New here, and I have some questions!

[mosshollow]

Been lurking for awhile, looking for answers, but there seems to be an overwhelming amount of info to sift through.

I've been brewing beer for a long time, made over 150 batches, won medals, blah blah blah, I moderate a popular brewing forum, and consider myself pretty knowledgeable about that side of the equation - but from my experience with distilling, that doesn't help a whole lot outside of the mashing/fermentation side of things. A couple close friends and I have a 3 gallon column still from Mile Hi and have run through probably ~25 batches (mostly apple, but a few batches of bourbon and beer). I've been working on the cuts, and our process (recirculating icewater through the cooling jacket with a sump pump) is yielding 150 proof hearts from 22% bourbon wash, and it tastes great so far.

I guess my first big question is: what do I have to do to get corn starches to convert to fermentable sugars? We have been using local organic crushed corn, sent through my brewing grain mill, spiked with amylase enzyme, and I'm still getting absolutely horrible mash efficiency, to the point where I just have to dump a bunch of dextrose into the kettle to get my gravity up. Someone mentioned that there may be a specific enzyme out there that distillers use to help corn convert, but I couldn't find anything about it using the search.

[Prairiepiss]

How much are you thinking you should be getting out of your corn mashes?

Ok I have other questions. A 21% bourbon wash? That is awfully high for a ferment? What are you using to get that?

There are many threads on AG ferments around here. To help you. I thought you said you ferment beer. It's no different then that. That much. To me it sounds like you mite be a little to greedy and trying to get to much out of your ferments. A 14% ABV ferment is the most you will se recommended around here. And thats the absolute high end 10% to 12% is more the norm for sugar washes around here. Any more then that will stress the yeast and or kill them. But what am I saying you should know that from brewing beer. AG is around half that.

[blind drunk]

I guess my first big question is: what do I have to do to get corn starches to convert to fermentable sugars?

The only way I know is to cook the corn for a really long time until it's gelatinous. Some soak the corn overnite and some cook it in backset (acid). Others just cook the snot out of it. Also, it's a good idea to premalt the cooking corn as this will help prevent scorching, but you still gotta stir and scrape the bottom of the pot continuously or it will scorch. That's why the no cook sugar head bourbon is so popular, me thinks. Good luck.

[Dnderhead]

you brewers whould call it a cereal mash.most you git is 7-8% and that is doing good.you posably could git it higher by boiling the wort down but never tried .then I dont thank it be worth the trouble and extra fuel.sugar is not a option for me or in making "real whiskey" or "real brandy"..

[flip]

I have made a 200 liter local full grain bear, out of maize and wheat, no sugar,vermented with malt, its a problem to filter the very fine powder , i used towel blankets etc,and the out come was less than i expected, i will distill with an inside element.
the plan is for tomorrow, i will install copper in the column.

[Dnderhead]

"problem to filter the very fine powder"
that is one of the reasons "I do what I do and how I do it"
corn is hard to strain/sparg at best imposable at the worse.

[mosshollow]

How much are you thinking you should be getting out of your corn mashes?

Not sure, but I'm used to 75%+ mash efficiency from my beer mashes...I know that corn doesn't convert at that high of an efficiency, but I'm getting super-low here, like maybe 30's? Is there an acceptable/expected mash efficiency for corn that I should know about?

Ok I have other questions. A 21% bourbon wash? That is awfully high for a ferment? What are you using to get that?

Plenty of corn sugar and distiller's yeast. My thinking was (and maybe this is way off base) that if I'm going to be running the still, I might as well start with as high an ABV on the wash as I can get...and the distiller's yeast has a stated alcohol tolerance of ~24% by volume...so I did my math and figured out what my OG needed to be in order to finish around 20%, and added that much corn sugar to the boil. The distiller's yeast took it down to 1.001 or so, which was 22%. I'd never attempt anything like this in beer ferments, of course, but I'm not sure why it's a bad thing when it comes to distilling. Can you explain further?

There are many threads on AG ferments around here. To help you.

Do you have any in particular that might be helpful? I searched but there's an information overload.

