Pilsner malted barley in 55 liters. Used MileHigh enzymes as well. I sanitized the hell out of everything to try and reduce the lacto. Will save some backseat for next batch.

Most people don't worry too much about the lacto, and I can think of a few commercial distilleries in my area that have very obvious lacto when you taste their beer as it goes into the still. It doesn't seem to adversely affect the character.

The lacto is something I plan on exploring. Just working on getting consistent results at this time.

The lacto came from some sweet feed that I tried and don’t like. The sweet feed really had some sour ferment going on. It’s aging on oak. Not sure it will be kept because of a hay/grass flavor but it sure has a nice smooth mouth feel. Oats are on the to explore list because of the mouth feel that sweet feed developed. I’m done with that sweet feed though.

[shadylane]

The flaked corn is amazing but... pretty pricey! $117 for 50 pounds! I can get three 55 liter ferments from that but pretty pricey. $18 for 50 pounds cracked corn. That’s the reason for a steam build that is coming along. The future may be cracked corn, flaked corn, and barley when steamer is ready to run.

Flaked corn is pricey
Don't worry, a steam rig can make short work cracked corn.

My apology for the metric and standard measurements. I am from the generation that made the change to metric and still use both. It’s a Canadian thing, we are bilingual. Even engineering is using both systems.

Mixing metric and standard measurements is common around here.
Even none standard measurements such as handfuls, pinches, and just a little bit are used.

[Saltbush Bill]

Ive been asked more than once " how much is a pinch of Epsom Salts."
A pinch here is listed as 1/8 of a tsp.....or half a dash.
2 x smidgens also equal a pinch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approximate_measures

[Dancing4dan]

Cracked corn vs flaked corn. There is a huge price difference. It will be interesting to see if the efficiency difference of flaked corn comes close to overcoming the extra cost compared processing cracked corn. Probably not. Winter here is what made me move to flaked corn. Easy to process inside in a 60L fermenter. Boil 30 L water, add to corn, stir then as it cools add the enzymes and Malte barley at correct temperatures. Top up the water. GREAT conversion! To get close to that kind of conversion cracked corn needs a extensive boil and stir.

The small amount of corn and barley left after a on grain ferment with flaked corn is pretty small and strains out of a BIAB easily. Enzymes really break it down. Going to use left overs to make dog cookies! They love it!

I didn’t ferment on grain with cracked corn and to be fair need to try it. The plugged BIAB issue I had put me off a bit...I’ll get over it but needed an easy win so went with flaked corn.

There are 95L for stripping runs. Looking forward to doing one large spirit run. Going to need more jars though.

[Dancing4dan]

Ive been asked more than once " how much is a pinch of Epsom Salts."
A pinch here is listed as 1/8 of a tsp.....or half a dash.
2 x smidgens also equal a pinch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approximate_measures

My wife says add “some” when asked how much.

Reminds me of a two finger pour. The old farmers have huge hands and a couple two finger pour will make a guy fall out of his boots!

[Zeotropic]

Ive been asked more than once " how much is a pinch of Epsom Salts."
A pinch here is listed as 1/8 of a tsp.....or half a dash.
2 x smidgens also equal a pinch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approximate_measures

My wife says add “some” when asked how much.

Reminds me of a two finger pour. The old farmers have huge hands and a couple two finger pour will make a guy fall out of his boots!

I just checked and my wife's 2 fingers are 1.5 oz but mine are 2.5 on the mini Anchor Hocking measuring cup that I drink my whiskey from. [emoji16]

[shadylane]

2 fingers on my Anchor Hocking shot glass is 80ml

[Dancing4dan]

Remember to hold the fingers horizontally!

[Zeotropic]

2 fingers on my Anchor Hocking shot glass is 80ml

I think we use the same one.[emoji16]

[subbrew]

I need to start smuggling corn to Canada. A 50 lb bag of flaked corn at the local elevator is $10 US.

Just an FYI, on why flaked corn is already gelatinized. To flake corn the whole corn kernel goes into a steam hopper where it spends over an hour in a steam bath for lack of a better description. Steam is injected into the hopper (the hopper is two stores tall) and the corn slowly moves down it. At the bottom it feeds between two rollers. At the plant I worked at the rollers were 48 inches wide and about 24 inches in diameter. The corn then fell on a conveyor with air blown up through it to cool and dry it before going to a bin for storage.

[Triplequad]

Im just finishing up 30 gallons of a steam rolled corn. This one was fermented off the grain and was cooked in a 20 gallon pot. If Im allowed to have an opinion yet, I would say its much easier to work with on and off the grain.
What Im doing now is get my water right and heat it to 180ish and doe in the corn with a drill/mixer. I immediately add some high temp enzymatic goodness and let it sit and every 30 minutes give it a stir. when the temp drops into the 140s in goes another flavor of the aforementioned enzymatic goodness and continue to mix every 1/2 hour. by the time it drops to 120 I get impatient, the tests look good and the efficiencies are great so through the heat exchanger it goes.