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I tried my first corn mash yesterday from Booner's Casaual All Corn in the T&T Recipes. Mostly went well, but a few hiccups. First, low OG of 1.040 rather than the target of 1.070. I suspect my corn wasn't milled fine enough and the temps were a bit off optimal for the enzymes, I'll fix those details next time. I want to bring the gravity up, because setting-up/running/cleaning/tearing-down the still for half the product volume seems a poor use of my time. I was thinking of boiling a gallon or two of water with some dry malt extract and adding it tonight (30hrs post-pitch). Any reason that won't work? Not 100% corn anymore, more bourbon'ish, but I'm OK with that.

Second, the bottom of kettle had a big crusty layer of corn burnt to the bottom afterwards. Soaking now, but that is going to take some serious elbow-grease to clean! I stirred every 5mins with both a mash paddle and drill paint mixer. Are there any tricks/equipment to avoid this next time? Or just stir constantly for 2hrs and learn to love brillo pads....

finer grind will help for sure. you gotta watch temp and ph to get a no boil corn to give up good starch.

try a less direct heat source or less of it. like a diffusion plate between flame and pot.

and as i write that it occurs to me...ya didn't really follow the booners recipe if you cooked the corn that badly.

It is a new gas burner and I was must have been running it too hot. I thought I had it on low, but obviously not. My plate-still and beer system set ups are both electric, so this was definitely a new equipment learning curve type mistake. The burner is rather potent and I was just considering a diffuser plate to cool things down. Maybe just a big square of flat steel?

Check out ShineonCrazyDiamond's method of cooking corn for Honey Bear Bourbon where he just pours boiling water on the corn to cook it: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=67346
No more cook scorching!
Also buried in that thread is where I read that running the corn first through your blender to make it into corn meal/ flour to expose more of the grain.
That's what I'm doing now for the Booner's I'm making. Strain that corn through a mesh to keep solids out of your boiler.
No more boiler scorching!

Make sure you're hitting the right temperature specified for your enzymes. That corn sludge should turn to thin soup if you've done it correctly.
Do an iodine starch test to confirm good conversion.

You can do this!

fizzix wrote:Check out ShineonCrazyDiamond's method of cooking corn for Honey Bear Bourbon where he just pours boiling water on the corn to cook it: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=67346
No more cook scorching!
Also buried in that thread is where I read that running the corn first through your blender to make it into corn meal/ flour to expose more of the grain.
That's what I'm doing now for the Booner's I'm making. Strain that corn through a mesh to keep solids out of your boiler.
No more boiler scorching!

Make sure you're hitting the right temperature specified for your enzymes. That corn sludge should turn to thin soup if you've done it correctly.
Do an iodine starch test to confirm good conversion.

You can do this!

That's a long thread, I'll pour a drink and read it tonight. But the recipe post suggests that I boil the water and then add the corn. If the mix is still too hot, cool it down. If it goes the other direction and is too cold after adding corn, I could add a little gentle heat. I like this plan, similar to my homebrew method.

Borneogoat wrote:

fizzix wrote:Check out ShineonCrazyDiamond's method of cooking corn for Honey Bear Bourbon where he just pours boiling water on the corn to cook it: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=67346
No more cook scorching!
Also buried in that thread is where I read that running the corn first through your blender to make it into corn meal/ flour to expose more of the grain.
That's what I'm doing now for the Booner's I'm making. Strain that corn through a mesh to keep solids out of your boiler.
No more boiler scorching!

Make sure you're hitting the right temperature specified for your enzymes. That corn sludge should turn to thin soup if you've done it correctly.
Do an iodine starch test to confirm good conversion.

You can do this!

That's a long thread, I'll pour a drink and read it tonight. But the recipe post suggests that I boil the water and then add the corn. If the mix is still too hot, cool it down. If it goes the other direction and is too cold after adding corn, I could add a little gentle heat. I like this plan, similar to my homebrew method.

It covers the subject just a few posts in.

But I can still pour a drink, right?

A drink? I actually recommend it, in the beginning of the process .

Here is the process, recipe free, but geared towards large ferments.

The first step is to make a drink. Funny, to this day, no-one has asked me about how to make a boot-leggers breakfast

Easy Large Batch Mashing

ShineonCrazyDiamond wrote:A drink? I actually recommend it, in the beginning of the process .

Here is the process, recipe free, but geared towards large ferments.

The first step is to make a drink. Funny, to this day, no-one has asked me about how to make a boot-leggers breakfast

Easy Large Batch Mashing

I like this idea! Dump the corn in the fermenter and then boil separately. I can easily fit 100% of the boil water in my kettle and then maybe pump it over using a homebrew pump.

Bootleggers Breakfast? Come on you gotta share if you mention it!

I consider nutrition an integral part of the moonshining day! BBQ sits on the same porch: Spam & Egg McMuffins, beer brats, smoked pork belly, etc. All wash down with Moonshine Marys & brewskis....

I can vouch for the awesomeness of this method. First round, all the cooking of 50lbs of corn, takes about 90 minutes, and I’m done for the day. I’ve insulated my boiling pot now, so it should be even quicker, since most of that time is just waiting for water to boil. I’ll find out in a few hours.

Don’t just go by the first post, it doesn’t include the enzymes, which make life SO much easier. There’s a later post with the discovery of freezing backset/water for chilling to pitch temp, and another where enzymes come into play and make it even easier.

If you’re using a 30-gallon Brute, there’s a post near the end that has the full process.