No Mash No sugar

[Teddysad]

Here is one I use

[CoogeeBoy]

The Yellow Label is not suitable for sugar washes such as TFFV.

Now you tell me!
I learnt the hard way

[Dancing4dan]

Did 100 pounds of cracked corn fine ground in 40 ish gallons of hot tap water. It took on a sour / puke smell initially. As the ferment progresses that smell is decreasing. Not concerned about it as I have smelled this before using feed grade corn, even without Yellow Label. It always seems to go away either during ferment, cold crash or the distillation. Never seems to come through in product.

It is split between two fermenters. Both are wrapped up in blankets and have heat belts on. Temp is holding at about 31*C. Stirring it every day for three days as recommended.

This stuff really chews through corn. Looking forward to finding out how it does with cracked corn VS flaked corn I did earlier.

I could have used boiling water but want to see how it goes with just hot tap water.

Both ferments finished. One batch had starch on an iodine test after testing the leftover corn. RE soaked the corn after squeezing it and will repitch a tablespoon of yellow label to see what happens.

I think I had to much corn and not enough water.

I have a feeling both original ferments got an infection. Probably Brett. Hence the puke smell? One wasn't to bad but the other.. I did stripping runs and will run it through the reflux still. The one that was real smelly only produced 1 1/2 gallons of low wines. the other made 4 gallons. I refermented the corn from the smelly one. It is done now and smells sour, but not decidedly like puke. I don't have enough experience to know but Brett is my suspicion.

To be clear! I don't think this was a Yellow Label yeast problem. Used finely ground feed grade cracked corn from a different producer. Hot water was added and it was all left to cool to pitching temp. It smelled funky by time I pitched.

Just had a hard time not using hot water. Should have added water at pitch temperature and not tried to hydrolyze the corn. Like the directions say...

Live and learn!

[Dancing4dan]

I bought 20 kg of corn meal. Cheaper than flaked corn but not as cheap as cracked corn. Will follow directions and pitch Yellow Label on this stuff after another couple rum batches.

[rubberduck71]

I bought 20 kg of corn meal. Cheaper than flaked corn but not as cheap as cracked corn. Will follow directions and pitch Yellow Label on this stuff after another couple rum batches.

My experience with corn meal was producing a nice 100% corn whiskey. Even did a sugarhead on the spent grain.

[Metalking00]

I know that you cant check SG with yellow label, but will FG still give a good indication if its finished? My lastest batch is down to .998. Is this a real reading or is it unreliable like an SG reading would be?

[Sporacle]

I don't bother with a FG with my angel ferments,
I leave them until they stop and clear, having said that the ones I have done a FG on have been around that mark, the other indicator for me is mine will sit within a temperature range (cooler months with the aid of a heat pad) of a couple of degrees during the fermentation, I take a temp and once it drops away it's another indicator that I use that the ferments finished

[Dancing4dan]

I know that you cant check SG with yellow label, but will FG still give a good indication if its finished? My lastest batch is down to .998. Is this a real reading or is it unreliable like an SG reading would be?

Initial SG compared to FG is a moving target with yellow label. Enzymes are converting starch to sugar while yeast is converting sugar to ethanol. As a result the FG can be fairly low but still have active ferment occurring as both processes slow down but continue to occur.

[rubberduck71]

I've done sugarhead on spent grain with angel yeast. That's the only time you'll get a usable SG & FG.

[bluc]

@Teddysad any benifits to that yeast over angel?

[NormandieStill]

We buy organic flour for making bread in 25kg sacks from the flour mill in the village. We were buying a semi-wholemeal which worked well as the only flour, but the local mill doesn't do half-measures so we can only get white or *very* wholemeal and we blend the two for bread.

Except we go through about 3 sacks of white for one sack of wholemeal and the wholemeal clearly got a little damp. It's clumped and smells slightly musty. Not a totally unpleasant smell but not what we want in bread. I was about to dump the whole lot on the compost when I thought, why not just ferment it and put it in the reflux for more neutral.

So: 8kg of wholemeal flour mixed (by hand... and my shoulders are very much aware of this) with 23L of tap water. I used warm water at the end to bring the temperature up for pitching. 42g of Y-L yeast and it's off.

------------

Also when I ran my last batch of neutral I ended up with quite a few cuts. I got my super-clean hearts. A jar or two either side which had a little too much going on, but could be used for strongly flavoured liqueurs. A jar of what I considered to be early tails and kept just in case it cleared up a little and a blend of two fairly tailsy jars that had some interesting caramel and orange flavours going on.

