Lautering Bourbon Mashes

[Johnnywhiskey]

Just curious if anyone else lauters their bourbon mash. The traditional route is to ferment on grain, and even distill on grain. I have access to a lauter tun so I have been separating my grains before fermentation. Yes, I had a couple stuck sparges working out the process. But it seems to work pretty good now. Am I an outlier, or do others ferment off grain for bourbon also? What about the commercial bourbon distiller?

Best, JW

[pulsetech]

There is some eficency to be gained by fermenting on the grain. those Enzimes keep on working
Squezing is a pain in the ass i will give you that

[der wo]

The commercial bourbon distillers ferment and distill on the grain.
And they mill the grains finely, so a lauter tun wouldn't work.

[frunobulax]

I have done alot of BIAB for corn mashes with flaked corn. It's alot of squeezing, and don't think I'd want to sparge a 51% corn mash. I ferment on the grain now.

[buflowing]

I mash, ferment and strip run my corn separately from the other grains, then combine all for a spirit run. My corn gets mashed and fermented on grain. My barley, wheat and rye combos gets mashed and lautered. No squeezing for me.

[masonsjax]

I'm new here, but have brewed a lot of AG beer. I plan to lauter my bourbons. I use a cooler mash tun with a braid. I use a fairly fine crush and have done a lot of 50% wheat or rye beers, which can get easily stuck. I just throw in a couple of handfuls of rice hulls and there's no problems. A protein rest can help, and should make corn flow better as well.

[der wo]

We all are intersted in your results on lautering bourbon.

-if the rice hulls help
-if the protein rest helps (I don't think, because corn is lower in proteins than the other grains)
-how fine you could mill the grain with a good result lautering
-and how much you loosed.

[bearriver]

There is a thread on this topic already: http://ww.homedistiller.org/forum/viewt ... 83&t=52124" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

I found Woodshed's posts to be particularly helpful.

[MitchyBourbon]

I have 2 10 gallon blichman boiler makers with false bottoms but i don't sparge, I squeeze the grain after mashing instead. I remove the grain before fermenting all my bourbons. My grain bill usually looks like 70, 20, 10 cracked corn, malted rye and malted red wheat. None of the grains in my grain bill have a husk, making sparging next to impossible. But if I were to use a more traditional grain bill with a lower percentage of corn, say 55% corn and 45% malted 6 row, it might not be that difficult to sparge.

I have tried fermenting on the grain and squeezing the grain after but have determined that I don't like the flavors that come over from squeezing fermented grain. So for me it is more efficient to squeeze the grain before fermenting.

[Johnnywhiskey]

We all are intersted in your results on lautering bourbon.

-if the rice hulls help
-if the protein rest helps (I don't think, because corn is lower in proteins than the other grains)
-how fine you could mill the grain with a good result lautering
-and how much you loosed.

I do 10 gallon batches in a keggle with a Jaybird false bottom. Generally my batches are 20 lbs corn (Corona milled, finer than cracked corn, but coarser than a coarse corn meal), 3 lbs distillers malt, and 3-6 lbs variable (rye, wheat or specialty malt). 1 lbs rice hulls help. Also it helps to have a hose that you can create some siphon suction during the sparge. Another big improvement was to switch to a false bottom stand that was not a strainer. In my early batches it was the false bottom stand that was getting plugged, not the false bottom itself, so I did away with that. I'm wondering if the bazooka-type false bottoms are not a good fit for sparging corn because there is less surface area for the wort to move through and it gets plugged.

This false bottom stand works:




This false bottom stand got plugged:




For sure high corn mashes push the limits of what you can sparge, but last weekend I did a 75% corn mash without any problems.

I don’t do a protein rest. I use Pintoshine’s enzymes, but I think adding the distillers malt with the SEBamyl helps because the malt has a bunch of other enzymes to break things down in the mash that the two liquid enzymes don't. I also use sparge water as hot as possible—at or near boiling.
I generally do very little heating once the grains are in. I bring the water to boil and add the corn. I keep the heat on until the corn is all added (and before the mash become goo). Once the corn is in I shut off the heat and wrap the keg in a blanket. From there I do the enzyme additions as the mash naturally cools, no additional heating necessary. Once the grains are in and extracting, even with the false bottom, it is almost impossible to heat with a burner without burning something--at least for me.

I’m sure there is some loss during the sparging process, but by the end of the sparge the gravity is pretty low, less than 1.02. Unless you ferment and distill on the grain, there is going to be a loss at some point in the process. And for me, I think it is easier to take the hit earlier and not have to deal with the grain after the fermentation. I suppose it depends a lot on your equipment. I have also tried the BIAB squeeze / wring method (before and after the fermentation) and I hated it.

Best, JW