Booner's Casual All Corn

[Fills Jars Slowly]

Well, it is the next morning and I am both pleased and dissapointed Why? Let me explain. Last night after mashing in and letting it rest an hour or so I took a gravity reading. It was 1.06. I could barely believe it. That works out to 14 gallons of water times 60 points per gallon = 840 divided by 25 pounds of corn = 33.6 points per pound per gallon. Since corn has a total potential of about 39 PPG, that means I converted 86% of the available starches to sugar in the first hour of what should have been the cereal mash stage where all I was trying to do theoretically was gelatinize the starches so they would be available for conversion later. Someone please correct my PPG numbers if they are wrong. I am historically a beer brewer and I am not used to dealing with readings done on the grain where the liquid is all mixed up with the mash. However, if I include the volume of the whole mash rather than just the water in my PPG calcs the numbers just get higher.

So, what's to be dissapointed about? After cooling the mix below 150, carefully managing pH with backset to below 5.5, adding SEBAmyl and leaving it overnight to do its thing the gravity this morning was... 1.06. Looks like everything after dumping the corn in the hot water and putting in SEBStar was just for show on this go round. On the bright side, I have a good mash that will yield about 8% abv as is, and if I just quit after the SEBStar addition and cool and pitch I have one of the easiest all grain processes ever conceived. If I want more gravity all I have to do is use a little more corn per gallon of water.

I have no idea why I saw all the conversion take place right up front and nothing during the phase where conversion is supposed to occur. I will run the process again here before too long and triple and quadruple check pH. Maybe I didn't lower pH quite enough at the SEBAmyl addition? No telling what kind of efficiency numbers would pop up if I did it right and got more conversion from the SEBAmyl.

However, for now, you heard it here first: Dump 25 lbs of cornmeal in 14 gallons of 205F water and add 10ml SEBStar. Wait an hour or two, then cool and pitch. Get 8% abv whiskey wash. What could be easier?

[HDNB]

i think the purpose is not more conversion, but a different conversion that makes the dextrins more available to yeasties as glucose.
faster, more reliable ferments.

where is a chemist when you need one?

these are the descriptions from the manufacturer

SEBstar HTL is an endo-amylase that randomly hydrolyzes alpha- 1,4-glycosidic bonds in gelatinized starch. The prolonged action of SEBstar HTL rapidly reduces the viscosity of gelatinized starch and produces large amounts of lower molecular weight dextrins

SEBamyl acts to hydrolyze the alpha-D-1,4-glycosidic bonds on the non-reducing end of liquefied starch. In addition, SEBamy-GL has side alpha-D-1,6 glycosidic activity to increase hydrolysis of starch and amylopectin branch points. The prolonged action of SEBamyl-GL produces large amounts of glucose.

[Fills Jars Slowly]

Good call HDNB. If this wash turns out to have a bunch of unfermentable dextrins in it and won't go dry, I will know why.

[moosemilk]

Good call HDNB. If this wash turns out to have a bunch of unfermentable dextrins in it and won't go dry, I will know why.

I have had every ferment finish out dry with this so far. No pro, but at 8 five gallon (imperial) batches, 8 out of 8 finishing at .998 I was surprised an AG finishing below 1.000. Never took SG between addition of htl and gl though.

[Fills Jars Slowly]

I'll post results when this ferment finishes. There was certainly something for the yeasties to eat though. I pitched this with DADY and the blow off tubes were bubbling less than an an hour later. Happy so far, just mystified by the readings I got along the way. Could be a case of too much information (refractomer readings at every stage) combined with first time with a new process. My wife could tell you, sometimes I might overthink a little bit.

[HDNB]

well, i'm a little concerned.

first fill on the new 200 L ferment. tried 70 Lbs on 140 L of water, but as fast as i could boil water...the top temp i hit was 178*f so i'm concerned the HTL didn't give over a good conversion. stirred the hell out of it.

seemed a little thick so i hit it with an extra 5mL at 165* don't know if that will help.

after a few hours, dropped to 148* and added in 35mL of GL, still looking a bit thick... stirred the hell out of it again.

I'll measure in the morning and pitch some bakers yeast, no luck finding any good ale yeast at the local shops, so it will have to do. i turned the heat up in the shop to about 75* so with radient heat on the fermenter i'm hoping it will be warm enough for the baking yeast.

[woodshed]

If it is thick it didn't work. Gotta hit the temps and ph or forget a good return.

