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corene1 wrote:

Jimbo wrote:LOL. I can't slow down. Get bored shitless and start pacing and torturing the cat. Ever put tape on a cats paws?

Yep I have! Ever tied a foil ball to their tail?

'bout to.

Callin pita on yew fellers:)

LWTCS wrote:Callin pita on yew fellers:)

Bring some hummus

We could dip the pita in some of this here mash? Its a salsa of sorts no, Corn and such?

Jimbo wrote:We could dip the pita in some of this here mash? Its a salsa of sorts no, Corn and such?

After all the mad science experiments you performed to bring it back from the dead? No thank you.

LOL, no that was the batch that failed, this ones running like crazy, altho my fluke meter did take a bath in it.

So, are you pretty well satisfied that it was the Belgian malt that caused the bad mash?

Back to propionic acid - what are your observations? Do you think washing the treated corn helped with the fermentation, made no difference, or some other?

S-C

Yup, thats my theory, and Im sticking by it,... until it doesnt work again. No belgian malt, no foam, no problems.

I think Corene is on to something washing feedgrade stuff. The shit that I pour out of the bucket is gnarly looking grimy crud. gives a chance to skim a lot of floaty cob chunks and empty bad kernals, sticks, grass, and assorted other flotsom Im not to keen to even know its origin.

I like her mop wringer idea too. gonna pick one up before squeezing this 75 lbs of grain out tomorrow. Corene is full of good ideas frankly

Just a heads up from a chemist, propionic acid is miscible with water, meaning it loves being in there. It will kill yeast, but only if you used in high enough concentrations. What does that mean, practically speaking? If I were in your shoes, I'd soak my cracked corn in water for 5-10 minutes, strain it out, repeat 2x with fresh water. By that point you should have removed a sufficient amount of propionic acid that the grain will properly ferment.

I talked to a guy today that knows about propionic acid. Most of his knowledge was about using it and not getting rid of it. He said that propionic acid is sprayed on high moisture feed that will mold very quickly to keep it from molding. Propionic acid is a fatty acid that attacheds to moisture and when the feed is heated and dried out that it was his thought is it would go away. Feed should be around 13 % moisture to not mold. The heat should not be high enough to denature the grain. Most or all of the propionic should go away when it you reach around that moisture content. Most of the northern states used it because of the grain silos sweating in the extreme temps.

Because his specialty is not getting it off but keeping feed from molding he thought option 2 would be to drop in boiling water and wash really quick to release the fatty acid and then dump the water and then dry at a temp that is not going to denature the grain and drop moisture content to 12-13%.


Option 3 is move south.

Since you're just going to add gallons of water to the feed anyway when you ferment it there is no need to dry it. I would wash it at least twice just to be safe. The water doesn't have to be boiling because propionic acid is so soluble at room temperature.

Fyi, it's baaaaaaack.......

Just bought a new bag morning. Same producers pride cracked. But now that it's winter, there's ProAss /in the bag. Thought the bump would help this year's batch of stillers.

That corn, ya'll!

The multi grain chicken scratch I use lists propionic acid... Never caused a prob though.

I will say, though, it is the best sized crack I've ever bought of producer pride. They have gotten better!

I've been denaturing the propionic acid with a two level tablespoons of baking soda in addition to other protocols for AG washes. It's corn with a mild food grade acid. I buy it for the starch and it works just fine ... with an additional re-grind for starch exposure.