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aflatoxin glows green under a black light. the jack daniels people claim to reject any shippments of corn that have any percentage of aflatoxin because it adversly affects the flavor of the final product. cob

I never heard of it till you mentioned it here. So whats are you recomending??

Highly cancer causing stuff. It is only sometimes found in corn????

scotty wrote:I never heard of it till you mentioned it here. So whats are you recomending??

Highly cancer causing stuff. It is only sometimes found in corn????

http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/plants/tox ... toxin.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow . this is a more balanced view. all i would recomend is not making wash with moldy corn, and that looked like an easy test for aflatoxin.
that EHSO site starts the article with "potent human carcinogin" and offers nothing to back that statement. looks like some kind of agenda to me.
cornell says it is carcinogenic in high doses in certain lab animals, if it was a big deal it would have had a lot more press.
just an easy test for something that jd says may affect taste. imho jd and taste in the same sentence is a joke in itself. cob

Cob,

I think the alfatoxin test is done by JD because its an easy way to check whether the corn was harvested and stored properly before reaching their factory. Most tests for fungi (mold ) like Aspergillus take time and labour. Its easy to keep producers honest by passing a blacklight over a shipment. Aspergillus niger or black mold is also common and its something most of us have seen. I plan to start making whiskey soon and I will definitely check out the quality of the corn before going through the labour of an allgrain mash with corn. As for a supplier, if you can get a look at their storage facility, look for adequate ventilation (fans) and some kind of humidity monitor. As you well know, most fungi cause bad odours and sniffing the grain and its packaging will help tip you off about bad product. Alfatoxin is nasty enough but any grain that has a high fungal load is going to make poor quality booze.

DocDave

docdave wrote:Most tests for fungi (mold ) like Aspergillus take time and labour. Its easy to keep producers honest by passing a blacklight over a shipment. Aspergillus niger or black mold is also common and its something most of us have seen.

Aspergillus is purposely added to ferment rice. I do not think that Aspergillus is a fungus you should worry about in your ferment. It might even help.

Paul 1453,

I was using Aspergillus as an example to the members much like the familiar bread mold, Penicillium. I agree many environmental fungi (molds) are harmless but some are quite deadly! Personally, when I find food with fungus growing on it, I throw it away. I think the same can be said of grain "good quality in, good quality out". Most grain if stored properly (proper humidity) is perfectly safe. I just want to start with good product if I'm going to spend alot of time working with it.

DocDave

I understand, the ergot fungus that grows on rye is a natural source of LSD. I wouldn't want that in my ferment, but who knows some others might.

Been looking at aflatoxin and corn as I have been researching other member's posts on using feed corn/deer corn instead of buying the expensive homebrew store corn. My feed store carries a brand of deer corn and on it's label it says less than 10ppm aflatoxin and less than 20ppb fumonisin. This definitely gave me pause. FDA says that 20ppb fumonisin is ok for human consumption but only 4ppm on the aflatoxin.

Other member's describe using 'cracked corn' from feed stores but I haven't had a chance to eyeball a bag from the local tractor supply to see if it has any mold statement...

Sounds like some of you folk here are fairly knowledgeable when it comes to this. Thoughts?

FDA website that applies: http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceComplia ... 109231.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

dis-still-in, I am relatively certain that aflatoxin wouldn't carry over through the distillation process and even if it did it would be in amounts well below those that you might encounter on a regular basis anyway...

Well, I've purchased the whole and cracked corn from different feed stores. When I stored the corn in buckets with oxygen absorber, the corn still got mold all over it. I'm talking a week later. I put a few pieces in the microwave oven and it popped like popcorn. This indicates there is too much moisture.
I buy my corn from Honeyville Grains. Yes, it is more expensive than feed stores, but I don't have mold problems any more. When you put their corn in the microwave, there is no popping.

