Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

GM corn with enzyme in the corn problem is if gets in other corn products fucks them up and corn pollen can be blown in the wind for long distances.
Is ethanol GM corn a disaster waiting to happen
http://www.non-gmoreport.com/articles/o ... saster.php

G'day Brendan,
I just had a go with my SWMBO's meat mincer with some cracked corn I have here although hard work going backwards and forwards I am getting a grain very close to what you showed earlier. Now next job is cutting the top off that second keg I have here to use a mash tun and now I have that 2 tri clover clamp my pot still will fit on my other keg so my first 40-50 wash going to happen all grain.

Now how would a 1kg can of the malt extract found in coles go for the conversion. also I was thinking 10kg's of milled corn and 3 kg's of milled wheat. Ok no barley so just a corn/wheat/malt extract wash.

Before i jump in do you think this would work ?

Cheers Bryan

Bryan1 wrote:G'day Brendan,
I just had a go with my SWMBO's meat mincer with some cracked corn I have here although hard work going backwards and forwards I am getting a grain very close to what you showed earlier. Now next job is cutting the top off that second keg I have here to use a mash tun and now I have that 2 tri clover clamp my pot still will fit on my other keg so my first 40-50 wash going to happen all grain.

Now how would a 1kg can of the malt extract found in coles go for the conversion. also I was thinking 10kg's of milled corn and 3 kg's of milled wheat. Ok no barley so just a corn/wheat/malt extract wash.

Before i jump in do you think this would work ?

Cheers Bryan

sorry mate but the malt extract won't have any enzyme left as its boiled to sterilise before its canned
also i think you will need malted wheat for flavour and its enzyme is needed to help in breaking down the corn starches :-|

bayshine wrote:

Bryan1 wrote:G'day Brendan,
I just had a go with my SWMBO's meat mincer with some cracked corn I have here although hard work going backwards and forwards I am getting a grain very close to what you showed earlier. Now next job is cutting the top off that second keg I have here to use a mash tun and now I have that 2 tri clover clamp my pot still will fit on my other keg so my first 40-50 wash going to happen all grain.

Now how would a 1kg can of the malt extract found in coles go for the conversion. also I was thinking 10kg's of milled corn and 3 kg's of milled wheat. Ok no barley so just a corn/wheat/malt extract wash.

Before i jump in do you think this would work ?

Cheers Bryan

sorry mate but the malt extract won't have any enzyme left as its boiled to sterilise before its canned
also i think you will need malted wheat for flavour and its enzyme is needed to help in breaking down the corn starches :-|

Yeah that sounds about right. The malt extract you by for food purposes has no active enzymes, and hence no conversion. The malt extract you buy for beer brewing on the other hand is processed to keep the enzymes active, however, the standard rule of malt converting itself plus the same weight again applies. Ie. 1kg malt will only convert another 1kg of the other unmalted grain...if you chucked in a 1kg can with 13kgs of unmalted grain, you'd get F all conversion...

It'd be cheaper to go with malted barley anyway...you'd get about 4kg do the same price :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Sorry Brendan I'm still learning about all this enzyme stuff but I don't understand something.
If the recipe has about 2kg in total of wheat and barley, once it converts itself and another 2kg doesn't that leave another 4.6 approx kg's to convert?. I did read you add in the enzymes from the hbs but you said you're not convinced it's needed.
:think:

stretch69 wrote:Sorry Brendan I'm still learning about all this enzyme stuff but I don't understand something.
If the recipe has about 2kg in total of wheat and barley, once it converts itself and another 2kg doesn't that leave another 4.6 approx kg's to convert?. I did read you add in the enzymes from the hbs but you said you're not convinced it's needed.
:think:

Oh yes, that's got to do with time...a few people have suggested that of you leave it long enough (ie. 8hrs overnight), that the barley may in fact convert further...that's why I'm not convinced on my overnight method, but it works so I keep putting the enzymes in anyway...in brewing purposes though, the conversion is usually performed in 30-60mins...

My grain bill is a bit different but I use a more powerfull malt( bbgalaxy)
The Jo white wheat malt I use seems to have a fair bit of guts aswell

Am I crazy or does ag bourbon taste better fresh off the still then it does ages on oak? I.e. white dog style?

