All Grain Adventures

[jog666]

Ive been wanting to try all grain from the very beginning but with needing to learn how to still & basic fermenting skills, I pushed it to the back burner. That gave me plenty of time to read up on malting, mashing & all the little things. When I decided to pull the trigger on AG, I didnt want to get in over my head since I could see it could go from good to bad rather fast.

Started with the two bucket method. I drilled 1/8" holes incase I want to try a smaller grain than corn.

5# of corn set to soak. I think I should of added another day worth of soaking before just rinsing it. Seemed like it kind of stalled. Sort of dried out a bit but not to bad. Went from 2 to 3 rinses a day.....

.... until I had sprouts. I would say around 50-55% sprouted. Im putting most of the blame on me since I kept it in the bucket vs laying out like everyone else. I knew it would have some effect but wanted a test run before building something to lay it on.

Drug out my old mill that I have no clue where I got it. I played with it a few years back with grinding feed up for chicks.

Used two cups of whole dry corn to set the gap. Which later I backed it off one turn.

I guess Im missing a couple pictures or just forgot to take them. I layed out the corn & put a fan to them for a while. Trying to get some of the moisture drawn off. Plus let me check everything good.

[jog666]

Grinding green malted corn just plane sucks.

Bad enough I had to take the shield off, turn around & zip strip to the hopper just to keep crap from missing the bowl.

I pretty much went along with Weißer Hund's post. I did stray from it since some other things came up that day.

The dried & now ground corn got tossed into some hot water. No since in wasting it. Then tossed in with the above corn.

I used a towel to wrap the pot to slow the cooling down, stirring from time to time.

I checked the SG after filling to 4.25-ish gallons. Very low even with alot of stuff still floating around.

[jog666]

When I got time the next day, before pitching the yeast, I checked the gravity again. Went down as I expected. Oh well, its only a test run.

[MichiganCornhusker]

Where do you get your corn?
I’ve had mixed results with tractor supply sprouting, often getting around 50%.
I get almost 100% with local field corn.

I like to air dry my malt with a fan, then in an oven around 200F overnight.
The oven makes it way easier to de-sprout and grind, and I also prefer the kilned flavors.

One trick that might help with green malt is to freeze it.
I did this once with fresh seeet corn through a corona and it worked well.

Love seeing the interest in malting!
Good luck, keep us posted.

[jog666]

Local feedmill is where I got the corn. Im sure some if not most of the sprouting problems are from THAT corn. I still have 45# to play with..... before feeding it to the animals.

A couple years ago I got a tote sack (~1000#) from a local farmer for my hogs. Soak it 5 days & they went nuts. They were in heaven between that & all the sweet tators they could eat.

Ill try the freezing part next time. I went with a green path since it is the simplest to it without buying or building anything. From the looks of it, its easily scaled like recipes. Just have to work out the bugs. Im hoping the stripping turns out atleast decent.

[fizzix]

You malters make it look so easy, jog.

[jog666]

Test run #2 was another failure. I dont think I even hit 50% sprouted. This time I had 2 days of soaking & rinsing before laying it out on a screen. Stirring & rinsing every day. Im done trying to sprout the feedmill corn. When I find some time Ill get some from the farmer. In the mean time, I might try malting wheat. I had damn good success some years ago trying to see if a fodder system would work for me or not.

[jog666]

Wheat is underway. Only 2.5 pounds. More or less to work on the malting process.

[shadylane]

I've had good luck malting feed grain wheat 90-95% germination
Here's a malting protocol that seems to help with modification consistency.
Soak, drain and rinse for a day or two with COLD water in a cold environment
That will get the moister up, without turning the seeds on.
Then transfer it to malting trays at room temp for germination

[dukethebeagle120]

The best luck i have had was with popcorn.
I bet i got 90% germination
It is more expensive though
If you can find a restaurant wholesaler sometimes they have big bags cheaper

[jog666]

If the wheat is the same as I had a few years back, it should do good.
I thought about popcorn but the price..... & Im one not to think about the price of something (hobby wise).

On a good note, after dropping $800 on my injection pump this morning, I stopped by a wine/beer/grow shop. I have found a BIG supply of options for malted grains if I cant get it going in house or if I want to add a bit of something different.

[MichiganCornhusker]

I checked the SG after filling to 4.25-ish gallons. Very low even with alot of stuff still floating around.

Here are a couple things I believe about working with corn malt that don't really fit in with the bulk of what I've read:

1: Corn malt should be cooked, same as corn.
I've read that the malting process breaks down the starches so there is no need to cook the corn at higher temps, but that has not been my experience.
At least for the malts I make, with sprout lengths up to 3/4" to 1" long, I get way better conversions when cooking the malt vs. just using mashing temps.
The bonus with using corn malt is that the corn won't gell up like raw corn at the higher temps, the enzymes present help keep the pot much more liquid, reducing the chances of scorching.
Yes, the cooking will denature the malt's enzymes, so you would need to either use liquid enzymes, or some other kind of malted grains, or hold some of the corn malt back, uncooked, to provide the enzymes for the mash.
This leads me to my second personal observation:

2: Corn malt can convert way more raw corn than what I've read.
I can completely convert mashes with as little as 10% corn malt, or even less.
So, if I do a batch by cooking 9# of my malt up to boiling temps, and then cool to 150F and add 1# of my uncooked malt, then the enzymes in even that little bit of malt will convert everything.

I would guess that without cooking your malts, you will continue to struggle with OG.

[jog666]

Corn husker, I had a reply typed up thanking you & admitting I forgot something yet again (freezing green). Something happened while uploading, or well.


On to the fun!!!

I didnt get any pictures of the "wet part" of malting but I basiclly soaked & aired for ~8hr each. Then layed out on a tray I had. I think it used to belong to wonder bread...... Put a small tilt to it so water would drain off. I would mist everything & stir it real good for a couple days. Once all the shoots got around .7-1.25x the grain length, I started to smash them between my fingers. I read somewhere on here that when the endosperm would smear, its ready. On the same tray, I spread them out all over it (I left a buffer area for water to run off before). Turned a fan on & went to stirring. Stirred several time over 25 hours or so. Roots were dried out & a the few I checked were crunchy.

After looking at recipes for a few days & what I am set up for, using Jimbo's 1/2 barrel at 1/3 should work out for a test.

Ground the corn up as the water was getting to temp.

Dumped it in & stirred like hell for a while. Busting up clumps & cussing the whole time. Wrapped it with a couple thick blankets. Stirred every 15 for a little while. Slowly stretched the time out until it was over 3 hours.

[jog666]

I was at 160* after a stirring so I kicked on a fan & stirred & check the temp every 5 minutes or so. About 35 minutes later, it hit 143* (I was cleaning & missed 146* if it matters).

Above is the milled & malted wheat. I think I had it to tight of a grind at first since it PACKED into the grooves. It also built a little heat as I was grinding. After cleaning the mill & looking at the ground wheat, I saw to many whole kernels. Back to grinding...... I finally found a setting were I could have only a few jump up whole but smashed. I think the trick was when it started to get packed & stiff, turn it backwards to clear it some. Freezing it next time! Oh ya, I also did not knock the roots off.

More dump & stir..... Hot damn it thinned out!!!

More to come...............

[jog666]

I didnt realize til after I put the camera up that the meter was against the wall. After a good spin, 1.060 @ 85* !!!!

[shadylane]

Looking good
How many pounds per gallon

[jog666]

Looking good
How many pounds per gallon

2.5# of wheat malt
6.75# of corn
3.5g water

2.64#/g TTL
.714#/g Wheat
1.93#/g Corn