If you add just a little bit of rye flour to a grain bill of corn and 6-row, you get gravy. Gravy with corn and barley suspended in it, but still gravy. Sweet and nicely converted gravy, but still gravy. A gravy that passes through whatever filter you attempt to use, and scorches immediately upon application of heat to the still. Lesson: my only use for flour in distilling is to seal the joints in the still.
Thanks, Jimbo; I thought I remembered seeing something about that. I was even stirring it when it scorched. I had just barely started the burner really low and felt it start to stick. Kept stirring, and 5 minutes later started to smell smoke. I had planned to stir until it reached 160°, then assemble the top end.
I'm sticking with cracked grains and malts in the future; I don't see any reason to use the powdered stuff. I can press a corn/barley mash dry in my cider press and strip-run it hot and fast right away without any problems. I only tried a bit of the rye flour to spice up a really simple bourbon recipe because I couldn't find the whole grain anywhere.
I'm glad I read this! I was just looking to get a 50 pound bag of rye flour to make a rye whiskey. If you're just looking for some flavor why don't you try to find that rye bread that Odin uses in his rye bread whiskey (in the T&T section). I've made that before and people love the rye flavor. If you have an Aldi near you they have it and a pumpernickel, I think the only difference is the pump has malted barley in it...I have some here, I'll throw up some pics in a bit.
I really sorry that you had bad luck with flour, wasn't there some unfermented leftover sugars that caramelized down and created a layer that turned the flour to carbon? I use to put rye-flour in my mashbill, as high as 15%+ in volume and never had this problem, and I only cooked pressed juice once, most of the time I cook on grain.
As for pumpernickel, I am pretty sure there would rise a need to de-oil the final stuff by puting it in a freezer and harvest the oil and fat from the top of it. Yes, some oils distill through and can give an oily smell, especially from the grit made of sunflower-seeds that is often an ingredient in pumpernickel. If I cook on grain I butter the pot before I put in the mash, good old butter will not distill through.
Working with flours I think it is especially important to use glucoamylase enzyme, alone for conversion or by the side of malt. And a good yeast that can convert special sugars too (like Danstil A).
