My first attempt at gel/mashing corn... didn't go well!

[brewer24]

Hey guys,

I'm still waiting on ebay for my solder to attach my column to my brew kettle lid (they seem to think it's already delivered ) but in the mean time figured I'd get some washes fermenting.

My girlfriend likes bourbon, so I figured I'd do a simple 51/49 corn/barley grain bill. I've been brewing all grain beer for a few years so I thought it would be relatively simple... however my lack of experience with corn made this a bit of a clusterfuck!

I'm using fine rolled corn - basically grits/flour with the odd larger piece throughout. My dad works at a grain elevator so I get it for free
And the barley was standard malted 2-row from the LHBS. I get it in 25kg bags pre-milled.

Using this chart http://www.brewunited.com/view_page.php?pageid=1 I can fit 28lbs of grain in my 48qt mash tun cooler. So figuring on 14 lbs of corn, and 2 pounds per gallon, I boiled 7 gallons of water in my kettle, shut it off, and started adding my corn. This is where it started to go south.

No mater how finely I sprinkled in my corn, it would float on the surface and then clump up. I spent a bunch of time stirring it in and trying to break up the clumps, but eventually I got tired of that and left the smaller ones, hoping water would eventually soak in. I also made another mistake by turning the heat back on- I thought the convection would help stir and break up some chunks. I didn't have a spoon that could reach the bottom, so as you'd expect, I started scorching it. Once I noticed the burnt particles coming up I killed the heat and wrapped it up to sit overnight.

In the morning I dumped it into my mash tun. It was a little liquidy on top, but the bottom third was somewhat doughy and I'm not sure how well it would have released it's starches. I ended up with probably a pound or more cooked onto the bottom that only came up after soaking for a few hours- it was almost like thick buiscuit-like chunks then. After mixing in my 13.5 lbs of barley, 1 gal of boiling water to get me up into the mid 140s, and leaving it sit for few hours, I opened the drain on my mash tune and... nothing happened. Not even a tiny bit of water would flow out- the corn just coated my bazooka screen and plugged it immediately. I ended up sitting there for a few hours with a ladle and a strainer. Two scoops into the strainer, push it around while the free water drained off, then pressed the grains to get what I could.

In the end, instead of getting 9 gallons of 1.079 wort like I had hoped, I ended up with 8 gallons of 1.061, so only about 2/3s of what I had hoped. Not terrible, but with a boat load of hassle.

I'm thinking that if I us a grain bag big enough to hold everything, I can put a cookie rack or something to keep that off the bottom of the pot while I boil, boil/gel my corn, wrap in a blanket, and when it's cool enough add my barley malt. Wrap it up again and let it convert. Then lift the bag and drain down into the pot, maybe squeeze and/or pour over some sparge water, and then give it a quick boil and into the fermenter. I also think I might get a coarser grind to help with lautering- unless it'll dissolve regardless then I should stay fine to help make the starches accessible?

Lots to figure out... the spend bumps of a new hobby

[autotech]

I'm using fine rolled corn - basically grits/flour with the odd larger piece throughout.

I dint do a lot of corn mashes but i think you problem is the grits and flour. i thought its cracked or whole corn in corn mashes. mix your dry ingredients first and then add water slow. ie like when you make gravy if you pour flour into water it just clumps up but if you pour water onto your flour and stir its fine. my two cents

[brewer24]

I'm using fine rolled corn - basically grits/flour with the odd larger piece throughout.

I dint do a lot of corn mashes but i think you problem is the grits and flour. i thought its cracked or whole corn in corn mashes. mix your dry ingredients first and then add water slow. ie like when you make gravy if you pour flour into water it just clumps up but if you pour water onto your flour and stir its fine. my two cents

I'm definitely going to give that a try autotech, thanks. I had been thinking a fine grind would help with releasing starches, but I can see how coarser would be a lot easier to work with.

[amdamgraham]

You may want to throw that batch out. I have read within this forum that the flavor of scorching will make it all the way through to the distillate. So if you have only minor scorch maybe you are OK but if you can detect that smell and you are getting free corn anyway, then just chuck it and start over. I do All Grain corn/rye etc. You've already discovered you need a paddle that reaches the bottom of the cooker. Not sure if you are using high temp enzymes but that is a game changer. It's the difference between stirring corn-crete or soup for an hour.

