Struggling to make all grain corn mash work. Any ideas?

[DWelsh]

I have been trying to make an all grain white corn mash without adding sugar, and I'm starting to suspect that the malted barley I've been buying from my local brew supply shop isn't labeled right. Basically, I can't get the starches to convert into sugar. I've checked the gravity before and after mashing and it hasnt changed at all. I've read so many forumns on here and haven't found anyone with the same problem. I've followed correct mashing methods as close as possible, and still nothing. I'll explain in detail below exactly what I've done, if anyone can tell me what I'm doing wrong, that would be appreciated.

So first, I took 12 lbs whole kernel white corn and put it through the blender until it was a very coarse cornmeal (I didn't want too much sticking). Then I added 4 lbs of crushed 2 row malted barley. (I figured 30% malted barley would be more than enough to convert the starches in the corn)
I used the Brew-In-A-Bag method and added 7 gallons of bottled water to my boiler. I brought the water temp to 158 degrees F and added the grain in the bag. I made sure that the bag was not touching the bottom to prevent scorching. The Water temp went down to 134 degrees so I brought it back up to about 152 and started the timer. I literally stood by the stove the entire time I was mashing and checking the temperature every couple minutes. It got down to 146 degrees a couple times so I mashed it for 2 hours while keeping it between 152 and 148 degrees F. After the first 20 minutes of mashing I removed a sample and cooled it to 65 degrees to take the gravity reading. It read 1.019. After two hours of mashing I did the same thing and the gravity had not changed at all. The mash did not taste sweet at all either. I ended up boiling the mash water and adding sugar to bring the gravity up to 1.057. Did I do anything wrong in the grain mashing? I live at around 7,000 ft elevation in Colorado, would that affect the mashing process at all?

I repeated the process this morning on a 1 gallon scale, but this time I blended the corn until it was a much finer cornmeal and boiled it for 30 minutes before bringing to a mash temp and adding the barley. Its been about an hour so far, and I can't tell if it tastes slightly sweet, or if its a placebo. I'm going to let this one cook off a while longer. Am I doing something wrong? Or did my brew shop mistakenly sell me the wrong grain? Any input is appreciated. Thank you

[der wo]

This is a good tried and true for corn and barley:
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 14&t=47488
You didn't gelatinize the corn. And do a premashing (like in the link described).

[MichiganCornhusker]

Ya need to cook the heck outta that corn!
Corn needs to be gelatinized at high temps, near boiling, for hours, before the starches in the corn will become available for conversion by the enzymes in the malt.
You essentially just mashed 4# of malted barley in 7 gallons of water. The corn was just along for the ride.
You might also consider upping your ratio of malt. You need to look at the entire grain bill to calculate percentage. It's not 12# corn / 4# malt = 30%, you need to add the corn and malt together: 12# + 4# = 16#. 16/4=25%, which is a bare minimum, especially for someone just starting into AG.

Edit: Posted with der wo. You can also check out Jimbo's recipe for a "no-cook" version of dealing with corn: http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 14&t=48126
Or get some high temp enzymes, and check out the Booner's process.

[DWelsh]

Thanks, Ill be sure to gelatinize the corn next time. Will corn starch work as a good cheat? Thank you

[jedneck]

maybe but it would sacrifice flavour and $$$

[Shiny Coke]

If you want a cheat to get away from cooking your corn for hours and stirring the shit outta it and yer arms, use flaked corn (flaked maize). It has already been through the gelantizing process thus eliminates the cooking requirement. Its not as cheap as whole or cracked corn but you're buying yourself 2 hours off the mashing process!
I use a 60/20/20 blend. 12lbs flaked corn, 4 lbs flaked rye and 4 lbs pale malted barley. Although I BIAB for beer I ferment my whiskey on the grain and filter when I'm transferring it to the still. Here's what I do and have had great success.

First sterilization of your equipment is paramount to prevent infection. I usually sterilize as my strike water is coming to temp.

I bring 10.5 gal strike water to 165-170 and transfer to a large cooler used as a mash tun.

Add in my flaked corn and barley in 3 increments, stirring each to prevent dough balls with 1/2" Drill and paddle mixer. I stir it every few minutes until the mash hits 155F.

Now I add the 4 lbs of ground malt with 1 Tablespoon of Amylase to insure full conversion.

Close the cooler and let sit for an hour or so until conversion proves complete via an iodine test.

Cool the mash to 80F and while cooling make a yeast slurry in a sanitized container with a 1/3lb bakers yeast cake and warm water. Once your temp hits 80, aerate your mash to ensure it has adequate oxygen for the yeast and pitch the yeast.

I ferment in a couple of plastic wine fermenters that look like small garbage cans. I put the lids on loosely, cover them with a bed sheet and try and keep the room 75 to 80F as thats what bakers yeast seem to like.

Hope this helps,
SC

[der wo]

If you want a cheat to get away from cooking your corn for hours and stirring the shit outta it and yer arms, use flaked corn (flaked maize). It has already been through the gelantizing process thus eliminates the cooking requirement.

This short treatment does not gelatinize completely. If you want a really good conversion (high yield, no scorching, clean taste), you should cook flaked corn too. The finer the grind, the shorter the cooking time, but the more difficult to lauter.

Btw I would use the BIAB only for lautering. And stir while heating up and cooking. Or at least remove the BIAB after cooking and NEVER heat up while the malt is working. Insulate your pot and you never will have to heat up -> overall in the pot the same proper temp -> better conversion.

[Shiny Coke]

Cooking the flaked maize is something I've been considering and why I've been setting my strike temp to 170F as it takes 30-45 mins or so to cool down to 155 where I add the malt. The mash still gets quite stiff until the malt goes in and liquefies it again and I do think there is some valid thought here as my yield seemed to increase with the warmer strike temp.