I thought you said you ferment beer. It's no different then that. That much. To me it sounds like you mite be a little to greedy and trying to get to much out of your ferments. A 14% ABV ferment is the most you will se recommended around here. And thats the absolute high end 10% to 12% is more the norm for sugar washes around here. Any more then that will stress the yeast and or kill them. But what am I saying you should know that from brewing beer. AG is around half that.

Well, going back to what I said above, the distiller's yeast took it to 22%, no problem. Is there anything inherently wrong with doing it this way?

[blind drunk]

Do you have any in particular that might be helpful?

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 14&t=17750

My thinking was (and maybe this is way off base) that if I'm going to be running the still, I might as well start with as high an ABV on the wash as I can get...

High abv washes tend to produce less drinkable pot distilled spirits. What I mean is, you get alot of distillate, it's just not very good. What I really mean is the drinkable stuff is minuscule relative to the amount of distillate you're promised on the package. I've found that lower abv washes actually give you more drinkable spirit or spirits you want to actually drink.

And anyways, how can you get a 21% all grain wort? Just make a really good dry beer, without hops, with or without corn, and distill it. Then learn about making cuts. Read this - http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 46&t=13261

With your experience, you're already ahead of the curve. Enjoy the ride.

[mosshollow]

Do you have any in particular that might be helpful?

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 14&t=17750

My thinking was (and maybe this is way off base) that if I'm going to be running the still, I might as well start with as high an ABV on the wash as I can get...

High abv washes tend to produce less drinkable pot distilled spirits. What I mean is, you get alot of distillate, it's just not very good. What I really mean is the drinkable stuff is minuscule relative to the amount of distillate you're promised on the package. I've found that lower abv washes actually give you more drinkable spirit or spirits you want to actually drink.

And anyways, how can you get a 21% all grain wort? Just make a really good dry beer, without hops, and distill it. With your experience, you're already ahead of the curve. Enjoy the ride.

Sounds good, thanks for the advice. So, what kind of proof should I expect on a typical batch using a column still?

[blind drunk]

If your beer is anywhere from 6-10%, you will get around 40% low wines on a stripping run. Then you can dilute down to about 27-30%, with either fermented mash or water. When I do that, my 18" potstill gives me about 65%, after blending, more or less, on a spirit run. This is without packing the column. A little higher with packing.

Edit to add - one more thing, look into flaked corn like brewers use. The starch is already gelatinized so you don't need to cook it like regular cracked corn. There's a recent thread 'round here by Usge. Here it is - http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 3475&hilit. Good luck.

[rtalbigr]

mosshollow, AG mashes for distilling are generally inefficient, but you're distilling for flavor not necessarily for high alcohol yield. I generally get 5.5-7.5% from my AG mashes. Adding sugar can up your yield but it does change the flavor profile and it's not a true AG. But then, it's what you are willing to consider acceptable. I absolutely prefer a true AG even if it means I gotta use 100-150 lbs of grain to get enough to fill my oak barrels. To me there is a noticeable difference in the quality of my spirits.

With corn, like others have said, ya got to cook the crap outa it to gelatinize, and it can be a real pain. You can use some alpha amylaze to help thin it some but your gonna get your best saccrification with a 2 or 6 row malted barley or a high diastic power wheat. Your ratio will depend on the diastic power of your malted grain.

I always pre-soak my corn at least over night and it seems to help a lot. I haven't tried pre-soaking with backset but I will be trying it next time I do a bourbon. I've already got my grains to do a red wheat malt (diastic power 195L) bourbon, and I'll have some backset from some all wheat AG I'm working on now.

Big R

[Prairiepiss]

Well, going back to what I said above, the distiller's yeast took it to 22%, no problem. Is there anything inherently wrong with doing it this way?

I'm going to guess this distillers yeast you used was bought fro MileHi to. And with numbers like that it would have to be a turbo yeast. Don't buy into the sales gimic. You can do better then that.


And don't forget to checkout the parent site. Try this out. http://homedistiller.org/yield.htm