[frunobulax]

You are on the right track, but, you are never going to lauter 50% corn. A coarse grind will not help because there is no husk on corn. Look into hi temp enzymes and check out this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtnboJ3Kxeo" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
What I wold do is bring water to 200 degrees add enzymes and corn. maintain temp (above 190) for an hour and a half then let cool until 160 add your malt (so when you add your malt it settles to 150ish) and let it convert from there. Ferment it on the grain and when its done, strain the mess through a 5 gallon paint strainer and squeeze it with a mop wringer. corn is a PITA and Commercial distilleries distill the whole mash.
grain and all.
Hope this helps, I may be a little tipsy at the moment.

[zapata]

Find a way to strip on grain, lautering, straining, pressing omg it all sucks. It only makes sense if you're already committed in equipment and experience. E.g. people like mop ringers and by all accounts they work fine, but for the price of a good one you could just build a thumper (clear goes in boiler, grains and muck in the thumper) or a steam generator to feed your boiler full of mash with steam. Not only will they be more efficient than any straining method, they'll save time and arguably getcha more flavor to boot.

[fizzix]

Find a way to strip on grain, lautering, straining, pressing omg it all sucks. It only makes sense if you're already committed in equipment and experience. E.g. people like mop ringers and by all accounts they work fine, but for the price of a good one you could just build a thumper (clear goes in boiler, grains and muck in the thumper) or a steam generator to feed your boiler full of mash with steam. Not only will they be more efficient than any straining method, they'll save time and arguably getcha more flavor to boot.

Always enjoy zapata's posts because he knows this hobby well.
Just finished up squeezing 33lbs. of corn through a mop wringer bucket and strainer bag and it only took 40 minutes. Sure beats the old hand-squeeze-and-wringing method I did ONCE. It can even be, dare I say, cathartic.

[brewer24]

Hmm, I'll probably distill it anyway just to see if it does make it through. The corn may be free but all that barley wasn't.

I'll starting to think I'll try this once or twice more to get enough for a spirit run, and then move on to single malts, or Canadian style blends with smaller proportions of corn. I don't really have room for a mop bucket, and other grains, at least barley, is so easy to work with.

[pfshine]

Never toss anything out run it and see how it goes. The best whiskey I ever made was from a scorch. After a few months all the bitter went away and left a heavenly smoky flavor.
As for the mashing, high temp enzymes are the way to go. It makes everything so much easier. And then you can do an all corn mash.

[HDNB]

there is a couple things up there ^^^ that you don't want to do.

whole corn - you will get no starch out, just fat wet corn kernels. That shit will plug a 2" sewage pump.
malt mash in at 160.- don;t do it, you won't finish dry. try less than 150* you'll get better results. there are lots of charts here for malt effectiveness temperatures. Edit: re-read...that was strike water temp, so just make sure you end up at 150 when you dump the malt in quickly.

can't remember who said it here, but it's still true... never under estimate corn's ability to plug a hole.

you pretty much got to stir constantly with a paint mixer or better. when adding corn to hot water.

Cracked corn will drain better.
corn meal? get a steam unit or bain marie and ferment an distill on the grain, there is no sense even trying to get the juice outta it.

[Lawfish]

I would echo what frunobulax said about the overhead stirrer and the video he linked. I have a 1/2" drill mounted on a 2 x 4 that is bolted to a joist in my basement, so it can be folded up out of the way or brought down with a mud mixer to stir a big old pot. It's very handy. The other thing I've discovered about getting as much out of corn as possible is to soak the corn (Tractor Supply cracked corn) in a big pot in the stove for 6 to 8 hours. I put 8 lbs. of corn in 4 gallons of hot water and when it's done, it looks like cornbread. Scoop that out into some heating water with the mixer running and it'll all go into solution (using an immersion blender to break it into finer pieces is very effective at this point). At 180, add high-temp enzymes and stir for an hour, then add some cold backset to get it to 148 and do your second mash. You could add barley at that point and mash for an hour (although equal parts barley and corn would be too much grain for a 5 gallon batch).

Then comes the lautering, as you've discovered, a difficult thing to do. I drilled a bunch of 3/16" holes in the bottom of a 5-gallon bucket and I pour my finished mash into that and use a 3/8" drill with a small paint mixer attachment to force the liquid through the holes. You get some corn in the final product, but not enough to affect fermentation or distillation.

Hope that helps.