I use my BIAB bag to lauter after I've poured out the clear liquid on top. I use the bag inside a bucket with holes drilled in the bottom and that bucket inside a large strainer over a collection bucket. It's pretty bush league and still requires a bunch of squeezing to maximize liquid yield. I want to eventually rig up a hook and a pulley system which can suspend the bag over the collection bucket and let gravity do the work.

+1 on insulating the pot if your'e not using a cooler mash tun. Heavy blanket over the pot woud be fine just be careful to keep it off your heat source.

[Shiny Coke]

Cooking the flaked maize is something I've been considering and why I've been setting my strike temp to 170F as it takes 30-45 mins or so to cool down to 155 where I add the malt. The mash still gets quite stiff until the malt goes in and liquefies it again and I do think there is some valid thought here as my yield seemed to increase with the warmer strike temp.

I use my BIAB bag to lauter after I've poured out the clear liquid on top. I use the bag inside a bucket with holes drilled in the bottom and that bucket inside a large strainer over a collection bucket. It's pretty bush league and still requires a bunch of squeezing to maximize liquid yield. I want to eventually rig up a hook and a pulley system which can suspend the bag over the collection bucket and let gravity do the work.

+1 on insulating the pot if your'e not using a cooler mash tun. Heavy blanket over the pot woud be fine just be careful to keep it off your heat source.

[still_stirrin]

Flaked maize has been gelatinized as a part of the flaking process. You don't need to boil it. Mash as usual.
ss

p.s. - You don't need to double post for us to read your posts. We got it the 1st time.

[der wo]

Flaked maize has been gelatinized as a part of the flaking process. You don't need to boil it.

They use a press and hot steam or water. Of course they do it as fast/cheap as possible. The hot water or steam has to make the corn pressable but not complete gelatinized. For what we need hours they manage within seconds? I don't believe that.
But probably it's only a detail. I don't know how much yield you win with cooking it.

[der wo]

Cooking the flaked maize is something I've been considering and why I've been setting my strike temp to 170F as it takes 30-45 mins or so to cool down to 155 where I add the malt.

Why not boiling water at the beginning?

[MitchyBourbon]

You should also be aware that the power to convert starch to sugar varies from grain to grain and maltster to maltster. For ex.

▪American 2 Row Pale Malt: 140 °L
■American 6 Row Pale Malt: 160 °L
■British Pale Malts: 40-70 °L
■Maris Otter Pale Malt: 120 °L
■Belgian Pale Malt (2 row): 60 °L

As you can see 6 row has more than 2 row and American 2 row has more than European 2 row. The bottom line is you must be certain you have at minimum 30 °L (diastatic power) per lb of total grian. More is better.

The purpose of mashing is 2 fold. First you must release the starches from within the grain. To release starches from grain requires that you heat the grain in water and the temperature required to do this job also varies from grain to grain. Since corn requires much more heat than most malted grain it must be pre-cooked separately. Not to mention that the enzymes in malted grain won't survive Temps that high.

The second purpose of mashing is to convert those starches to sugar. The enzymes in malted grain will do this for you. But there are many different enzymes in malted grain they too require different Temps to do their job. I will leave that to you to research.

[Shiny Coke]

Flaked maize has been gelatinized as a part of the flaking process. You don't need to boil it. Mash as usual.
ss

p.s. - You don't need to double post for us to read your posts. We got it the 1st time.

Good way to bump the post count eh? LOL - I accidentally double clicked the submit button and wondered what was going on.

[DWelsh]

I know this is a super late post on this topic, but I finally got it to work. I eventually started trying flaked maize, since the starch is pre-gelitanized. However, I could never get it to taste sweet. Then today, after looking back into it, I realized why the mash would never taste sweet or ferment. I was following instructions on just about every site which said to heat at 150 to 155 F. Apparently thats great for alpha amylase, but not for Beta Amylase, and according to something I was able to come across, beta amylase makes more fermentable sugars. So I just got some corn mash heated to 140, put in the enzyme formula and a little 2 row for the hell of it, and just 30 minutes later, the mash tastes sweet. I was aiming 10 degrees too high when mashing the whole time.

[Thedevilswater]

Hello,

I work with Corn a lot and have gotten specific gravity up to 1.070 and normally get 1.060 or so.

Two items stand out.

1. The temp you are being the corn to, I know some say you got to boil or take a long time. This has not been my experience, I get free feed corn, grind it fairly fine heat my water to 200 degrees then pour 4 gallons into a larger pot and use a mortar mixer and a drill and mix it until no lumps. Then I let it sit for 5 min and check, it clearly changes state and is very thick. At this point I add one more gallon of water then mix again, this brings the temp down to right around 154, I add my flavoring grains then my malted barley stir to incorporate and then let it sit, stirring every 15 min or so for the first hour then once more after 30 min, leave sit for 30 more. It shows a clearish liquid on top. I syphon odd what I can, then I use the mop bucket trick with a brew bag . This produces a sweet liquid that as I said measured between 1.050 to 1.070 or so, depending on the corn. I am using 9 lb corn 3 lbs malt barley, I use half 2 row and half 6 row, jusr because. Then I vary the flavor grains for different profiles.
So bottom line I don't think the water is hot enough.

2. The water is lacking critical minerals for the conversion. Early on I tried some of that great filtered and reverse osmosis water from a local machine, it did not work out well, very poor conversion and fermentation. So I tried my filtered tap water left to sit for a couple days and it worked great. We have water fairly high jb calcium, and it is my understanding calcium is vital to the enzymes. So the bottled water could be your issue.

Try a different water source. If you are worried about chlorine get a 12 inch under sink carbon filter. Your tap water may contain the needed minerals.

Good luck.