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This is going to be my all corn whisky blog kinda. If i can make it work so.....

Malting
I started with 20 lbs of whole corn soaked it in water hot tap water for 24 hours, drained and soaked in hot tap water again for 18 hours. Drained and spread it out on table 1 1/2 inches thick. Covered with wet towls. I remove towls and stir it up by hand every 8 hours or so. I am keeping the towls wet with a spray bottle. I can only do 20 lbs at a time right now because its about 20 * F outside and I am running out of honey do points inside.

This I plan to dry after malting and then grind. Then I am going to make another 20 lbs of malt and grind it green and add the first dry 20 lbs to it. With something like 13 gallons of water, mash, ferment and distill.

An all malt corn Likker, what ya think....Pugi

This is after it soaked and I had just poured it out on black plastic covered table.

Pujidogs Wrote:

soaked it in water hot tap water for 24 hours, drained and soaked in hot tap water again for 18 hours.

After you drained it, did you let it air out some or did you just start soaking again?

Sound a lot like what Dooley told me his daddy and uncle did except they would wait 1/2 day to let it air out and then soak it again. He said it worked for them. I would like to know if it makes any difference.

Good luck!!! Please keep us posted on your results.

old blue, I just drained it, rinced it, and refilled it. As far as making a difference I am not sure but I will keep that in my mind if this does not work. I have only malted one other time and it was wheat. I was doing good and about 75% developed when I had to leave for the day on an unexpected trip. It was in buckets and did not get enough fresh air and soured. This time no buckets, just have to keep it damp....Pugi

I’ve malted corn with great success, but only in the summer time. Don’t know about doing it indoors when it’s cold outside. I soaked my corn in warm water one day and one night, then poured it out on a screen, layered it about half an inch thick, and covered it with a piece of black plastic. After about a day and a half it was ready. The first batch I put in the oven to dry, bad idea, if you heat it over 150f you’ll kill the enzymes and you’ll just have poached corn. It would seem to me that 40 pounds of corn is a lot for 13 gallon of water??? Keep us informed about your experiment, and thanks for sharing it with us.

The Bohunk

bo hunk, did I screw that up? I did the math in my head and need to go check out the grain yields page again. No big deal at this point though, I still have to get the darn corn to malt before anything else...Pugi

PS, The room I am trying to malt in is about 67 degrees. I hope it is warm enough. Should know in the morning!!!

Sounds all right to me if you have too much just dry it
that green malt don't over do sprouts they taste like grass

Ok went and did some looking, here are the facts...

40 lbs corn at around 80% usable starch
I will be lucky to get 75 % yeild of the 80 %.
13 gallons water

so 40 x .80 = 32 lbs usable starch

32 x .75 = 24 lbs realistic yield

24 / 13 = 1.85 or 1 lb 13.6 ounces per gallon

which comes out to about 11%.

Its a little high for me, I want to be around the 8 % area. Then there is the fact that it might just turn into a big brick and be very had to work with....Pugi

Pug, please keep us informed on your expierment. I have malted corn, and also am now trying the 3-1 enzymes but having little to no success.

Here are a couple pics of what is happening.

This is the day after the soakings. Not much to look at, just wanted to show a comparison.


This would be day 2. The one on the left is what most look like, starting to show a chit. The one on the right is about the most advanced I could find. It has a good start on roots and an acrospire.


still stirring several times a day and keeping it all damp....Pugi

It looks like your in buisness! It would sure be nice to have some dried malted corn stored up for use at will.Im going to try to sour some for a batch of mixed grain whiskey soon.

Let me know if you need some Wineo, I should be getting another 50 bushel of corn here pretty quick . I use it to heat my house...Pugi

This is great Pugi, please keep up the pic's.
Better than 1000 words.
Cheers.

Day 3. Not much to report, things are happening to slow. I think it is because of the cooler room temps. You can see some are just getting started and some did not start at all. Time will tell....Pugi

I have heard of people using a little miracle grow plant food in the water to help it sprout.I think it depends on the corn your using.Some will sprout better than others.

Don't worry. Corn takes a while longer to malt than barley, rye, or wheat. It's also a little bit more work to keep the corn moist because corn will retain less water as it develops.
Also, lower malting temperatures are preferred because a faster germination will cause germination rates to vary from kernel to kernel. Higher temperatures will cause them to sprout faster, but less consistently.

