Rye whiskey mash questions

Production methods from starch to sugars.

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daguy
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Rye whiskey mash questions

Post by daguy »

So I went to the homebrew shop to by ingredients to make a rye whiskey. I'm aiming for 65% rye, 30% corn, and 5% malted barley. The homebrew shop ran out of rye malt, but had flaked rye, so I bought it. The corn is flaked as well.

Thinking about the mash a bit, I'm worried I'm not going to convert the flaked rye or corn. The diastatic power of both is very low. I'm only going to have about 10 ounces of 6 row malted barley to provide amylase for conversion.

Should I add amylase enzyme to the mash? How much, do you think?

And I've read that the mash is going to be extremely gummy. I did pick up rice hulls, but I see some mention of doing some special temperature rests to address this issue? I usually just do a single infusion mash at 152F.

Any help here is appreciated.
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Re: Rye whiskey mash questions

Post by greggn »

daguy wrote: Thu Sep 16, 2021 12:36 pm
Thinking about the mash a bit, I'm worried I'm not going to convert the flaked rye or corn. The diastatic power of both is very low.

Flaked grains have no diastatic power. Unless you can add more malted barley you'll need liquid/powdered enzymes.

... and if you've not worked with a grain bill high in rye before, and don't have a plan to deal with it, then you're in for a whole bunch of frustration.
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daguy
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Re: Rye whiskey mash questions

Post by daguy »

Well my plan was to use a lot of rice hulls! I do understand that the rye is sticky.

Thinking my whole plan through...I'm beginning to see why a rye/corn whiskey is maybe better fermented on the grain. That wasn't my plan but maybe I should change my plan!

As far as enzymes go...do you use both alpha-amylase and glucoamylase? And at what temperature?
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8Ball
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Re: Rye whiskey mash questions

Post by 8Ball »

No offense, but it sounds like you haven't done any reading on your high rye & unmalted grains idea. Plenty of answers here if you take the time to search.
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Twisted Brick
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Re: Rye whiskey mash questions

Post by Twisted Brick »

8Ball wrote: Thu Sep 16, 2021 2:46 pm No offense, but it sounds like you haven't done any reading on your high rye & unmalted grains idea. Plenty of answers here if you take the time to search.
Uh, what 8Ball said: you got a truckload of reading to do. Rather than just tell you to go read, it would be more helpful to you to be pointed in the right direction, but where to start? (FYI - DP is calculated on malted grains . Flaked grains are steamed, not malted.

Here's a shortlist of concepts gonna help with typical all-grain mashes, not to mention rye:

1. Mash temps of unmalted vs malted grains
2. Difference between fermenting on the grain vs off (why corn and rye are not commonly sparged)
3. Beta glucans (rye threads)
4. mash temp and pH ranges for enzymes (hint: read the enzyme mfr's specsheets)
5. Novice Guide to making cuts

If you do a 'Homedistiller' Google search on these topics, you will find ample threads all answering the exact same questions you asked.

Good luck!
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Ben
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Re: Rye whiskey mash questions

Post by Ben »

1/2 oz of rice hulls per lb of rye or corn. Chuck in a teaspoon of amylase enzyme at mash in. Mash in at around 148, Run starch test (tincture of iodine available at walgreens) when you think it is done.

The glucoamylase helps break down the long chain starches, it will help with your fermentability, but needs to be used in conjunction with an alpha/beta amylase.
amylase.png
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daguy
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Re: Rye whiskey mash questions

Post by daguy »

Thanks guys. I've done quite a lot of reading about this. Here's my plan:

I'm mashing in a Gott cooler.

I'm going to mash the flaked rye along with rice hulls at 104F x 20 minutes (glucanase rest). Strike water calculator says start with 108F water.

Then I'm going to add the flaked corn and 6 row malted barley along with boiling water (the strike water calculator says about 7.5 quarts will do) aiming to reach a saccharification temp of about 148 (I'm sure this will require some tweaking!) At that point I'll add about a half teaspoon of alpha amylase and glucoamylase and of course stir. I plan to let that sit about half an hour, then add boiling water to get the temp to 153F.

After a total one hour mash (assuming I've had conversion via the iodine test) I'm going to sparge (my system is nylon mesh bag in a big lobster steamer colander) with 168F water so as to get total volume of a little over 5 gallons. That'll be fermented as usual (US-05).

I'll update as it goes!
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Ben
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Re: Rye whiskey mash questions

Post by Ben »

You will likely need to pre-heat your cooler. Plan looks fine otherwise. ideally you would batch sparge, but it will still be ok.
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daguy
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Re: Rye whiskey mash questions

Post by daguy »

BTW here's a really great site I found about mash chemistry aimed for distillers

https://distilling.com/distillermagazin ... istry-101/
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Re: Rye whiskey mash questions

Post by daguy »

So I made the mash and fermented the recipe I mentioned earlier. I see why people warn novice distillers like me about the hazards to using adjuncts! Actually it didn't go terribly. Just got lower efficiency than I'd hoped which I think was due to the fact that I couldn't stir the flaked corn well as my nylon mesh bag is too small. And the sparge was kind of a gloppy mess. But at the end of the day I ended up with 5 gallons of sweet work with a gravity of 1.040. It's pretty much done fermenting now, just have to find time now to strip it (I'd like to wait to use the yeast cake for another batch.

I did have good conversion ala iodine test.

Thanks for the help.
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