What's the Proper Way to Use Amylase?

[KYMountainMan]

I bought a pound of Amylase from BSG Handcraft dot com, and was wanting to know the right way to add before completely leaving it alone for the night.

I did a Corn / Barley Malt mash earlier and after mashing for 1 1/2 hrs. some of the starches were still like gelatin underneath the top. So, I'm wanting to add Amylase to fix it up.

In winemaking I always just threw in a few 'just right' banana peels and that took care of the problem overnight, but don't have any bananas handy right now and all I have is this pound of Amylase.

Thanks

[raketemensch]

Funny, I was just digging around to see about using amylase with a banana mash....

[KYMountainMan]

Yeah. I made a banana wine one time, and it was a pain in the tail to get to convert and clear. I used some banana peels that were just starting to show brown on the skin, along the edges and a few brown dots here and there.

From my experience, that is the time when the amylase is highest in the skins.

Still looking for a good powdered amylase explanation?

[MitchyBourbon]

Use 1 teaspoon per 5 gallons. The effective temperature range for Alpha amylase is 155 F to 162 F. The effective temperature range for Beta amylase is 130 F to 150 F. Malted grain has both alpha and beta amylases, 148 F is a good choice for mashing with malted grain.

Cheers

[raketemensch]

Yeah. I made a banana wine one time, and it was a pain in the tail to get to convert and clear. I used some banana peels that were just starting to show brown on the skin, along the edges and a few brown dots here and there.

From my experience, that is the time when the amylase is highest in the skins.

Still looking for a good powdered amylase explanation?

I was hoping to get some good conversion just from the peels, but even after hours at 155, I'm still only at 6 brix (1.023). I was hoping to get ~12 (1.05) without adding sugar, but I don't think I've going to get there.

I just stirred a teaspoon of powdered amylase into the 5-gallon stockpot, and covered it to let it rest for a few hours. Maybe even overnight.

[DoubleJ]

Even though I am still a novice, this is what I did on my last corn/malt mash.

Brought 3.5 gals of water to a boil, then killed the heat
Stirred in 8 lbs of flaked corn
Doing so dropped the temp about 12*C to around 88*C
I let that sit with occasional stirring until the temp came down to 155*F

The corn mash now was very thick.

Added another~1/2 gallon of water
Turned the heat back on low and added 1 lb of 6 row barley malt
Let that sit for 90 minutes at ~155*F

By now the 6 row had loosened up the corn quite a bit, but I still saw a bit of gelatinization in the corn
Added a 1/2 teaspoon of alpha amylase, but first dissolved it in a half cup of water, then stirred the contents into the mash
Let that sit for an hour with a bit of a stir every 15 minutes

I turned the heat off and let it cool down to about 145 - 148*F
Added 10 ml of gluco-amylase (it was already in liquid format) so I just stirred it in directly
Turned the heat on again and maintained that temp for about an hour with occasional stirring

After an hour the mash was very liquidy. I killed the heat again and added 4 kg of sugar

I let it sit for a while to cool a bit, then proceeded to strain out the corn/barley and transferred the remaining wash into a carboy. I used another ~1-1/2 gallons of water to rinse the corn/barley as I transferred it to the carboy. I let that cool over night and pitched the yeast in the morning. After about 6 hours it started bubbling nicely.

Before pitching the yeast I had a starting gravity of 1.115

That was all last Sunday night/Monday morning. It is still bubbling as of today.

Hope this helps.

JJ

[corene1]

Even though I am still a novice, this is what I did on my last corn/malt mash.

Brought 3.5 gals of water to a boil, then killed the heat
Stirred in 8 lbs of flaked corn
Doing so dropped the temp about 12*C to around 88*C
I let that sit with occasional stirring until the temp came down to 155*F

The corn mash now was very thick.

Added another~1/2 gallon of water
Turned the heat back on low and added 1 lb of 6 row barley malt
Let that sit for 90 minutes at ~155*F

By now the 6 row had loosened up the corn quite a bit, but I still saw a bit of gelatinization in the corn
Added a 1/2 teaspoon of alpha amylase, but first dissolved it in a half cup of water, then stirred the contents into the mash
Let that sit for an hour with a bit of a stir every 15 minutes

I turned the heat off and let it cool down to about 145 - 148*F
Added 10 ml of gluco-amylase (it was already in liquid format) so I just stirred it in directly
Turned the heat on again and maintained that temp for about an hour with occasional stirring

After an hour the mash was very liquidy. I killed the heat again and added 4 kg of sugar

I let it sit for a while to cool a bit, then proceeded to strain out the corn/barley and transferred the remaining wash into a carboy. I used another ~1-1/2 gallons of water to rinse the corn/barley as I transferred it to the carboy. I let that cool over night and pitched the yeast in the morning. After about 6 hours it started bubbling nicely.

Before pitching the yeast I had a starting gravity of 1.115

That was all last Sunday night/Monday morning. It is still bubbling as of today.

Hope this helps.

JJ

Don't mean to offend but with a grain bill of 8 pounds flaked corn and 1 pound 2 row malted barley with 4 gallons of water total, If that is what I read you will only have a potential of 1.076 with a 100% conversion. When you did your SG test was the liquid clear or was it cloudy? Sounds like you got a false reading with your hydrometer to get 1.115.

[skow69]

Corene, I think you missed the part where he added 8.8 lb. of sugar.

JJ, most around here shoot for SG around 1.065. We like the flavor better if you keep the wash to around 8% ABV.

[corene1]

Corene, I think you missed the part where he added 8.8 lb. of sugar.

JJ, most around here shoot for SG around 1.065. We like the flavor better if you keep the wash to around 8% ABV.

Yep I sure did. I just remembered when I first started I tried to measure SG with a cloudy wash. Doesn't work well. Sorry.

[DoubleJ]

I'm all eyes and ears here. I am trying to learn.

I guess the main intent of my post was to show how the alpha and gluco amylase was used. Combined, they seemed to give a pretty good starch conversion.

The gravity reading I think was fairly accurate. My wash was fairly clear in terms of not having any visible floaties in it.
I wasn't trying per se to hit that 1.115 gravity reading. The other corn batches I've done were coming in around 1.080 - 1.100, except this was the first time I used flaked corn. The others were cracked corn.

As far as sugar goes, being up here in Canada and having the metric system, sugar is sold in 2kg and 4 kg bags, so it's just easier to dump whole bags in and not monkey around with part bags. On the first few batches where I only used 2 kg of sugar, I wasn't getting a what I thought was a good yield. I didn't have a beer hydrometer on those first few batches, so I don't know what my starting gravities were.

Nonetheless, I appreciate the comments. And like I said above my intent here was to only show how I used the amylase with what seemed like good results, and to not hihack the thread. I am still learning and have struggles as well, but I'll save those problems for my own threads.

JJ

[ericrichards420]

I think you answered KYMountainMan's question just fine DoubleJ.
I'm not sure I would keep adding the sugar although. Next time I would add more grain, either malt or corn to the grist keeping it an "all grain" recipe.
other than that sounds like you have it figured out.

[DoubleJ]

Noted. Thanks.

[skow69]

Ditto. Try it with no sugar and compare the taste.