Home Distiller

So, exactly how much liquid beano do you use to convert the starch to sugar per gal. of mash? First time trying beano instead of malting.

I'm fairly certain that beano will not convert starch to sugar... I think it converts complex sugars to simple sugars.

So beano isn't a replacement for mashin'.

Anyway, mashin' is easy and all distillers should learn how.

Are you aware of how much crushed malted barley you can purchase for the price of a small bottle of Beano?

I think you are chasing the wrong rabbit. Beano is for breaking up complex sugars into simple sugars we can digest. It doesn't work on starch at all. It is an enzyme for complex or branching sugars (polysaccharides and oligosaccharides) in foods such as legumes (beans and peanuts) and cruciferous vegetables (cauliflower, broccoli and brussels sprouts). The enzyme breaks those complex sugars into simple sugars, making these foods somewhat more digestible, and the negative feelings that arise as a consequences of eating those foods are said to be less pronounced as a result. What you are needing is alpha-amylase and beta-amylase. Alpha hydrolyses starch to dextrin and beta hydrolyses starch to sugar. I agree with Grayson_Stewart stick to malted barley. It works and it works good. If you need instructions on how to use it I suggest buying "The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing" third edition byCharlie Papazian. He gives the best mashing intrtuction available.

Damn, that's right. I confused it with amalese. No I did mash - used 5lbs of 6 row malt at 63C for one hour. Where the hell did I come up with beano? Trying to get the hang of distilling grain, I normally distill honey/mead, or fruit.

Ian Smiley's Making Pure Corn Whiskey pg.64
"For a 25L batch of grain mash,use either five drops of liquid Beano or three crushed Beano tablets. The liquid form seems to work better than the tablet form."

I'm not saying that Beano is a substitute for malt. Beano should be used in addition to malting tho convert dextrins, polysaccharides, ogliosaccharides, and other non-fermentable sugars to fermentable ones. IMHO I wouldn't rely on Beano myself.

Hi all again

I have mashed a 25L total mash using Corn, rye, and Malted Barley. I let the malted barley do its thing for 2 hours at 150d F. I then added 10 tablets of beano that I let sit till room temp. I got a much much bigger startch conversion than previous. I think the beano kept working while it fermented, not really sure but I got a lot more yield using the beano after the malted barley.

It also adds a few very not so noticeable flavors. If you drink your white dawg during distilling (Kinda like a musty bean taste). It will dissappear after aging on oak chips.

1.5 gallon all copper still
5 pounds corn
2.5 pounds rye
2.0 pounds malted barley
5 gallons of distilled, aerated water
10 dissolved beano tablets used after mashing while temp was at 140d F

fermented it all in the same fermentor
Had to do 5 different distills just to distill all the wort the first time (yes small still)

Tossed out 100ml of each primary distillation (foreshots and heads) Ran till it alll the alchohol ran out and was getting tails

Redistilled the low wines, tossing out the first 20ml of each run (foreshots and heads) Started body collecting at 80% abv till down to 60% abv.

Very tight cuts, not a lot of body for each run, but damn it tastes good. I stress age each bottle at 60% abv for about 6 weeks then cut to 40% abv and drink it.

And yes my volumes are a little off, but normally for the whole thing I wind up using a whole 5 gallon jug of distilled water when all is said and done.

You both have a good point. A lot of brewers are after that malto-dextrin, smooth mouth feel. I suppose the beano would convert that also for more fermentable sugar. Old dog learned a new trick today.

pintoshine wrote:Alpha hydrolyses starch to dextrin .

I may be wrong here (and please correct if I am..) but I thought alpha amylase attacks the straight links in the starch chain, working at any location along the straight chain, except near the 1-6 link (were the starch branches).

Becuase of this random method of breakage, alpha amylase produces glucose, maltose, maltotriose, maltotetraose, dextrins, and even glucans

So you get a bit of everything.

This is how Dave Miller explains it in his "Homebrewing Guide".