I have to admit to really liking distillers privlage but IMO it gets better with oak

8-} so I'm crazy then 8-}

Hava wrote:8-} so I'm crazy then 8-}

Yep.......................but I do like white dog :smile:

Hava wrote:8-} so I'm crazy then 8-}

Personal taste mate :handgestures-thumbupleft: that's the beauty of this hobby, don't like it change it :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I love a bit of white dog but I have really come to appreciate some good oaked shine nowadays

Yet to taste AG tho :handgestures-thumbdown:

Edit: spelling

Ive tried fermenting on the grains and off the grains and am getting really poor efficiency. ABV of around only 5%.

My process was to pour boiling water onto my corn and wrap it up for a few hours. It dropped from 77C to 70C where I then added the ale malt and rye and it dropped to arond 65C.

I kept it wrapped up overnight and in the morning it was around 50C. I transferred it to the fermenter and cooled it as best I could without an immersion chiller (Didnt want to risk running it through my plate chiller) so just used a fan on the outside of the fermenter, Pitched Saf spirit maly yeast at around 30C.

I know my problem is either getting the corn warmer using an immersion chiller through my HLT as in your post but I cant afford the $100 or so in copper this close to christmas.

Or getting my corn crushed to a finer flour. I have a food processor with attachments so thought I would give that a go. But which of the two methods above will give the better result?

And will either alone get me to around 7-8% ABV or do I really need to do both?

Cheers

Brendan, how are you going with the process now? ,
are you still doing it like you did at the start or are you step mashing now?

Thanks Brendan, I put my own AG down this weekend and basically followed your method;

7kgs flaked corn
2.5kg 6 row malted barley (finely ground)
1.8kg Rye (finely ground)
Alpha and Beta amalyse 2 x sachets
45 litres water
Safspirit American Whiskey yeast

Boiled 20 litres of water and added corn and turned the heat off.
Stirred every 15 minutes for the next 3.5 hours.
Added the amalyse, barley and rye at 67 degrees Celsius.
Covered and left sit overnight.
This morning, wash was at 42 so transferred to fermenter and topped up with another 25 litres of water,
Adjusted PH to 5.
Kept stirring every 15 minutes till wash hit 30 degrees Celsius.
Pitched the yeast and covered with a loose lid with the airlock in (to stop any nasty bugs).
6 hours later it is going ballistic.

Stage 1 complete and cannot wait to distill it! :happy-partydance:

Always tempted to add sugar but pushed through.

Whiskyaugogo wrote:Thanks Brendan, I put my own AG down this weekend and basically followed your method;

7kgs flaked corn
2.5kg 6 row malted barley (finely ground)
1.8kg Rye (finely ground)
Alpha and Beta amalyse 2 x sachets
45 litres water
Safspirit American Whiskey yeast

Boiled 20 litres of water and added corn and turned the heat off.
Stirred every 15 minutes for the next 3.5 hours.
Added the amalyse, barley and rye at 67 degrees Celsius.
Covered and left sit overnight.
This morning, wash was at 42 so transferred to fermenter and topped up with another 25 litres of water,
Adjusted PH to 5.
Kept stirring every 15 minutes till wash hit 30 degrees Celsius.
Pitched the yeast and covered with a loose lid with the airlock in (to stop any nasty bugs).
6 hours later it is going ballistic.

Stage 1 complete and cannot wait to distill it! :happy-partydance:

Always tempted to add sugar but pushed through.

My last ag I got tempted to top up with sugar, but instead I fudged with caramalt lme got me to 1065 and I reckon its still ag. 8-)

Enjoy your AG :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Reckon first 6 months you wonder why you bothered. Past that it starts to excel and the past 18 months there's no compare imho.

If you can hold a flagon or 6 to that age, it will seriously change your view.

bt1

bt1 wrote:Enjoy your AG :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Reckon first 6 months you wonder why you bothered. Past that it starts to excel and the past 18 months there's no compare imho.

If you can hold a flagon or 6 to that age, it will seriously change your view.

bt1

BT is that with your aeration technique at the start?

Excellent post Brendan, can see you've done this once or twice before.

Cheers

Oh well, learn and try again :violence-stickwhack:

I ran my first attempt at around 82 hours after putting it down, all bubbling and fizzing had stopped. It had a average heat up time but once the boiler hit 85, it normally means the start of reflux but the temp went up to 94 and then started to reflux. Left for the 30 minutes then started to collect the fores etc. the hearts started around 82% ABV and I collected a total of 200ml :sad:

Did I do something wrong or is the nature of the AG? I have say the 200ml tastes bloody good though!