Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

I've had a try at doing a corn mash with what I could buy locally. So I started with 5Kg of gristed maize in 25 litre of water, and gave it a good 45 minutes of rolling boil. The iodine test showed heaps of starch. I added 8 grams of alpha amalyse at the recommended temperature and gave it a good stir every 5 minutes or so for about 90 minutes. I let it settle overnight and the sg came out at 1.040. It has a sweet taste and the iodine test shows little or no starch in solution.

Question....what sort of sg should I have obtained with the quantities I have used? Is 1.040 in the ball park?

I figure now I will add 4 - 6kg of sugar, top it up to 25 litres and aim for an sg of 1.110

Any advice appreciated.

Try reading viewtopic.php?f=47&t=1837 cheers hillzabilly ;-)

Sg 1.110 - what yeast do you want to throw at that?

Opinion here, but if you use sugar, you may as well not used the enzyme at all, taste over quantity, the sugar adds it's own burn to the flavor

:text-+1: Minimise the sugar addition

I intend to use Lowans. So you suggest I reduce the sugar back to say 3kg perhaps? Is 1.040 what I should have got out of the maize?

you have a 1 to 5 final volume mash thickness there, with barley I aim for 1 to 4 mash final thickness. On 1 to 4 a good conversion should end up at 1.063 ish( i seem to only hit 1.053) Just punched the numbers into beersmith and came up with 1.046 so you did pretty well. Next time rather than adding sugar bump the corn to 6.5kg see how you go that should get you 1.060, touch over 1 to 4 which will give you a great taste.. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Thanks Bluc. So at least I'm in the game with that. I'll try the 1:4 next batch.

Where did you get your enzyme from? If you don't mind me asking.. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Careful with the corn mate. Corn that you buy from rural supply stores is modified to have more protein than starch, leading to horrible sugar yeilds.
Our only options in Aus are the stuff you get from homebrew shops for $1m a kg, or a cheap source of bulk popping corn, which has almost a 100% usable starch content.

I may have found bulk popcorn for $1.50 per kg in Brissie which is nice.

bluc wrote:Where did you get your enzyme from? If you don't mind me asking.. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Hey Bluc, ibrew has some liquid enzymes that I've had success with. They have DeltaMalt which has your alpha amylase and beta gluconase.
They also do Amylo 300 and 400.
I'm yet to find an enzyme in Australia that has beta amylase.

Thanks ultrasuede any hints about the popcorn? Do you pop it before using..

Can yoj mash without beta enzyme? Do you know anything about the grits sold by kegland?

You have to crush it in a grain mill, then boil it. I usually add enzyme before boiling just to liquefy the starches to make the boil easier. Then after boiling, cool to mashing temp and add mashing enzymes

Beta enzyme converts the trisaccarides and disaccharides to monosaccharides which are easier to ferment. If you just rely on the alpha amylase, you will be stuck with a bunch of maltose, which is hard for yeast to process, and will usually result in a stuck ferment.

It's been a while since I studied sugar, so I may have messed up some terminology there.

Dextrose is made from corn could add dextrose and use the corn for flavor.When they make corn flakes they steam the corn that could be another option to boiling but they do for a fairly long time.

Flaked corn doesn't need to be boiled. Someone said using pop corn and popping it = gelatinization. As soon as I work out a way to pop 10kg will be all over it..

Buy one of those poppers they have at the movies...
Should knock 10kg out in an hr or 2... maybe... NFI how quick they actually work.

Have been considering it but not sure if they oil free. Thinking of getting half dozen of those air poppers from target.. :twisted:

Maybe a hire job https://popcornman.com.au/our-amazing-p ... -a-reason/ .cheers hillzabilly ;-)

Know anyone with a smoker or Webber? (Not me, sorry)

Hmmm what flavors to add in with the smoker....

Kinda exciting concept... :think: