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I agree the more aggressive commercial and most importantly healthy yeast will become the big bug on the block (one main reason for doing starters), but we have to remember that there are sugar chains that commercial yeast is not designed to metabolize. Lactobacillious will now through sucrose which sacramyces can't touch. Even when I do a sour mash I'll introduce a controlled strain of lacto to the mashtun and cover it with a sealed lid overnight. I will then finish my sparge and boil to kill the lacto then add my sacrmyces to finish the job. This is commonly known as a kettle sour.

In the lab we normally see lacto and Brett take off with about a four hour lag time.

I had a lacto for the first time in a drop of my "Scotch" which then went on to slowly ferment out. I have to say that even the "white dog" is really nice. and the amounts produced are if anything slightly more than I am used to.

Next cook goes on toasted and charred oak to see wht we see.

A few of our members deliberately set out to get "infected ferments" - Maybe they are on to something !

You can invert sucrose but yeasts will by themselves break it down to simple sugars frutose and glucose that it can use no worries with no other bacteria required. Lac to is not there to assist the yeast in any way but to add a certain flavour (sour mash) to the product. I know of and have seen a distillery in Lexington KY (Alltech) run one of their finished mash worts into a wide open wooden vat for the purpose of cultivating a lactic ferment.

Some bloody good reading here!
Beginners question, do most people ferment on the corn and include the barley / wheat / rye in the ferment or separate the grains from the corn? I can easily mash my grains separately and just add the wort to the corn mash, just an extra step.

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Nice!


Thanks for spending your time to write this up!


As usual tons of info

i get lacto almost every time on my corn mashes
the last one was like 1/8 inch thick
made good stuff

What if you don’t have any back set yet?

Acidulated malt works.

I have finally broken down nd gotten a Digi Boil. I put 12 gal of water to 25# of corn and set it for 195 and once up to temperature let it sit for 2-4 hours. Check to see if it is soft and go longer if need be. then add high temp enzymes and set the heat for 145. let it sit until it gets down to that temp and add the regular enzymes. You can then ferment on or off the grain.

Newbie here....
I notice many references to fermenting while the corn/wheat/barley kernels or hulls are still in the wort? Organic Chem class was many (MANY) moons ago, but I do remember that any cellulose will ferment to methanol (CH³OH) instead of ethanol (C³H²OH). Nasty stuff. Headaches, and will make you go blind. I always strain out any organic matter prior to fermentation, whether it's hulls, kernels, or grape skins. The few times I didn't, the heads and foreshots were nasty with methanol (green flame), acetone, etc.
Am I misunderstanding something?

DaviesCountyBoozer wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2024 3:22 pm Newbie here....
I notice many references to fermenting while the corn/wheat/barley kernels or hulls are still in the wort? Organic Chem class was many (MANY) moons ago, but I do remember that any cellulose will ferment to methanol (CH³OH) instead of ethanol (C³H²OH). Nasty stuff. Headaches, and will make you go blind. I always strain out any organic matter prior to fermentation, whether it's hulls, kernels, or grape skins. The few times I didn't, the heads and foreshots were nasty with methanol (green flame), acetone, etc.
Am I misunderstanding something?

Yes!

Pectins can lead to methanol formation but you won't find any in cereal. The worst normal candidates are pears (Which depending on variety could potentially take you past the EU limit for methanol in your spirit... Not that that limit is based on hard science). Green coffee beans will produce frightening levels of methanol so do try and ferment and distill them.

Now for your flame test... it's a myth. You can't test for methanol by burning your distillate. Somewhere on the forum someone (YummyRum?) actually tried burning lab grade samples of methanol and ethanol. A green tinge to your flame indicates the presence of copper. Where you using a copper spoon or some other copper container? If not, your sample was contaminated.

DaviesCountyBoozer wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2024 3:22 pm Am I misunderstanding something?

The flame test is rubbish.
Here is an experiment that Yummyrum did, disproving the theory.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=75486#p7571655
And here is another that proves the same thing.