Going back some 30 years, to when I used to maintain and drive combines, I seem to recall the ideal moisture content at harvest for corn to be in the 28% - 32% range or lower, and on the high end a liquid drying agent might be required because the moisture content could rise during storage and cause spoilage in the farmers silos... When selling corn the farmers were paid more for fully dried corn because it didn't require a trip through the buyers driers to reduce moisture content prior to storage... And the lower the moisture content, the lower the incidence of aflatoxin growth...

Backwoods Distillers- What oxygen absorber were you using?

I use the 300cc Honeyville's Oxygen Absorbers. I buy them from Honeyville Grain.

Bugger it just eat more celery. According to wikipedia, "Medical research indicates that a regular diet including apiaceous vegetables such as carrots, parsnips, celery and parsley, reduces the carcinogenic effects of aflatoxin."

Just looked up aflatoxins in the Merck index. There are various different ones but the ones I looked at were all solids with melting points above 200 oC, so I don't think they are coming over in the vapour any more than sugars would. Some more info here. http://www.icrisat.org/aflatoxin/aflatoxin.asp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Did a little bit of research on aflatoxin in grains.
No- it doesn't carry over into the distillate.
Why does a distillery reject a heavily contaminated lot of grain, even though they can legally distill with it? Because they won't be allowed to sell the leftover
grain (after distillation) to a local farmer as animal feed. They need this money to reduce their operating costs.
"Feed" grades of grains have similar permissible levels of aflatoxin contamination as the grain fit for human consumption- there are exceptions for breeding
animals, however.
It is not aflatoxin that glows, but, usually, kojic acid. (the tips of corn kernels, soybean hulls, and certain weed seeds can also glow- giving a false positive).
Some strains of toxin-producing aspergillus do not glow- a false negative response IS possible with a blacklight.
Distill it- don't eat it, and you should be safe.

You shouldn't store corn with more than 15% moisture, it will mold, the drier the better

Backwoods, thanks for posting this. I am gonna buy a TON of these. Really useful little item. --D

Backwoods Distillers wrote:I use the 300cc Honeyville's Oxygen Absorbers. I buy them from Honeyville Grain.

Im a corn grower myself and every load of corn is tested for aflatoxin at the grainery we use. We were told that the big beer brewers like Miller, Coors, AB ,etc.... buys this stuff at reduced price . Luckily we have a fuel ethanol plant down the road we can sell to if we ever did have a positive tested load. We have yet to have a positive test . Just another reason to make my own I believe that storage has nothing to do with corn getting infected with it . It happens in the field and certain weather conditions cause it . We spray fungicide on the plants during pollination phase to ward off fungas.

I have been searching for an answer about afloxin. I read an article of a professor at Oxford . He said that a 70% abv will kill any molds, 99.9% bacteria. They have afloxin in several beers and wine. However it cannot survive in alcohol. It will make the licker taste awful and I reuse it for back sets if I get any off taste

Also I dont see why you couldnt bring your corn up to 212 when cooking it. Im quite sure that this would kill any mold even afloxin, also just like rad said it cannot survive the distilling process and if you are producing at least 70% abv you could use this to kill the mold. Its another attempt to scare everyone so that they have to go out and buy a bunch of crap or else just get out of the hobby to prevent being killed.

I used to work for the USDA, FGIS in the 80's and 90's. Aflatoxin is the byproduct of an organism, it hinders any other fungus or mold to grow. It is toxic to fish, particularly trout at concentrations of 10 ppb, birds at 20ppb, larger animals can survive larger quantites but it will effect their health. It will cause miscarriage in Bovines and other Ruminants (goats, sheep etc.). It collects in the liver and is stored there. The USDA holds to a limit of 20ppb (parts per billion) for loose grains from the field. If you should do a black light test on your grain and find the green glow that indicates the presence of the toxin, you could just pick out the infected grains, not really hard but it could be time consuming. For our purposes, the toxin breaks down at 170 degrees f. alcohol boils at a slightly higher temp, so I think our product would be ok safety wise.