[HDNB]

it def hit some, the solids dropped but i'm probably fucked...tried to heat up too much grain.
shit.
no way to heat it more now, so i'll play it out. if no joy there will be a very large sugar head next weekend.

[woodshed]

Nothing wrong with recycling!

[SoMo]

Try adding your sebamyl at a higher temp, I want to say I've seen or read it's good up to 170*f not exact. But if you give it a chance at 160 that's where I add you are in the usable temp range for a greater period of time allowing it a longer time period to work.

[woodshed]

Interesting SoMo. I haven't read that but do not do as much research online as I should. No time unless I give up coming here.
The experimentation now happening with liquid enzymes is moving us all forward. Check out my Your thoughts thread.

[Brutal]

I think the ph is a big deal with the Sebamyl.

[Fills Jars Slowly]

The Enzymash website links to the product spec sheet PDFs for SEBStar and SEBAmyl:

https://enzymash.biz/download/sebstarhtl.pdf
https://enzymash.biz/download/sebamylgl.pdf

Looks like the recommended temp for SEBAmyl is between 86F-149F, but it doesn't completely denature until about 167F depending on the time exposed to the higher temps. One kind of neat thing with this SEBAmyl stuff is that if your pH is out of range in your initial mash (usually too high, if anything, since it likes 5.5 or lower and corn mashes don't always get that low without some kind of acidification) the enzymes will still be there waiting for a better environment. One of the things that happens during fermentation is that pH falls. So, you could get an incomplete saccharification initially but get more conversion during fermentation, albeit slower at the lower temperatures. It shouldn't matter too much whether fermentation is on or off the grain as long as the starches were liquified during the initial phase of gelation when SEBStar was added at high temperatures. If the starches/dextrins dissolved into the mash water, they should still be there in the fermentor.

I think this is the process referred to in the spec sheet description where it says, "simultaneous saccharification and fermentation of whole-grain mashes."

That might not help HDNB's issue since it sounds like inadequate gelation was the culprit there due to lower than ideal temps. If that is the case, starches will still be locked away inside the grain and not available for conversion by the SEBAmyl.

[Brutal]

Interesting!

[HDNB]

inadequate gelation was / is the problem. all is not lost it showed a 6% potential and tasted really sweet,not starchy, so i aerated it and pitched. got lots there so while not efficient, i imagine there will be a couple of litres of something useful out of the 140 that went in. i knew i should have finished the steam injector before i started on something that big. at least it's only 15 bucks worth of corn

update on edit...pitched a half pound of bakers...that's some happy yeast 10 hours later! smells good and working like a bastard. hope it delivers all 6%!

[MichiganCornhusker]

Just got back from 4 days out of town to find my Booners ferment totally.... done and clear! I was worried the whole time I was gone about infections, but this is the sexiest ferment that I have seen so far: it is almost clear, like light lemonade. The bright yellow spent corn was compacted on the bottom of the fermenter, and almost everything came off as clear liquid. I think I could just bottle this and drink it. What there was left in the bottom was a breeze to squeeze and I got about 20 gallons back from an estimated 22 gallon mash. Its in carboys now, going to give it a few days for the couple last jugs to settle out. OG was about 1.062, FG actually looks under 1.000. I'm so grateful to have a place to come and share the news, nobody else would understand. Thanks everyone, and thanks to Woodshed for this recipe!! No way I could have pulled this off without all the info and help along the way that I got here at HD to make each step better and better. Gonna be a strippers holiday this weekend.

[woodshed]

Just got back from 4 days out of town to find my Booners ferment totally.... done and clear! I was worried the whole time I was gone about infections, but this is the sexiest ferment that I have seen so far: it is almost clear, like light lemonade. The bright yellow spent corn was compacted on the bottom of the fermenter, and almost everything came off as clear liquid. I think I could just bottle this and drink it. What there was left in the bottom was a breeze to squeeze and I got about 20 gallons back from an estimated 22 gallon mash. Its in carboys now, going to give it a few days for the couple last jugs to settle out. OG was about 1.062, FG actually looks under 1.000. I'm so grateful to have a place to come and share the news, nobody else would understand. Thanks everyone, and thanks to Woodshed for this recipe!! No way I could have pulled this off without all the info and help along the way that I got here at HD to make each step better and better. Gonna be a strippers holiday this weekend.

