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Well I did this awhile back with sweetfeed the bad thing is well I had to dispose of it very quickly or so I thought.From what
I did taste as a white dawg it was gonna be a hell of a sip with age.This winter will be testing time again.Thanks Odin for all
the info you have brought here!

Odin wrote:I dived in some deeper. And had some talks with pro distillers on the subject of the Maillard Reaction. We all know distilling on the grain results in more taste transfer in the final drink. Interesting thing is part of it may be caused by a (partial) Maillard Reaction that goes on in the boiler during the actual distillation process.

Grains in the boiler, temperatures around 90 degrees C for prolongued periods of time ...

Many distillers attribute the more intense taste transfer at least partially to the MR. Some say that direct heating causes more MR to take place, thus creating a more intense/complex drink.

Odin.

This is all so interesting, anxious to try it out. I have been cooking my corn at 190F-88c for about and hour and half and adding barley/wheat,cooking at 150F- 67C for an hour, using an agitator in a bop, resting overnight to ferment next day. so I guess I have been achieving a partial Maillard reaction? My bourbon has some very strong flavors of the grains.
Maybe I have miss read this. only one read through so far of these 5 pages. I do not ferment or distill on the grain.

W Pappy wrote:Well I did this awhile back with sweetfeed the bad thing is well I had to dispose of it very quickly or so I thought.From what
I did taste as a white dawg it was gonna be a hell of a sip with age.This winter will be testing time again.Thanks Odin for all
the info you have brought here!

Glad you like it, Papy! I am thinking of bringing some out white .. so folks can find their own ways of ageing it! On wood, on chips ... hell, just on plain air will do it!

If you give it some time.

Love to see this go into other directions than just rye ...

Odin.

I have read through this twice now... and am wondering if rice could be a good medium for maillard. I have never really cared for corn likker, although aged spirits are nice. Urrv has been my absolute favorite so far with sugar washes close behind. Thinking of making some small batches for testing:

4# cornmeal
1# maillardized rice & 1/4# maillard cornmeal
2.5# sugar
In bucket one
Then bucket two without maillard
Bucket three and four will be variations of the first two respectively but will be done without mashing the grain. Done with a "no cook" steeping method.
(Will check sg and add simple syrup if I feel the potential return is not there...fyi)
These will not go over 10%
And will be finished off in my 33"x2" unpacked column.
Thoughts?

I want to resurrect this after what? 3 years?

Odin, many thanks. I read through this post and it appears the Mailiardization process imparts significant flavors on the small scale. This is great for someone like me who wants to make the best drink possible for the cheapest money possible. So, I see guys mentioning Sweetfeed; if I want to make a 12 gallon wash and I want maximum flavor with least amount of SF, I'm thinking maybe 5 lbs grains, washed of the molasses (molasses stored for when I begin wash), and Maillardized?

Can I put the grains in a Big Ol' pot or must it be in a shallow pan? I can likely make enough space to put in 4 pans.

Also, I plan on grinding the grains quite small in my 2 roller grinder. would that help?

If you direct fire your boiler and don't do perfect agitation during on the grain distillation, you will get all the MR you need.

Odin.

Direct fire meaning that I'm using gas heating with a diffuser plate? My understanding from what I have read is that placing hay on the bottom of my still will prevent scorching. I run the brewhaus SS 15 gallon with 2" column. basic, turnkey, I just wanted to get into this hobby. I pack it with copper scrubbers. I really like the simplicity and safety of this device. Regarding agitation...I just aerate the heck out of my wash with a SS paddle before pitching yeast and let it rip. I don't bother with it until its done. I haven't had a stuck ferment yet, but I've been making alcohol for years (still a novice)

I don't know where to source hay (Denver, CO) so that is likely out although I'm sure it is abundant
I've been toying with purchasing a bulk sack of feed grade rye and maillardizing that in the oven first. I'm also thinking about Maillardizing some bulk C.O.B. that I have on hand, and honestly that seems more logical since I already have it. My tinkering with SweetFeed so far has resulted in too much of a rum sweet aftertaste (which although smooth and yummy) isn't much my favorite style.

But I can't figure out how to tweak a MR recipe for COB, because of the corn. I have a 10 gallon Home Depot cooler ready for use. I thought I would start experimenting with COB but was hoping to pull sugar from the corn to cut down on my sugar. I want to pull as much natural sugar from the grains as possible.

Would something like this work, for a 12 gallon wash?
heat 6 gallons of strike water to 200 degrees F
add to 8lbs of C.O.B. in cooler with high temp alpha. Cover. Wait 24 hours. Check.
when temp is near 152 add gluc-Amalayze. wait 24 hours.

empty water into another container and bake grains in oven at 194 F for 6-12 hours.
When finished, toss into bucket with enough water to fill 13 gallons, so I can siphon off 12 when done fermenting. Charge wash at ~10%, so whatever sugar I need based on O.G. of my MR grainbed wash will be added prior to ferment to get to that percentage.

Does this sound reasonable or will any gains from the enzymes be ruined by the MR process or the original high temp impart off flavor on the oats and barley? My SweetFeed washes that I put hot water on and pitch the next day still have an almost overcooked aftertaste I can't quite pin down in the final product. It is a flavor I much desire to eliminate, and I think it is possible with a MR style process.

