Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hey all,

I had a lot of trouble gelatinising a big amount of corn on my last run. Brendan's all grain recipe has an immersion coil with boiling water through it. I was reading a thread on home distiller and some people used a coil with holes in it as a kind of steam injection directly into the mash.

So the plan would be to use my normal boiler, and create a head from the swan neck of my pot still to deliver steam through a steam wand. (looks to be copper with the brainded stainless steel off a fuel line tube clamped to the copper.

I kind of like the idea of the steam injection as there's no pump required, although pressure might be a concern. The guys on HD seem to use pressure relief valves at 15PSI.

Has anyone done this? Any other recommendations?

reference threads (if allowed)
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 92&t=52926

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 6#p7420026

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 92&t=62490

Hey Mate, how much corn are you talking about heating?

I'll be aiming for 80-100L batches, so around 14kg of cracked corn

Have you tried putting into an esky/icebox with boiling water seal it up and let it sit? Have heard some good things by doing that..

I've got an insulated tun, i put approx 40litres of boiling water from my boiler in with 8kg of corn, stirred it for a bit and then left it overnight with an insulated lid. Stirred it again in the morning, but it was still chunky, and not like the pics in Brendans guide. This method may work with a lot of agitation, but i was hand stirring. I only got an SG of 1.036 once i added the malt at 66 odd degrees(after heating up 20 litres of the liquid up to 80 C again).

Maybe the first step is to try the drill agitator and boiling water, and if that fails, then go the steam injection.

What is the tun insulated with do you remember the mash temp next morning? Perhaps temp dropped to fast? I was reading couple days ago about this and a bloke said with a drink cooler tun the corn looked like creamed corn after 6ish hours :-B

Looking at this sites "wash size grain bill converter" for a wild turkey style mash 40l volume uses 9.43kg corn 2.29kg rye and 2.11kg barley so a total of 13.83kg almost 14kg in 40l total volume so maybe you need to use more corn? Also unless you grind to a flour your yield will be lower. Do the math than add extra if you want to keep it easier to separate after fermentation. Or grind it finer and squeeze at the end..

I dont do big batches, but i do multiple smaller batches. I have a 40 L stainless Insulated mash tun i bought off of ebay for about $250. This thing is amazing for mashing corn!!

First i boil 2/3 parts of my mash water to a hard boil, then pour the hot water into my mash tun, then i add my corn (which is stock feed cracked corn from the Feed store) (i also grind the cracked corn through my grist mill 4 times on the finest grind, to get it as fine as i can) i stir the hot water and corn with a power drill for a few mins till its all mixed up, then add a 1/4 tsp of high temp Alpha to pre mash (purely so that the corn is easier to stir and i dont get dough balls anywhere). I cover it up for about 15 mins to gelatinize the starches. then i add the remaining water. which is 1/3 overall mash water, straight from the cold tap of my sink, this brings the overall mash temp to 60-62 deg, stir with power drill, then add crushed malted barley, stir for a few mins. I then go back at stir with the drill a couple more times every half hour, cover it up and leave it for 6 hours. after 6 hours the grain has sunk, i take a sample for iodine test, which is always good (no blue or purple), i transfer to fermenter and cool, take Gravity reading ( i use 2 lb of grain to a gallon of water and always hit 8% potential ABV). once cooled i pitch yeast (US-05), which i usually make a starter from my mash.

The following cpl days i repeat this process ( yielding 100 -120 L Corn mash)

Its doesnt take much time or effort to mash like this, once your comfortable with the process, but i can see wanting to do 100L in one shot tho.

you could scale up my process with great results, but you will require a large insulated mash tun.

i hope that helps some how

I think the key to shit conversion could be the grind of the corn? are you using stock feed from the bag? cause it needs to be milled finely as possible. i have never got under 8% potential abv. and as high as 10.5% by increasing the amount of corn.

also what type of malt you using to covert the corn ? i use gladfields distillers malt, which is really high in enzymes, but you need to add it at no more than 62 deg. ive had problems with using malted barley to convert corn at 64 deg, where as 60 deg is the sweet spot, as long as you maintain temp for 6 hours. long and low for mashing corn, works every time.

Temp was around 45 degrees about 12 hours later, not sure if thats good or bad. It's a keg with the lid cut off, and about 3cm of some kind of foam sprayed around it, then covered with another sheet of metal and has a wooden base.

Yeah, I pre-soaked stock feed cracked corn from the bag as I don't have a mill yet. I was hoping the long period would help gelatinise regardless of being just cracked.

I used a pale ale base malt, about 3.5 kgs to the 8kgs of cracked corn, and about 1kg of rye malt when i was at 64 degrees, then re-covered and held this for 3 hours(temps down to 55 degrees or so by the end of this rest).

I'm getting some enzymes, so this will help with the thickness of the liquid, I guess I've got to get a mill and a drill based stirrer. Sounds like the grind makes a big difference.

i would get a mill mate, dont use stock feed corn without milling in to grist. they are about $125, and a complete a$$hole to assemble, but i dont think you could get reasonable results without. i got mine off of ebay, and didnt bother attempting without it. you will find bourbon makers in the states have a fine grist and use a much finer grind than what you will get from stock feed crack< and they have industrial high temp cookers to boot. get a grain mill and grind the F@ck outa the corn mate, and things will get alot easier. i Mash 100L a week with corn and never have any probs, but the first thing i do is grind the corn as fine as possible, once you do that it takes 15 mins to gelatanize.

which means 15 mins will be your "pre soak" time :happy-partydance:

You running corn through a 2roller malt mill? Does it handle it ok?

Great question -I was under the impression cracked corn would kill one of the ebay mills (like this: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Malt-Muncher ... SwtnpXmECH)

Minpac wrote:Great question -I was under the impression cracked corn would kill one of the ebay mills (like this: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Malt-Muncher ... SwtnpXmECH)

Yeah, that's great for grain, no good for corn tho. I bought 1 of these for corn. Will set it up for drill on w'end :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Hey Wobbly, couldn't see any link or pic - did you go with a corona mill?

bluc wrote:You running corn through a 2roller malt mill? Does it handle it ok?

Yep it works fine for the corn. I get the cracked maize from the feed store. not sure how well it would work with whole kernals. But the roller is really tough.

bluc wrote:Have you tried putting into an esky/icebox with boiling water seal it up and let it sit? Have heard some good things by doing that..

That's how allgrain beer mashes are done. 68 deg c temp for 60 mins, then sparge. Usually only get maximum of 3-5 deg drop over the hour.

And apparently craked corn in 100 degree water in an icebox turns it to cream corn without stirring or running a heating element..