We are still looking good. The corn that had a late start is now showing some length. One source I have read says that you should dry it when the acrospire is 1 inch, the other source said 2 inches. Anyone have any input on this. If not I will wait untill the most advanced are 2" and the least advance should be about 1".....Pugi

For a full malting, you need to let the green part(acrospire) get about 1 to 2 inches long. This will make really sweet malt. Of course there is going to be some wide variation in length. It is better to get the majority to 1.5 inches. The really long ones can be picked out, because they have over malted and most of the sugar is growth, but I leave the incomplete ones because of the added starch.

Day 5.

The longer acrospires are about an inch now. It should be another couple days then we can dry. I cut back to mixing them up only twice a day, seems to be enough, still keeping them damp....Pugi

PUG, This is great stuff. I’m sure everyone is like me, and learning from this. I never let my sprouts get that long, thought it took all the sugar out of the kernel. Now maybe I’ll have better luck with my malting. Pint said two inches, so by damm it’ll be two inches next time. Thanks for sharing all your effort with us.

The Bohunk

Well we finally made it. Took a little longer then expected but no big deal. Going to start to dry today by placing a big box fan on table and blowing air over the top of kernals, stirring a couple times a day.

You can see the acrospire, it is the bigger green long one, the smaller white long ones are roots. Most are in the 1 1/4" to 1 1/2" area. I only got about 50% germination, I guess the other 50% are just starch. Still not sure what I am going to do yet for the mash bill. I thought about useing them as green malt but dont have the time in the next couple days to make a mash. I guess I will just keep winging it as I go....Pugi

wow, thats very long
from what I've seen and read, about malting rye, those sprouts are a lot smaller.
but if it works, its maybe different with corn, no problem for me. can someone then explain why its different from what ive read?
is there a difference between malt for beer and malt for whisky?

[quote="stoker"]wow, thats very long
from what I've seen and read, about malting rye, those sprouts are a lot smaller.
but if it works, its maybe different with corn, no problem for me. can someone then explain why its different from what ive read?
is there a difference between malt for beer and malt for whisky?[/quote

Stoker, yes for smaller grains like wheat, barley ect you only want the acrospire to be about 3/4 of the length of the grain. Corn is much different, it take a much longer acrospire to get it into malted status. Hope someone with more malting experience can jump in here and expain it in technical terms....Pugi

To clarify a bit, the "acrospire" is just another name for the hypocotyl. It took me a few minutes to figger that out the first time. But yes, smaller grains take less time to do, and you only want the acrospire to be 3/4 to the whole length of the grain. I judge by how sweet the grain is. When I squeeze the wet, converted endosperm out, and the paste-like substance tastes sweet, it's good. Taste it.

You orta wood smoke that corn dry. Then crunch it up.

I've never malted corn....so hats off to anyone who does this. I want to try this in the future.

The "Lincoln County" lore, up around Middle Tennessee suggests to only ever use "white corn" for mashing.

I'm wondering what we're seeing in these various things. My most recent mashes were just cracked 'chicken corn' but I know there are higher and lower quality corns out there.

What type of corn did you use for this?

What's the ratio of malted corn to regular corn to do a mash.

I've read 10% on this forum.

Just wondering what your real world figures are/might be.

Corn does not have much enzymes so most all hast to be malted

I dont know what kind of corn it was, other then just feed corn. I have heard that white is the best but I had this on hand so I thought I would give it a try.

From what I have read, corn can only convert about equal parts. So 10 lbs of malted corn will convert 10 lbs of unmalted corn. I only got about a 50% of the corn to sprout, so I will consider this 20lbs to be 1/2 malted and 1/2 unmalted. Just not sure what I am going to do with it yet, I dont have any fermenters available right at the moment....Pugi

Well......that becomes the question........what is the malt to corn ratio. I'm pretty sure it's not 1:1, but I could be wrong.

Everytime I have done this project, I ended up with about 75% malt and 25% corn. It yields low but but there is no peer for taste. I dis a roasted corn and corn malt once. It reminds me of the roasted corn at the state fair. Mmmm, Mmmm. It don't matter what the yield though because it is satisfying doing a 100% pure corn run. Mashing corn malt with backings yeilds 1.5 times more. And it tastes real good.