It's been a bit over 3 months so I gave the tailsy blend and the late hearts jars a taste. The late hearts have a tiny hint of tails on the nose, but taste great. They've got a slight caramel hint to taste, but are otherwise pretty clean. Should be good for liqueur. The tailsy blend is still extremely funky on the nose, and while the flavour is there the funk basically means you have to sip while holding your breath. My wife described it as "Overwhelmingly chemical. The bad ones too". I might try sticking it on a small piece of charred oak and see if that can be aged out.

[Metalking00]

Just finished up a spirit run of a makers mark grain bill using malted wheat, vienna malt and micronized corn. Got a surprisingly good hearts yield, and its very flavorful. Probably the best thing ive made to date. Gonna start another tomorrow to try to build up some stock.

[elbono]

I'm planning on starting some ferments in the morning about 16 hours from now and would like any recommendations or comments any have to offer. My objective beyond making something I'll drink is more knowledge.

Batch 1-
My standard 10 kg feed store corn + 40 liters hot water + 75-100gm angel.
Purpose- control batch + see how summer temps help or mean I need cooling.

Batch 2-
5 kg Costco white rice + 20 liters hot water + 30-50 gm angel.
Purpose- play with rice, I've only done sugar washes and various corn ferments

Batch 3-
5 kg corn + 5 kg rice + 40 liters hot water + 75-100 gm angel
Purpose- more learning, I've seen at least one post in this thread that got good results/flavor from corn+rice.

Specific questions in my mind are:
I plan to run the rice through the corona mill. Is this needed?
I always run the cracked corn through the mill.

When these ferments finish should I run them through the pot still or the column (CCVM/SPP)? I'm fairly good at running the pot but not so good at detecting cut points yet. I'm getting better at running the column but still learning and obviously this eliminates much of the flavor.

[Dancing4dan]

I'm planning on starting some ferments in the morning about 16 hours from now and would like any recommendations or comments any have to offer. My objective beyond making something I'll drink is more knowledge.

Batch 1-
My standard 10 kg feed store corn + 40 liters hot water + 75-100gm angel.
Purpose- control batch + see how summer temps help or mean I need cooling.

Batch 2-
5 kg Costco white rice + 20 liters hot water + 30-50 gm angel.
Purpose- play with rice, I've only done sugar washes and various corn ferments

Batch 3-
5 kg corn + 5 kg rice + 40 liters hot water + 75-100 gm angel
Purpose- more learning, I've seen at least one post in this thread that got good results/flavor from corn+rice.

Specific questions in my mind are:
I plan to run the rice through the corona mill. Is this needed?
I always run the cracked corn through the mill.

When these ferments finish should I run them through the pot still or the column (CCVM/SPP)? I'm fairly good at running the pot but not so good at detecting cut points yet. I'm getting better at running the column but still learning and obviously this eliminates much of the flavor.

My flaked corn, hot water @ 150* (65*c) and yellow label turned out great.

Cracked corn through a mill, 150* (65*c) water and yellow label got a funk. Real sour. I did stripping runs but have not done spirit run. I think trying to hydrate the corn with hot water and allowing it to cool naturally allowed a infection from the corn to get going. Next time I would add hot water to try and get pitch temperature immediately rather than trying to hydrate the corn, cool down then pitch.

Next yellow label ferment will be corn meal, water to reach pitch temp immediately 30*c, insulate the ferment to maintain yellow label optimal ferment temp of 30 -32*c. Let the enzymes and yeast do their thing at that temp.

[rubberduck71]

I was sipping on some 11 month old 100% corn meal last night. Right tasty stuff!

[EricTheRed]

And I'm sampling some 1 month old. Also tasty! ;P

[elbono]

Cracked corn through a mill, 150* (65*c) water and yellow label got a funk. Real sour.

I've managed to get some real funky stuff going but only when I went way out of recommended parameters. Funky enough I was hesitant to put it on the garden compost pile. It did go there though and odors seem not to have persisted.

I've done boiled corn, corn with boiling water, corn with cold water (angel rehydrated in warm water) and corn with hot water(about 100f/38c) all gave good results. Settled on the last, easy to do, minimal energy/time to heat water and I can pitch the angel yeast without waiting since the temp is right after I add the water. Avoids the question of did an infection start while it cooled too. I need to try the cold water/proofed angel technique again but that's another day.

Life happened to me, I only got 1/2 the corn milled today I'll post more data when I kick these off.

Next yellow label ferment will be corn meal, water to reach pitch temp immediately 30*c, insulate the ferment to maintain yellow label optimal ferment temp of 30 -32*c. Let the enzymes and yeast do their thing at that temp.

