I decided to try the corn meal mash. I got 6.6 lbs White corn meal going in 4 gallons water. added 2 lbs. 2 row barley and 1 lbs. of rye.
Initial thoughts are... what a gloppy mess. Hope it thins out some Got a blanket rapped around it.
Heated water to 200F. Added Corn meal. got a lot of lumps. To much work to get rid of them all using a big spoon. About 2 hours later added Malted grains 3 lbs total (about 30 to 35 DP depending on what numbers you use). It has thinned some. Currently have a blanket wrapped around it setting on the stove @ 145F
1st run: Cracked corn: low conversion (1.020 SG): added sugar ( 6lbs. to get 1.056) and some corn (2lbs?) from the mash to the fermenter: Taste great
2nd run: Cracked corn: a little better conversion(1.032) : added sugar (4 lbs. didn't check SG) but no corn added to the fermenter this time: LESS corn taste but good.
3rd run: White corn meal, barely and rye... mashing currently
Didn't turn out like I expected. There wasn't a bunch of clear liquid at the top to collect to check SG like when I did the cracked corn. Also corn meal is drying around the edge of the big pot. hmmm? This is goin to be a pain to clean up? Or maybe it will be easy. I may be jumping the gun.
I added 1 gallon of water and 8 lbs. of sugar. From experience this should give me around 1.060 SG. I am guessing I will use a grain bag to separate the meal from the wash after it is done fermenting.
So far cracked corn and corn meal take a lot of work compared to Birdwatchers and UJSSM.
Cornmeal doesn't work for me. I can't get the water strained from the meal. I ended up splashing sugar water everywhere. Maybe I should not have tried this 1 hour before work. I did get about 1 gallon of water initially. Then I tried squeezing the bag... water ran over the sides of the bucket. Then air pushing up from the bottom of the bucket splashed sugar water everywhere when I set the bag down because I was getting tired of holding it up.
Even though cracked corn may have a lower rate of conversion to sugar compared to meal. Water strains off the cracked corn easy. I can at least manage the cracked corn. My back hurts and I got a headache...errrr
I've enjoyed your escapades, but your working too hard. Perhaps consider building a steam rig, and chuck that goopy mess right in. On the other hand you should be able to get acceptable conversion with cracked corn. Booners tried and true is about as easy as it gets.
Kegg_jam wrote:I've enjoyed your escapades, but your working too hard. Perhaps consider building a steam rig, and chuck that goopy mess right in. On the other hand you should be able to get acceptable conversion with cracked corn. Booners tried and true is about as easy as it gets.
I will check Booners out. '
I have a simple set up. I live in a small house in the city. 1 still 6 gallon still (5 usable gallons) and 1 fermenter (6 usable gallons) and a grain bag to strain.
I think I am just getting over my head for my set up... Or just going to high a grain bill for my abilities.
Dude. It's one hour before work and you are trying to start squeezing grains? I can understand why you are upset. I don't have a lot of time for this hobby either, but you had to know that was a bad idea.
Try the same thing again with similar protocol. This time just leave it in the pot and put the lid on. Slide it to the back burner. Just let it ferment like that. Squeeze it after fermentation is done. I did that with a 3-3.5 gallon potato mash that I did once. Mash in on the stove in the kitchen, slide the pot to the back burner, pitch yeast when the temp is right, strain and run next weekend. The way the lid sits on my pot it allows air to escape but kept the co2 layer intact enough to protect it from infection. Also because the whole pot was at boiling temp it had been completely sterilized.
Brutal wrote:Dude. It's one hour before work and you are trying to start squeezing grains? I can understand why you are upset. I don't have a lot of time for this hobby either, but you had to know that was a bad idea.
Try the same thing again with similar protocol. This time just leave it in the pot and put the lid on. Slide it to the back burner. Just let it ferment like that. Squeeze it after fermentation is done. I did that with a 3-3.5 gallon potato mash that I did once. Mash in on the stove in the kitchen, slide the pot to the back burner, pitch yeast when the temp is right, strain and run next weekend. The way the lid sits on my pot it allows air to escape but kept the co2 layer intact enough to protect it from infection. Also because the whole pot was at boiling temp it had been completely sterilized.
Your right. Especially since I didn't know exactly what I was getting into.
So After work...start brining water to boil around 6 PM. Cook, pre-mash and mash and add malted grains and enzymes. Cover with a blanket and let sit around midnight. I tried to free up the stove for the wife by getting up early (NOT early enough).
Well, its a process and I am learning what works best for me. I am not complaining. Just documenting my frustration Now I understand why someone said in an earlier thread..."Now how will you separate the corn meal for the water?"
Using the "no cook" protocol I add 4 gallons of boiling water to 12 lbs corn meal in a grain bag (spread open and rubber-banded to the handles of my mash tun). After the enzymes do their thing, and it's time to squeeze, I drop the corn and bag right into a 10" china cap similar to the one below. The strainer fits the mash tun so it's a simple matter of pressing with a large mixing bowl. Once the liquid has been extracted I give it a psuedo-sparge with hot water right out of the kitchen faucet. I sparge until I reach my final volume.
Very easy and very consistent results.
________________
I drank fifty pounds of feed-store corn
'till my clothes were ratty and torn
I don't have a mash tun. Maybe I should look into getting one.
I did have a stainless steel strainer. I just didn't seem to be able to get it to strain. I was letting gravity pull the water through which didn't seem tp be working. Maybe next time I will apply some pressure using bowl like you did.
