First corn mash, gone wrong?

[Manchestershine]

Hi Distillers, I have finally given the all mash a go to make a "pure corn whiskey".

I have 12 litres of cracked corn and 4 kg of malted 2 row barley (I didn't weigh the corn just used measuring scoop). I filled a large pot I have with 45 L of water lowed the PH to 5.8 then put the corn in and boiled it, took 2 hrs to get to boiling. I simmered it for 30mins then turned off the burner and left the lid on (Friday night 10pm) and went to bed.

In the morning the temp had dropped to 72 deg, I topped with 5 L of cold water dropped temp to 68deg, I added 2 sachets of alpha amylase. Then added 4 kg of malted barley.

After 2 hrs and several mixes the temp was 62 deg and SG of 1.059, all good so far. By late Saturday night the temp was still 50 deg so I still couldn't pitch the yeast, and I hadn't organised any cooling equipment as I thought it would just cool naturally (perhaps in winter it might).

So this morning (Sunday) I came down to find that the mash is bubbling away happily, WTF? I haven't put any yeast in, it smells ok like it's fermenting, has a cap on top and bubbling like crazy.

This must be some wild yeast from somewhere? Considering it was boiled I thought it would kill of any yeast that was on the grain.

I've read that I should stop fermentation after the primary ferment (72-80 hrs) to prevent off flavours from developing. Unfortunately I didn't get the opportunity to aerate prior to yeast developing.

Should I interfere, aerate and drop a bucket load of bakers yeast in as I had planned or just let it go?

[Manchestershine]

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[bluc]

Pitch a healty amount of your own yeast and try overpower the wild yeast :think:

[Manchestershine]

Pitch a healty amount of your own yeast and try overpower the wild yeast :think:

Thanks bluc, are there any advantages to wild yeast? I suppose it's a bit of a lottery what they will produce as an end product?

After my initial shock this morning I've been doing a few searches and I must say I do like the idea of producing a product made with all grain and wild yeast. Kind of an authentic more traditional mash, I would have preferred a more controlled wild yeast process so results can be tweaked or repeated but then I'm not doing this for commercial reasons purely hobby/my own interest.

BTW the temp is still 36 degrees, so without a chiller it's not a controllable process (at least in summer).

[hillzabilly]

While visiting Larks in Tassie they told us that they expose the wash (proper yeast added the day befor) ta wild yeast for a short time in summer and a longer period in winter as there is less yeast floating around then,and said that it benefitted the end flavour of the whiskey,for yeast there are some very good whiskey yeasts available for the hobby distiller wich may give a better flavour profile than bakers yeast .cheers hillzabilly :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Manchestershine]

While visiting Larks in Tassie they told us that they expose the wash (proper yeast added the day befor) ta wild yeast for a short time in summer and a longer period in winter as there is less yeast floating around then,and said that it benefitted the end flavour of the whiskey,for yeast there are some very good whiskey yeasts available for the hobby distiller wich may give a better flavour profile than bakers yeast .cheers hillzabilly :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Ok so my wash has had about 12 hrs or so of wild yeast partying like crazy, have just hydrated 200g of bakers yeast and pitched it to take over. I also put my paint mixer on high speed and aerated the wash.

I feel much better knowing I'm using a yeast that I have experience with outcomes, but next time I'll give some of those specialty yeasts ago.

[hillzabilly]

The good thing about bakers yeast is that it does not seem ta mind the hotter temps like 35'c wich in our summers is handy ,were as some of the whiskey specific yeasts may not be so tolerant ,with out cooling in summer and may be better left ta cooler times.Should be interresting ta see how the batch turns out ,sometimes a mistake can be a blessing and ya learn something else about this vast hobby.cheers hillzabilly :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Manchestershine]

Within 10 mins it's a totally different smell and it's going crazy with the bakers yeast. I didn't pick a good time of year for this, it's 42 deg in my shed right now and my mash is 35 deg. It's too large volume for the heat to effect the mash and by the time the heat cools down tonight it should be fine. I'm aiming for around Wednesday morning (within ~80hrs from start of ferment) to do stripping run and Thursday for spirit run.

[bluc]

Looks tasty so you fermenting on the grain and squuzing :-B

[EziTasting]

Hey MS,

Can that vessel tip? If so you can pour out the contents?

That would be amazing and make separating the solids from the liquid so much easier!! Pour it into a BIAB bag and strain out the mashed corn.... :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Manchestershine]

Yes Bluc fermenting on grain, following directions by Ian Smiley "Making Pure Corn Whiskey" found these direction on this forum. Knowing now that a wash can pitch with wild yeast on it's own I'd probably suggest putting paragraph in about that, although it's a really comprehensive guide.

ET yes the pot tips, it has a thick base as well so works well with a 3 ring gas burner to boil it. We made up a few of them up to 170L, a real back saving exercise for mixing and pouring product into moulds. They have lids that fit pretty good, the way it's fizzing I'm not too worried about making the top air tight I'm sure there will be a layer of CO2 on top anyway.

[Manchestershine]

This is the pot on stand

[EziTasting]

Noice!

Almost wish I had one myself...

[Professor Green]

That is pure genius Manchestershine.

Cheers,
Prof. Green.

[A&O]

Awesome work, going to have to remember your design when I get to AG, great work

[wynnum1]

Alpha amylase what temperature does it say it works at i think you will get better result putting in on its own and follow with the malted grain latter.

[Manchestershine]

Alpha amylase what temperature does it say it works at i think you will get better result putting in on its own and follow with the malted grain latter.

W1, I may not have been very descriptive but that's what I did. I put the alpha in and mixed it about for 10 mins at about 68 deg, alpha is best in the 65-70 deg temp range. The mash was like play dough nearly impossible to mix, within 20 seconds of putting the alpha in it was back to liquid. I put the barley in about 66 deg, the pot holds the heat too well and takes ages to cool. I didn't measure the SG until the next morning, was aiming for 1.06 but as I put an extra 5l of chilled water in to get temp down to pitch the alpha, the SG was 1.059. I can't complain, am happy I didn't need to put any extra sugar in.

If this works out well for me and I decide to do a regular batches I'll build a press to strain the liquid out of the grain. I plan on using a grain bag for this run but think a mechanical process would be far better.

[ultrasuede]

Don't expect a huge yeild mate. Especially if you used feed corn (unless it's sweet feed) my first 50l batch yeilded one and a half bottles of 50% greatness. The corn from the feed shop contains more protein than convertible starches on purpose.

[Manchestershine]

Don't expect a huge yeild mate. Especially if you used feed corn (unless it's sweet feed) my first 50l batch yeilded one and a half bottles of 50% greatness. The corn from the feed shop contains more protein than convertible starches on purpose.

It's feed corn, the people I bought it off said it was 71% carb about 9% protein (with some worm and moth larvae thrown in for free). I know popcorn is higher about 77% carb, sweet corn is 76% carb. Couldn't find sweet corn supplier but could get popcorn in 15kg bags but I didn't want to wait for delivery so settled on the feed corn, plus the feed corn was already cracked.

What does this mean to convertible sugars? I don't know. I boiled the shit out of it and it stayed over 80'c for about 10hrs, I'm hoping for more than 1.5 bottles! Will let you know how it goes.

[EziTasting]

It’s what put me off corn! The seemingly huge amount of work for medium to low yield...

I hope you’ve discovered something that’ll change that! The Yankies seemed to have done so, just not me...

I have moved in to AG with Malt Barley (25kgs from HBS) and, purely thru laziness, ...erm, accident have discovered that mashing overnight has yielded us a far greater quantity (by a factor of 3) so your long boil may actually work in your favour!! You never know.