Well it started as AG...

[bovillia]

Good evening felas;

So I finally tried my hand at an AG with a bourbon recipe. It is a basic recipe of 12# flaked corn, 2# flaked barley, 1# flaked wheat, and 1# flaked rye.
Instructions told me to boil the grains at 145 for 90 minutes, drain, and cool, then pitch.
So I got the grains today, and threw them into some water, and that's where it went wrong....I think.....maybe not....help me please!

So I got them heating away, when I realized that ALL of them wouldn't fit in my stock pot, so I split them up, and cooked them as per instructions. I coked the one, then the other, then I ended with about 4 gallons of the wash.
I cooled the wash off to temp and got an initial SG of 1.040. Now, I was expecting to get around 1.080 or around there, not 040. I cannot justify the $55 grains to run 4.5 gallons of 5%ish wash. I just cant. So I added some sugar to get it to 1.080. That is a bit more acceptable. Thoughts on this????

Now my questions; How exactly do you effectively sparge flaked corn, or do you just accept a loss on some of the water, because that's what I settled for.
What is a normal SG for an AG and how do you possibly break even if it is around 1.040, or does something go on to make more ethanol?

[MadMasher]

Did you use malt? enzymes are needed to convert starches to sugar. AG are considerably lower in ABV especially if you aren't getting full conversion. To save money scrap the flaked grains, they are easier but WAY more expensive. Cracked corn is .20 cents a lb, 6 row malt around a dollar a pound. Check out the NCHooch's bourbon recipe under the tried an true. Also there's an easier corn cooking technique is found under Jimbo's 1/2 easy barrel wheat.

[bovillia]

Thankyou, and no, I did not use malt.
So what is gonna happen with this run?

[MadMasher]

You can go get 3-4 lbs of crushed malt, bring it up to 145 and mash it for a few hours. Or maybe split the grains into 2 5 gallon ferments and add sugar to make it 8-10% and treat it like UJSSM. Just don't count on the grains to last as long as cracked corn. or just leave it and run it when its done.

[bovillia]

I think that I am going to let it run as is, Im good with sugar mashing, and this seams like a sugar mash with grain added for flavor, but I did look at Jimbo's, and I am going to do that one later this week. Thankyou for your input, and I wil post results of this mash when it gets run.

[bovillia]

Well results are in. I added about some sugar to the mash and got it to where i wanted it, let it ferment to 7% and ended up with 20 gallons of mash. After running the still in 4 painstaking batches, totaling 36 hours, the final product is oaking. I ended up with a gallon and a half, and after blowing air into it for 4 hours, i tasted the white dog. it was doggone amazing. I cannot wait for the oak to set in because its gonna be amazing. Thanks for the reply's.

3

[MadMasher]

glad to see it worked out for ya