My first ag need help please

[AussieDistiller1989]

So I started a double ferment bourbon about 6 days ago.
I placed 40kg cracked maze in a drum and covered it by half it's
Hight and let it sit for 5 days dam it got sour lol and last night I pulled
One third of the maze out and started heating and added about 3 kg whole wheat
And 3kg of my own malted barley (whole) I know I'm ment to
Crack them but I don't own a mill yet and I was being
Lazy and I don't have a ph meter yet ether.
So I started mashing and got it up to 140f and held it there
For an hour and did an iodine test and it was still purple / blackish
The mash was very sticky and cloudy so I cooked it for another 40 min and still
The same story and it got really late so I turned it off
Watered it down a bit added suger just incase then
Pitched yeast when it dropped temp.
Today it's fermenting nice.

And I I added another 7 kg wheat and 7 kg malt to the
Other corn and a bit more water tonight I plan on
Mashing the rest any tips on how I can get a better
Saccharification.

Thank you
And sorry about the novel I just wrote

[blond.chap]

Hey mate,

There are better AG guys on here than me, but I'd say at least part of your problem is that you didn't crack the grain. Cracking the grain serves to break up the protein-starch matrix and gives the enzymes access to the starch to break it down. If you don't crack it you can't make sugar by mashing.

Barley is the most important part to crack as it contains the amylase enzymes which break up the starch. So even though your corn was nice and mushy, there weren't any enzymes in there to make sugar.

[Kravin]

Hey mate,
Barley is the most important part to crack as it contains the amylase enzymes which break up the starch. So even though your corn was nice and mushy, there weren't any enzymes in there to make sugar.

Nailed it

[Kravin]

Any tips on how I can get a better

A way around your lack of conversion for next time....
Since you're using 40Kg of maize anyway, and that's the main ingredient.
any grain you intend to chuck at it will need to be broken open for the reasons that blond.chap mentioned.

So Chuck your grain into a food processor\blender\coffee grinder or something that'll break the grain open, but try not to get a powder.
that'll get the enzymes breaking up the complexed sugars (starch) from your grain and the maize in the mash and change them into fermentable sugars.

For the 40Kg of maize, use AT LEAST 8Kg of malted grain to get enough enzymatic power for conversion.

[AussieDistiller1989]

Yeah I'm using 10kg of malt and yeah I have it a hit with my bar mix then the
Dam thing broke so I'm going to ruff it up with my hands
Cos it takes a long time to heat up and would I
Have any trouble with the ph levels

Thanks for the replys

[crow]

umm are you planning on "roughing up" malted grain with you hands :? . If so nar that ain't going to cut the mustard by a long shot bud . you are going to have to grist it some how end of story if nothing else use a brick as a grinding stone

[AussieDistiller1989]

Put the blade backwards on this hmm long night it
Will be not fun lol

40kg of grain to do

[Sam.]

umm are you planning on "roughing up" malted grain with you hands :? . If so nar that ain't going to cut the mustard by a long shot bud . you are going to have to grist it some how end of story if nothing else use a brick as a grinding stone

I just lay my grain on the concrete and punch the shit out of it until it's a fine grist :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Then I wake up and realise I shouldn't even be driving this bus :sad:

But seriosuly after cracking a heap on the weekend with a mill I still fucked that up cos it wasn't fine enough. From what I gather you want to smash it up pretty well just don't get it into the "flour" stage, otherwise you might make real porridge :laughing-rolling:

[emptyglass]

I'll try and get some pics up of an Ebay special that crow got on to, I did him a deal and got the smaller one.
With a crodless drill driving it, it did 10kg of base malt (to any grade crush you like) in about 20 mins. One fully charged battery and half of the next battery was all it took.

Sweet little crusher, thanks crow. I reckon it would perform well on wheat or rye or oats, not sure it it would do corn very fast.

[AussieDistiller1989]

I think I got it fine enuf only did half the grain
As my mash pot is a keg thinking upgrading that
As its to small and I want it to be a double boiler

And thanks that would be lovely

[AussieDistiller1989]

I didn't get full conversion again think it must be my malt
Lol or something so I just added some more sugar with
That grain and added it all to the last batch dam
My air lock is going nuts lucky it a 5lt jar with 1" piping
Haha and my ag read 1.060 but that's not that spot on
As it already was fermenting and it's on grain to

[AussieDistiller1989]

My air lock

[MtnMoonshiner]

Mostly what I make is AG. It's important to crack the grain, especially barley for the already aforementioned reasons. I've got one of them Kitchen-Aid blenders and it does right good at the job. Some folks say it needs to be like meal, but I just break it up as good as she'll go and don't worry about it otherwise. I've had it a mixture of meal, and pieces the size of cracked corn and it works just fine.

Of course, I also make liquor sometimes out of just corn, malted corn, and sugar. It comes out about 140prf. So you don't even need barley, rye, or wheat to make a good AG mash.

[BackyardBrewer]

Sam my rough crush method for smallish batches was stuff the grain flat in a pillow case and a rolling pin on the bench. Bash away. It's almost impossible to make it too fine like this.

Of course if your trying to do 25kg in a go they won't work but 5kg? This is easy and fast.

[Sam.]

Sam my rough crush method for smallish batches was stuff the grain flat in a pillow case and a rolling pin on the bench. Bash away. It's almost impossible to make it too fine like this.

Of course if your trying to do 25kg in a go they won't work but 5kg? This is easy and fast.

Yeah that sounds pretty good for a few kilos :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[AussieDistiller1989]

My hand mincer worked well with out the blade
The grain was wet so it sorta smoshed them up
So there were fully open and broken but I think the temp
When I was dryin them out got to hot or something.
My brew shop has little sachets of enzymes it's called
Coppertin enzymes it for ag beer so should work fine ill
Throw a couple packets of them in on my next mash and see
If I get full conversion.