[Shine0n]

There's a chart for adding grains at a certain temp to water a certain temp to maximize the malt conversion.
My malts are a constant 70°f So I mash in at 155-158°f water and end up at 146-148f for the duration of the mash.
I ferment and distill on the grain so can't help with the straining issues, I did a while back and can tell you to find a way to press unless you have some strong hands. An ass press works decent as long as you don't mind sitting around for a while. lol

Shine0n

[brewer24]

Even with all the straining I did before, a lot of the smaller particles went through. Settled in the fermenter so that the top half is free liquid and the bottom half is grain particles. So it looks like I'm not done straining yet.

Still working on getting the post clean too. After about three rounds of boiling with vinegar and then with baking soda, alternating, I've got maybe 2/3s of the crud off. The last bit I might just have to sit and scrub.

[pfshine]

Well you're not the first nor will you be last to have this happen. I burnt some in a keg once, pita to try and get out with scrubbing. I ended up getting a SS wire cone for a grinder and hooking it up to my drill. It came off in a few seconds.

[brewer24]

So I took another crack at this and it went much better, so I thought I'd give an update on what I changed.

The same: I still had a bunch of the same fine rolled corn, using a coarser grind will have to wait until I finish that tote. And the same 2-row Canadian barley, pre-crushed.

The different: I used my older smaller 8 or 9 gallon kettle this time, since I needed the 10 gal one for beer the next day. I also dug out my paint strainer bag, and lined the kettle with that. Before I put the bag in, I put a little wire rack in the bottom to keep the bag from actually touching the bottom (I think it came with our InstaPot). I also bought a plastic mash paddle from the LHBS so I could reach the bottom.

Steps:
1. Boiled 5 gallons of water, then shut off the stove.
2. Added in 10 lbs of rolled corn. Stirred and broke up chunks as best as I could for about 10 minutes.
3. My temperature dropped a bit more than I liked, so I boiled 2 gallons separately and added it on top to bring up my temp. While I was doing that I also turned on the burner under the corn- the bottom go back up to a boil, with the bubbles coming up along the sides between the kettle and the bag. I stirred during this to try to distribute the heat. 7 gallons total at this point with 10 lbs of corn.
4. Wrapped it up with a sleeping bag and left it overnight.
5. The next night I added 1 gallon of cold water to bring it down to 150*, and added 10 lbs of barley malt. I now had a mash of 20 lbs of grain in 8 gallons of water = 2.5 lb/gal = 1.6 qt/lb. (I'm more used to seeing mash thicknesses expressed as qt/lb in homebrewing, and this 1.6 number is right in line with my beer mashes so that was reassuring).

6. Wrapped it up again and left it. I ended up having to leave this for 20 hours or so until I got home from work the next day- as expected it was starting to smell a little funky and had a small patch of growth on top. Since I boiled my wort before pitching I'm hoping this won't have any negative effect.

7. The moment of truth. Time to see how effectively the grain bag worked. I set up a bucket to drain into and... wort flowed! A total of 3.5 gallons drained freely out of the kettle, meaning the grains held onto 5.5 gallons, or .275gal/lb. At that point it had went from being full to the brim, to this:


8. I used a lid from a smaller pot to push down on the grain, and was able to get another 1.75 gallons out. This means 2.75 gallons remained in the grain, or 0.137 gal/pound. My all-barley beer mashes usually leave about .10-.12 gallons in the grain, so I'm pretty happy with this.

9. I boiled another 3 gallons and added this as a batch sparge. I stirred it all in and let it sit for 10 minutes to pick up more of the sugars, and then drained and pressed the same as before.

10. After a quick boil to kill any nasties, I let it cool to yeast pitching temperature, and split the wort into two buckets. I had racked off my first batch after it had cleared up, so I used the yeast that had settled out from there.

I ended up with a total of 8.25 gallons of 1.062, for approximately 70% efficiency. It fermented out super quick, 4 days later (today) it's sitting at 1.006. I'm running it right now along with the first batch in two stripping runs as I type this up.

Earlier today I followed the exact same process, except with only 4.6 lbs of barley out of 20 lbs total. I only had that much barley left, and didn't want to go buy any, but I picked up more free corn with a coarser grind. Well, I haven't added the barley yet, the corn is sitting all wrapped up, just getting down to 180* now. So later tonight we'll see how the more corn heavy mix compares to the 50/50 mix.

All in all I think I've figured out a process that should work pretty well for me after a tricky start, I should be off to the races now. Thanks for all the tips guys with out communities like this it would be a much longer road.