Strippers Holiday? I 'm buying my ticket right now Grandma's real lemonade. Sounds like what I get. As I always say words like this are the ultimate reward. Booner

[RevSpaminator]

Just want to say thanks again to Woodshed for turning us on to this recipe. I've been sipping my first batch tonight and put up a few bottles as gifts to close family. It aged very nicely on toasted apple wood. Thanks again and merry Christmas.

[Fills Jars Slowly]

Merry Christmas, all. While my mash ferments, I have been scouring the forum and the internet to learn more about mashing with enzymes and mash chemistry and enzymatic action in general. Pretty neat stuff.

Recall that I was confused and worried when I measured gravity (via refractometer) about 1.5 hours into the gelatinization/gelation stage at 1.06, and it never increased from that point even with the second addition of enzymes and further resting. I thought that the gravity should rise throughout the process as the mash converted. When it didn't, I thought perhaps something had gone wrong in the conversion process. However, it turns out that starch, once dissolved into solution, gives very similar gravity readings as the mash does after conversion. See: http://braukaiser.com/blog/blog/2011/03 ... t-content/

Greatly simplified, It's like measuring the weight of a bowl full of spaghetti noodles, and then chopping them up into small pieces and weighing again. The noodles weigh the same before and after chopping. The gelatinization process, which SEBStar speeds up, is like cutting open bags of noodles and dumping them in the bowl, chopping them into random sized bits on the way. Unopened bags of noodles are like starch tied up in a piece of grain before it is dissolved in the mash liquid. After opening the bags (gelatinizing) the longest bits are analogous to starches freed from the grain, but still needing to be broken down into simple sugars. Medium sized bits are the dextrines and complex sugars, with the shortest bits being the simple sugars we are after. Once the random sized noodle pieces are in the bowl (dissolved in the mash water), the second enzyme, SEBAmyl goes to work chopping all these bits into even smaller pieces that are largely glucose, a highly fermentable sugar.

So, that explains why I saw all the gravity I would ever get appear after gelatinization. An iodine test for conversion (which I didn't do, Doh!) would likely have shown a positive reaction for starch at the first gravity reading and turned negative after the second addition of gluco-amylase and a sufficient rest.

This mash taught me some useful things: I can take a gravity reading any time after gelatinization to see how much extraction occurred so I know the potential of my mash. Also, since the gravity reading never changed after the initial measurement, 90 minutes was plenty of time to dissolve all the starch that was ever going to be. I can now experiment with measuring gravity frequently during gelatinization to find the minimum time needed for reaching the maximum extract. If the visual thinning of the mash correlates to dissolving the starches, this might be almost instantaneous. Probably not since the manufacturers directions and pintoshines process calls for a rest at cereal mash temps. Perhaps the gelatinization is very quick but the first round of chopping up the starch molecules into random lengths takes a while.

So, now the only question is how well did the SEBAmyl work to convert the longer chain molucules into simple sugars, thus increasing the fermentability of the mash. Well, I got the answer today. I pitched this midday Saturday and checked it at midday today (Wednesday), so it is right at 4 days. It is not done fermenting. The blow-off tubes are still bubbling at the rate of about 1 or 2 bubbles a second, the cap hasn't fallen, and the wash hasn't cleared. Even so, I took a gravity reading. It was .997 Looks like this stuff is fermentable, alright. The enzymes worked fine!

Very nice results so far. Thanks Woodshed

[Getsmokin]

I have had two ferments of this that had a "rotten egg" odor after about the second day. There didn't appear to be infection, and within another day or two the odor went away, ferment happily bubbling along and finished off very well, smelled pleasant at the end, no other problems.

I used 2lbs cracked corn which I ran through my mill for more of a ground but not meal per Imperial gallon. This was for a five gallon batch.

I did cook the corn as per Big R's step process rather than just adding boiling water. When it cooled to 180F, I added the sebstar htl. pH was about 5.5. Stirred occasionally for a few hours til temp was at 148-150F. Adjusted pH to about 4 (I say about because I use test strips and color is more of a guess between numbers) using citric acid as I had no backset. I stirred occasionally for first few hours then let rest overnight, covered.

By morning, temp was just below 100F. Rather than risk infection, I pitch my yeast (regular bakers yeast) now and lock it up with airlock. I was diligent about sanitizing everything. My OG was 1.065.

Ferment temps consistently around 80F.