One thing I noticed:
I let the mash set in a bucket and after work I noticed that the corn meal settled on top the water. Hmm? If I had a mash tun I could strain the water out of the bottom. Maybe?
Using the "no cook" protocol I add 4 gallons of boiling water to 12 lbs corn meal in a grain bag (spread open and rubber-banded to the handles of my mash tun). After the enzymes do their thing, and it's time to squeeze, I drop the corn and bag right into a 10" china cap similar to the one below. The strainer fits the mash tun so it's a simple matter of pressing with a large mixing bowl. Once the liquid has been extracted I give it a psuedo-sparge with hot water right out of the kitchen faucet. I sparge until I reach my final volume.
Very easy and very consistent results.
Excellent recommendation.
3d0g wrote:Ferment the whole mess on-grain, then use one of these and a spatula to separate post-ferment into a 5 gal bucket. Easy peasy.
I have a "grain bag" I ordered from amazon. It seems to work good for cracked corn. Not so good for corn meal.
Tonight I mashed 5 lbs cracked corn in 4 gallons water. A lower grain bill so I could get a good boil on it and handle the process with my limited skills.
Second guessing my order of 50 lbs. of "coarse ground corn meal". But with all the great suggestions I should be able to get by. One thing I plan on is using less grain/meal per gallon until I get this process down.
3d0g wrote:The 600 micron is perfect for corn meal. Used it countless times for this very purpose.
just did a quick search and never seen these in stainless before. ive been using an aluminum strainer for pasta then a second and third filter through a fine paint strainer made from nylon. i havent seen these posted up before.
Good find rager. Not cheap, but I'm sure that'd last a lifetime. I got 2 of the 600 micron ones from Amazon and I've used the 1st probably a dozen times so far with zero signs of wear.
3d0g wrote:Good find rager. Not cheap, but I'm sure that'd last a lifetime. I got 2 of the 600 micron ones from Amazon and I've used the 1st probably a dozen times so far with zero signs of wear.
not cheep at all but i can see where either a semi serious hobbiest could use something like that to a full time commercial set up whether being for alcohol or bio.
so your using the 600m? what are you using for grains?
ive been eyeing those as well but just not sure what micro to go with. id probably got with 2 or 3 so i could step the filtering finer and finer. anyone got an idea of what should be the coarsest to finest micron i would want to use for seperating the grains?
rager wrote:
so your using the 600m? what are you using for grains?
I've used it post-ferment to lauter corn meal, flaked corn, flaked wheat, flaked rye, and fine ground rye. I fill the strainer with the gloop, stir with a large spatula until the liquid falls out, dump the now dry grains in my spent grain bin, and repeat. Takes me about 15 minutes to work through a 6 gallon mash.
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old thread but I wanted to add on , for the next person, reading.
using corn meal at a rate of 2 to 1 ( meal to water ).
its going to get thick like cream of wheat.
you can put in some sacrificial malted grains to thin it up some
or use sebstar HTL (works at 190F) ,
you need to figure total volume. ( when you have all the grain and all the water how much is that ).
total grain volume = 0.125 X Lbs of grain .
example five gallon bucket and 8 lbs of grain .
8 * .125 = 1
that leaves 4 gallons for water, and its so full you can not move it.
hint: Get large ice chest, find out how much water it will safely hold.
I have one for 15 gallons,
no matter what ingredients you have come up with , put the corn and sugar if your using sugar
in ice chest, then add 214F water, stir with drill motor and paint stir tool. close lid, come back
in 5 hours and see what temp your at, maybe stir again.
148F you can add your malted barley , rye , wheats what ever , stir that up close the lid, you need a couple of hours or more.
80F: I run a iodine test here: few drops of the clear beer on top in a white plastic spoon, few drops of iodine, should not be BLACK, kinda stained brown color is good. [ convert complex starches into simple sugars that yeast can easily consume. ]
80F you can pour mash out into buckets or what ever you have for fermentation. you could ferment in ice chest.
hopefully your SG = 1.04 to 1.07 , 1.08 and higher probably not desirable, you can add water to get it down some.
taste it, should be super sweet. I have had some before that I wanted to drink.
Add yeast, close it up loosly, so air can get out, I tried bubblers before, not really needed, just keep bugs and dust out. the volume is likely to expand, so it its at the top, its going to get messy.
Ok: 7 days later your back, I use a Fermtech Auto-Siphon to get as much of the clear off the top as I can, I have a paint strainer over the destination bucket. Now you have to deal with the grain, I use a paint strainer and get the grain in there then squeeze it with a mop bucket. you can do it by hand.
all of this will have yeast and other very small particles. I will fill a bucket with this strained stuff. LET IT SIT 24 hours or so, you will see it will separate and the mostly clear will be on top. Get that . ( term her is called racking ). You will find that you get about 25% to %30 of your original volume. I throw away the goop , its named Trub. The good is named beer, its sour, . Take this to your legal distiller friend and he will strip it, down to about 15 to 20abv , then run it again and take all but the fore-shots, down to about 30 abv, all together is should be pretty tasty about 40 to 50 abv.
your legal distiller friend will help you along the way. If you do this without him in the USA , your at risk of jail time.
You might need to make several batches to get enough to strip and do a final spirit run.
tools you really need
a siphon
method to measure grain weight
paint strainer bags
something to read gravity ( 1.000 ) has no sugar.
something to read ABV
i like transparent food safe buckets, ( these have lots of measurement details on outside )
something that you can safely boil water with, can be electric say 5 gallons or more safely.
I use enzimes so i measure PH , and I keep up with temp with a wireless bbq thermometer.
Got a blanket rapped around it. 
