1lb. Sugar = 1lb. converted Corn ..?

[Still Life]

Comparing various sugar recipes to corn recipes,
it looks as though 1 lb. of properly converted corn
is roughly equal to 1 lb. of sugar.

Does that sound right to you ol' pros?

[der wo]

1lbs starch = 1lbs sugar.
But 1lbs corn has not 1lbs starch. It's about 65% starch. So 1lbs corn = 0.65lbs sugar.

[Still Life]

Danke.
Your knowledge never fails to amaze, der wo.

[MichiganCornhusker]

shadylane posted this link: http://howtobrew.com/book/section-2/wha ... alt-yields" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[der wo]

http://howtobrew.com/book/section-2/wha ... alt-yields

Here flaked corn has 80%... Probably because while it is flaked, the hull is partly removed. My cornflakes for breakfast at home have 84%. But cracked corn or wholemeal flour should have around 65%.

[MitchyBourbon]

shadylane posted this link: http://howtobrew.com/book/section-2/wha ... alt-yields" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Nice list.

And here is another list, this one has a few more adjuncts.

http://beersmith.com/Grains/Grains/GrainList.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[MichiganCornhusker]

And then of course there is this:

From here: homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=50131&p=7268993

[MitchyBourbon]

Looks like raisins and garlic are quite high. Maybe someone who's not me should try a raisin garlic combo brandy. I bet chick's would dig that.

[rad14701]

Looks like raisins and garlic are quite high. Maybe someone who's not me should try a raisin garlic combo brandy. I bet chick's would dig that.

That's just wrong...!!!

That's coming from someone who can only smell garlic, which smells extremely obnoxious, but can't taste garlic...

[UrToopid]

This is a question that I struggled to answer a year ago when I had first started into this craft. It wasn't that I didn't know this to be fairly factual, I just couldn't explain why. In the course of the last year; and 36 mashes later, It dawned on me like the sun rising.

One lb of corn does produce apx. One lb. of sugar once the final conversion has taken place. There is however, another piece to this puzzle..

If one were to convert corn to starch by holding the cooked corn at an optimal gelatinization temp, and/or pressure, and then to sugar using pure amylase, then yes, apx. 15-25 percent weight would be lost due to the inconvertible solids. What is easy to miss here however, is with an AG mash, 15-25% (or more) of the corn grain bill is coincidently the weight in malted grain that is added for its Diastatic Power to convert the starch to sugar.

If you used 10 lbs of corn, you would use AT LEAST 1.5 lbs of malt grain and you would net very nearly 10 lbs of sugar. You are getting SOME of that sugar from the malt grain.

When describing the X lbs of sugar to X gals of water ratio and the Brix I will bet, and how the same ratio works out when using no added sugar, what I am actually talking about is just the corn used and not my entire grain bill.

I hope this helps somebody to wrap their head around this.

This becomes more relevant when you buy corn in bulk; say a super sack (1500-1800 lbs). In that quantity, corn costs a mere six cents per pound....much cheaper than sugar.