Unattended Mash

[Whiskeyfiend]

At 8pm yesterday I put together a whiskey mash. 7lbs corn and 3lbs roasted (not the light roasted) barley. I heated 5 gallons of water to 150F and dumped the corn, barley and water in to my mash tun for 90 minutes. I ran another 3 gallons of 150F water through to wash the grains. I had taken the WLP007 White Labs Dry English Ale yeast (liquid) and the Active Dry Bakers Yeast out of the refer at the beginning of heating the first 5 gallons of water. Just the time I was running the last 3 gallons through, my father in law showed up and needed help with a vehicle 30 mins away. I ended up being there til 1:30 in the morning. Since I couldn't chill the mash down properly I figured that I would let it chill down on its own. At 2am (6 hrs since I had started) I pitched the yeast. I used a drill with a 28" mixing apparatus on it to aerate the mash. I pitched the yeast, mixed it up, put the lid on. I checked on it when I got home today from work and it doesn't look like anything has started. Not sure what to do. Can I repitch some more yeast to try and get it started?

[Dnderhead]

so what the yeast going to eat?

[Whiskeyfiend]

I figured there would be enough sugar from the corn. SG reads 1.010.

[Dnderhead]

not without converting.to do that you need to cook the corn then mash by adding enzymes/malted grain.

[Fastill]

Roasted malt, crystal malt, carmel malt and all of the like malts have NO active enzymes left in them and will convert nothing in your mash to sugar. 1.010 SG is what a grain wash or beer ferment would finish at after a complete conversion and ferment.
You need 2 row or better yet 6 row malted barley for best conversion and mashing temps need to be held for complete conversion.
Corn should also be cooked for at least an hour to extract the starch so it is loose from the grain.

[Bull Rider]

Like Fastill said, 1.010 is the ending gravity for a lot of home brews, even 1.015-1.020.

Ya got no juice... Starches need to be converted in a manner that the yeast can breakdown and utilize.

But you're on the right track, you just left out a step. Mash temperature is critical too to allow the alpha and beta enzymes an opportunity to do their thing. Get a good accurate digital thermometer and do some more reading.


Bull.

[Whiskeyfiend]

What would be a good ratio of 2 or 6 row to corn? 7lbs of corn and 3lbs 2 row? Or would 1lb of 2 row be sufficient for 10lbs of corn? I haven't been able to find anything on a good ratio.

[Bull Rider]

I'd use 20-25% of the grain bill as two row to start, you can use less six row but it's harder to find. Make sure that it's "malted"barley.

You'll also want to read up on premalting, and conversion times.


Bull.

[rtalbigr]

2-row has abour 140 L/ lb, 6- row about 160 L/lb. Ya want an over all average of 30-40 L to get good saccrification. Take your total grain bill, divide by total malt, if less than 30-40 then ya need more malt. I always aim for 40 L average.

ie. 10# total, 2# 2-row = 320/10=32. That marginal, I'd was 2.5# malt.

Big R