Home Distiller

Hi People.

I'm a complete novice Distiller, so much so, I haven't built my still yet, but here's a question about mash temperatures.

I have been a beer brewer for ages and have mashed all sorts of beers.

Now when brewing beers, you mash at 60C which is 140F and get mostly fermentable sugars. If you mash at 70C which is 158F you get mostly "unfermentable" sugars.

To get a nicely balanced beer you would mash at 66C which is 150F and add "hops" to the boil to balance the sweetness.

However, when distilling, you want as much alcohol out of your mash as possible, so why do people still recommend mashing at 66C 150F? Surely you should mash to get the most fermentable sugars out?

I'm obviously missing something?

Beta amylase is most active from 55-66C and give you the most fermentable sugars.

Alpha amylase is most active from 65-72C and gives both fermentable and unfermentable sugars.

So, if you keep your temps at the borders of the two enzymes you have both of them working together and will get more fermentable sugars.

Beta works by nibbling at the ends of starch chains while alpha just hooks on anywhere on the chains and breaks it there. So if ya have the alpha breaking big chains up then the beta has more ends to nibble on.

Big R

That's telling me, thanks for the lesson, that wasn't my understanding, I thought beers like pills from Holsten, was mashed at 60c and was one of the reasons why most of the sugar turns to alcohol.

Can't drink the stuff myself, it gives me a hangover whilst I'm drinking it

Please could you correct me on my thinking there?

You guys hit the nail right on the head. It is true that mashing at a lower temperature will produce a more fermentable sugars. For a home distiller this is not really an issue since the amount of extra alcohol will be very little on a small scale. But jump into large scale production sizes and it makes a big difference since less fermentable sugar directly hits the bottom line. The "Alcohol Textbook" mentions that distillers mash between 60-65 deg C because distillers are only interested in maximizing alcohol. Distillers are not concerned about the flavour of the mash like brewers are. In brewing, the slightly higher mash temperature (67 - 68 dec C) produces more unfermentable sugars which makes a better tasting fuller bodied beer.

If you really want to make a great mash I highly recommend using 5.2 Ph buffer and adding powdered enzyme concentrate. This alone will increase your efficiency dramatically and produce more fermentable sugar than playing with the temperature. It basically produces a no brainer mash.