Pardon if this is convulted but I was having trouble trying to put my thoughts in a succint manner.

Hay in the boiler? I wouldn't do that. Hay has a strong grassy taste, Yuck. Smoked grain in water put into a thumper works great. If worried roast some grain and add it after the enzymes. Smoked rice is my next project. 100 pounds

Hilltop wrote:Hay in the boiler? I wouldn't do that. Hay has a strong grassy taste, Yuck. Smoked grain in water put into a thumper works great. If worried roast some grain and add it after the enzymes. Smoked rice is my next project. 100 pounds

Hi, Hilltop and all,

H, you said Hay has a strong grassy taste.
Well, maybe and maybe not. Lucerne hay (are you from America? Alfalfa to you) would have that taste.
But you would not put that in your boiler.
What you would use is hay (more correctly straw because the grain would have been removed) from a cereal crop, wheat, oats or barley. Little or no smell.
And what you would most likely use it for is lining the bottom of the boiler when you are using fermented stems and skins of wine grapes, to make grappa.

It is a tradition, though it is for externally fired boilers of course, in the old days wood fired.
Something I would like to do, get some pressings from the local winery. Using gas heating.
But not this harvest, maybe early next year?

Geoff

I use a jet burner with a stainless plate on top as a type of diffuser, think that's the right word, never had issues with scorching. Guess we gonna have to agree to disagree on this one, as anything in the bloier flows through and ends up in the taste. I work to hard to get my mash right to dump hay or anything else in my boiler that may funk it up when a simple metal plate or other methods reduce the chance of scorching.

ok thanks fellas. I just finished my Maillard attempt with feed store rye berries.
6 pounds milled rye berries, 6 pounds of water. threw in oven on convection (high dollar samsung- btw, the only thing in the suite I would recommend. the rest is junk) 194 degrees F. let it cook nearly 24 hours because it smelled like wet dog in the house while I was cooking this. the only thing with any bite is the burnt ends on top. I cooked it at 350 for a few hours because it didn't have flavor. ended up tasting like bread. boring, uninspired bread. I used tap water.

I don't know what to do better next time.

The problem is that you denatured any enzyme within the rye berry which would have converted some of the starch into sugars which then would have reacted with nitrogen compounds in the grain.

Crystal Malt is made in two stages, first by heating to the temperature of alpha/beta amylase balance and then to the actual roasting of the malt.

would you please expand on that?
I didn't mention I let it rest overnight at 155 degrees in the 10 gallon HD orange cooler, and then transferred to the oven.
I'll have to go back and re-read this thread when I have time. I surely missed something. I want to use the rye berries but now I'm wondering if its worth it.

Even though you might not think you got much flavor out of cooking the rye you might want to use it anyway and see what you get.

I tried doing a version of this with corn malt a few years ago.
After the cooking I didn't think it made any difference in flavor at all, but when I made the whiskey I got a very distinct roasted corn flavor that I never got otherwise.
Even though you might not be tasting a big difference in the rye berries I bet they will make a different whiskey having gone through the baking process.

> The problem is that you denatured any enzyme within the rye berry

H_L said he purchased the rye from a feed store so it's safe to assume it was not malted rye.

correct, it was unmalted.

"Now comes the next day. Put the mixture in a baking dish, put alufoil on top and put it in the oven for 6 hours at 90 degrees C or 194 degrees Fahrenheit. "

derp. That is what I missed. I totally spaced the aluminum foil. ugh.

So, I threw in backset from this past weekends first all corn failure (I didn't cook it, just boiled water on milled, cracked corn (1/8" grits size- I'm ordering a grain mill for the kitchenaide. funny thing is my fiance got it for me originally and I thought that the flour like consistency was too small. wow. Imagine my amusement looking back at such ignorance)) and threw that on top of the fermentation bucket the next day after it cooled from overnight. I added some water, maybe 3 gallons and tossed it all back on the grains. It was fermenting so strong that it was moving large portions of the cracked corn and bread up and down and all over! I am nervous to distill on the grain so I might just go buy a mop wringer and see how much liquid I get. I really need to stop being so sloppy in my prep and dial in the tried n true stuff. I guess being a stubborn, corner cutting slav really has its limits.

I've got 10 gallons of low wines from SF recipe, the last rye bread sugar head, and this last attempt at booners casual all corn. it'll hopefully have some flavor because so far I'm unimpressed with my hearts collection of my strip runs in the pot still. they taste basically neutral, except the SF which is just rummy and sweet.

oh and my SF recipes seem to have a very distinct oat/barley bite, not good. its almost a burnt flavor but not quite. Not in the good malty beer flavor category, almost as if the bitterness punched its way through. I'm wondering how those flavors will translate if I do a MR process on the SF. can anyone weigh in on the flavor differentials of this process with SF?

Honest_Liberty wrote:correct, it was unmalted.

Then that is your issue. There are probably sugars in the grain but not enough to generate a substantial amount of the desired maillard product. I would recommend instead roasting your grain at 240-260f. Any darker and you will have overwhelming chocolate/coffee flavor in the whisky.

Ah, I just have also neglected to read the part about needing sugars for MR. I suppose I'll add some high temp alpha during initial overnight rest?