Now since they finish well, I assuming it is a bit of yeast strain from low nitrates from what I've found in other threads. Would adding dap help rid me of the temporary smell? I figured the corn would have enough nutrients. My wife isn't happy with the smell. At least it's only a day or two. I could always run a tube into a sealed mason jar of water and a vent tube from that out a Window.

But if any advice to help, or what I'm doing wrong, please let me know. Thanks! My first ferment of this smelled amazing g the entire way through!

Edit: before anybody asks, OG was temp corrected to that
Edit again. Added sebamyl at 148-150F. Forgot to say

Low nutrients and temp shock will make yeast throw sulfur.

[moosemilk]

Thanks, Getsmokin. Figured as much since it only happened at the start of ferments. Been adding a multivitamin as woodshed suggested and hasn't happened since.

[Brutal]

Drip drip drip..

She's a-runnin'!! Made a few mistakes along the way but that's what learning is about. I squeezed the grains Christmas night after letting the ferment go starting the night of the 14th. Its in my garage and it's not that cold here so I never used my aquarium heater. Looks like I should have but its done now. Ended just a shade over 1.000. I also never put in enough water while mashing. After squeezing I only got back about 16 gallons, and I used 50 pounds of corn. I don't know what the starting gravity was but I'm sure it was too high. I pulled the lid off one of the buckets today and stuck my face I'm there to smell and it just about knocked me down.

After settling for a day and a half the buckets had about a gallon of murky shit in them and the rest was pretty clear. So I racked about 11.5-12 gallons of cleared into my primary electric keg boiler. Then I poured the 4.5 gallons of sloppy into the thumper. I used a second full size keg for a thumper this time. It just came online and I'm experiencing the new smells of an actual all grain run for the first time. Its all heads and fores right now but it smells great. Can't wait to get to the good part.

[Brutal]

Coming along. Jars 5 through 8 are cloudy though.. I guess this is the corn fusil oils? Got several more jars to go.

[Fills Jars Slowly]

My first Booner's mash finished today at about .996 and I stripped approximately 11.75 gallons at 8.4%abv and got 2.4 gallons of low wines at 34%abv with my pot still. I'll rinse and repeat and once I have 10 gallons or so will run a spirit run. Woohoo!

[woodshed]

My first Booner's mash finished today at about .996 and I stripped approximately 11.75 gallons at 8.4%abv and got 2.4 gallons of low wines at 34%abv with my pot still. I'll rinse and repeat and once I have 10 gallons or so will run a spirit run. Woohoo!

[HDNB]

inadequate gelation was / is the problem. all is not lost it showed a 6% potential and tasted really sweet,not starchy, so i aerated it and pitched. got lots there so while not efficient, i imagine there will be a couple of litres of something useful out of the 140 that went in. i knew i should have finished the steam injector before i started on something that big. at least it's only 15 bucks worth of corn

update on edit...pitched a half pound of bakers...that's some happy yeast 10 hours later! smells good and working like a bastard. hope it delivers all 6%!

well the distilling gods are on my side this week. recovered 100L of wash from the 140L of water and 70LBS of grain. holy shit that was a bit of work (2 hours steady) ran the first 40L stripping run and got about 8L at almost 50% average (was pretty warm so maybe mid forties?)...so a bit more return than expected!
ran the first 90 mins a 4.2Amps, nice and slow, tossed the fores and cut a jar of 500mL at 55-57% tastes like warm corn water until it hits your belly.
must have done something right. should be aged nicely on ex-bourbon wood by June i'm thinkin.

[moosemilk]

Good job HDNB! I was excited to see you post and immediately had to check to see if you had success! Great to hear!

Next time on a strip run, try running until your overall collected is between 28-35% abv. There is a lot of flavor in some of the mid/late tales that really compliment the rest of it and save from having to cut down and dilute flavor with water.

[woodshed]

Good to hear HDNB.

[MichiganCornhusker]

I'm armed and dangerous now. two new bags of grain. new 200L fermenter. new mortar mixer. new mop pail. new yeast.

And now, success! Congrats HDNB. I'm stripping the last of my second (first was a bust) Booner's ferment tonight, hope to do a spirit run this weekend. Low wines smell and taste great, really looking forward to this one.

[woodshed]

Coming along. Jars 5 through 8 are cloudy though.. I guess this is the corn fusil oils? Got several more jars to go.

I never had it cloudy Brutal. But we run in drastically different ways.