After I run it through the corona mill the cracked corn is about like coarse corn meal. Like I said above 100f/38c seems to get the right temp immediately, YMMV. During the winter I was struggling to keep ferment temps up, stayed at the bottom of the range or just below, canvas drop cloths and windshield sunscreens for insulation, on a heated platform. It worked but took longer than it should and I obsessed about the temp the whole time. I hope summer will make things easier.

[elbono]

I was sipping on some 11 month old 100% corn meal last night. Right tasty stuff!

And I'm sampling some 1 month old. Also tasty! ;P

I'm assuming y'all ran this in a standard strip/spirit pot still distillation. Any hints on how tight the cuts were, tails vs heads vs hearts content?

[rubberduck71]

I'm assuming y'all ran this in a standard strip/spirit pot still distillation. Any hints on how tight the cuts were, tails vs heads vs hearts content?

Looking back @ my notes, I did 3x5 gal ferment buckets (~1 gal headspace in a 6 gal bucket). Each had 10 lbs corn meal.

Stripped 2x7 gal (since you ferment on grain, it eats up some of the volume) & ended up with 16L @ 30% low wines.

Spirit run resulted in 3.3L hearts @ 80% + 1.3L distilled = 4.6L @ 55% for aging. Feints was 3.25L which I threw into the spirit run of the sugarhead.

[NZChris]

I'm assuming y'all ran this in a standard strip/spirit pot still distillation. Any hints on how tight the cuts were, tails vs heads vs hearts content?

I reckon it's best not to have any expectations as they might cause you to make mistakes. How deep each of us strip will make a difference to our heart cuts, as will our flavor preferences, the variety of grain, how well the ferment went, copper placement in the still, etc.. Don't attempt to cut 'on the fly'. Run into jars, then choose a cut you like from the jars.

[elbono]

Thanks guys. I always run in small jars either 225 or 450ml. I know I'm bad at cuts, just trying to learn. I mark the jars with my opinion if heads/hearts/tails. When I'm actually consuming later I'll hit one on either side of what I thought would be pretty good and say OH THATS NASTY!

I take info with a grain of salt but any info helps.

[kuraokami]

Do you guys think any additives would speed up the fermentation process with Angel Yeast or that it's already got all it needs?

[rubberduck71]

Angel yeast is a parallel conversion. As the enzymes convert the starch, the yeast will work on the sugar. To my knowledge, it's not a process than can be sped up. Not sure that you'd want to either. Sped up yeast is a stressed yeast that will lead to off flavors?

Grains usually have the nutrients for the yeast, but if you do sugarhead on the spent grains, def add in DAP, or something to that effect.

[Saltbush Bill]

I agree, it works fine as is.....it needs nothing added. Even if doing a sugar head using the left overs it should still do ok without added nutrients.
Ive been doing a bastardized UJSSM with the old grain for a while now.......not seen any problems with fermentation.

[Dancing4dan]

Two fermenters going with 10 kg corn meal and 2.5 kg oat flakes in approx 60 L water at 35 * C last evening. Ferment seems to be pretty happy.

Used hot water from the PC to add water to the fermenters. One fermenter had some hot Backset added at the end of a stripping run.

Did a spirit run and two 60L fermenters in 5 1/2 hours yesterday.

Compared to traditional methods this really saves time and effort.

[Metalking00]

Compared to traditional methods this really saves time and effort.

No foolin'. Due to equipment limitations, a traditional mash took 3 days to do 3 fermenters. With this, I can do all 3 in about an hour or 2, including milling the grain. Well worth the price, which is pretty reasonable.

[kuraokami]

The angel yeast says to stir the ferment. What is a safe way to do it without introducing anything bad?

[zed255]

Sanitize your stirrer. Open the ferment, stir and close. An active ferment rarely picks up anything 'bad' but don't let it sit a long while after completion either. At least strip it to low wines in a timely manner.

[Saltbush Bill]

Ive stirred mine with everything from a mortar mixer on a drill to a large plastic brewers spoon, sanitization of equipment has been about zero......sometimes a squirt with the garden hose. Infection to date has not been an issue.

[elbono]

The angel yeast says to stir the ferment. What is a safe way to do it without introducing anything bad?

I'm sure it's possible to get bad infections but the only time I've had it happen is when I was way out of the recommendations (low temps, whole kernel unground feed corn).

I originally stirred for a few days then sealed under a ferm lock. More recently I keep it unsealed until it's finished so I can observe temps and such. No issues yet, corn will develop a thin white skin sometimes (lacto?) . Rice has stayed totally clear.

I wipe my stirring spoon off with a rag, set both on the lid of the container until the next stir change rag if it gets crusty.

This stuff has been close to bullet proof for me.