Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hi all,

While I am relatively new to distilling compared to most of you, I am picking it up and I plan to do a bit of all grain and a bit of neutral for the essences i really enjoy.

I have 2 decommissioned kegs for conversion to AG gear. I plan to cut the lid out of one and mount some legs on it and a platform for a gas burner under it and i have a simple mash tun, i do plan to ferment on grain to start with. The 2nd keg i have no plans for yet.

My main questions about AG is Malted Corn.

I had this notion of making a corn whiskey using flaked maize and malted corn as the enzyme source but some sites show malted corn has a low diastatic power and some sites say it has zero and I'm really confused.

Am I wrong when I think of corn whiskey being exclusively corn? (no barley)

Even the Traditional Appalachian (U.S.) sweet mash corn whiskey recipe on the site says you can make it on corn malt but if it has zero diastatic power then we have a problem with conversion, but if the recipe says you can do it then I must be missing something.

I spoke to a local Gladfields distributor and he said the malted corn he stocks has ZERO diastatic power, so if its a malted grain with zero enzyme action why would people use it over flaked maize?


Looking for a bit of guidance please.

What do you pay for the corn as it can be malted but unless going to be done in bulk is going to take a lot of effort for little reward .
The other option is to buy malted grain and mash that with corn which would be ok if can buy in bulk at a good price or go the angel no mash yeast. The other option is to buy enzymes and do all enzyme corn mash.

From what I have read it has enough dp to convert itself. Do they steam cook the corn once malted thus killing enzymes?

wynnum1 wrote:What do you pay for the corn as it can be malted but unless going to be done in bulk is going to take a lot of effort for little reward .
The other option is to buy malted grain and mash that with corn which would be ok if can buy in bulk at a good price or go the angel no mash yeast. The other option is to buy enzymes and do all enzyme corn mash.

$6 per kg off the website I was looking at. I have not purchased any yet. But they list hte DP as zero so i was a bit iffy about buying it.

bluc wrote:From what I have read it has enough dp to convert itself. Do they steam cook the corn once malted thus killing enzymes?

Not sure but I am going to ask!

M8Harry wrote:Hi all,
Am I wrong when I think of corn whiskey being exclusively corn? (no barley)

Most American whiskeys are 70-78% corn. They use around 10-12% malted barley or sometimes malted wheat for the DP and the rest rye for flavour.
Doing a search online for bourbon malt bills will reveal most of the grain bills of the big distillers.

BradM wrote:

M8Harry wrote:Hi all,
Am I wrong when I think of corn whiskey being exclusively corn? (no barley)

Most American whiskeys are 70-78% corn. They use around 10-12% malted barley or sometimes malted wheat for the DP and the rest rye for flavour.
Doing a search online for bourbon malt bills will reveal most of the grain bills of the big distillers.

The corn they grow now is not the same as corn grown years ago and getting bigger crop per hectare and could be GMO .Bloody Butcher Corn is one type they are using for bourbon but more expensive to grow and corn cross pollinates and hard to keep genuine seed for replanting.

Discussed with a distiller in a small town in USA (Frederick, Maryland) he sources non GMIO corn as the stuff they are growing is high protein for the animals (us included) where as he wanted a more balanced corn for brewing. Hard initially as a certain company had all the locals growing GMO but as time goes he offers more $ per unit weight and has a real need, they are coming around.

Nothing worthwhile is ever easy.

chipboy wrote:Discussed with a distiller in a small town in USA (Frederick, Maryland) he sources non GMIO corn as the stuff they are growing is high protein for the animals (us included) where as he wanted a more balanced corn for brewing. Hard initially as a certain company had all the locals growing GMO but as time goes he offers more $ per unit weight and has a real need, they are coming around.

Nothing worthwhile is ever easy.

Some of the GMO corn creates its own enzymes so when the mash do not have to add enzyme and corn can wind pollinates over long distance so if get contamination or corn gets mixed with other corn and use to say make corn chips can make unsaleable from the enzymes.
A lot of the GMO is also so they can spray with herbicide and the corn plants are imune.

wynnum1 wrote:

chipboy wrote:Discussed with a distiller in a small town in USA (Frederick, Maryland) he sources non GMIO corn as the stuff they are growing is high protein for the animals (us included) where as he wanted a more balanced corn for brewing. Hard initially as a certain company had all the locals growing GMO but as time goes he offers more $ per unit weight and has a real need, they are coming around.

Nothing worthwhile is ever easy.

Some of the GMO corn creates its own enzymes so when the mash do not have to add enzyme and corn can wind pollinates over long distance so if get contamination or corn gets mixed with other corn and use to say make corn chips can make unsaleable from the enzymes.
A lot of the GMO is also so they can spray with herbicide and the corn plants are imune.

Yea take a look at the ABC doco on using round up and it shows the US farmers that are hell bent on using it as it won't kill their GM corn crops that goes into making fuel.

Far better off just going to country produce store and getting cracked corn in a 20kg sack, but ask first if it has been sprayed with herbicides first as they will some that are and some that aren't.

Cheers Bryan

Ok so a bit of an update.

I reached out to the company selling the malted corn. Turns out it does have DP of 25. Not enough to self convert but more than 0 so thats something.

SO if I do an all corn whiskey ill have to use some enzymes no biggie.

The plus side is i can do a side by side taste comparison of all corn whiskey vs mostly corn whiskey with some 6 row barley for the DP boost.