My First All Grain Mash

[GrantB]

I’ve been distilling sugar washes for about 18 months now, with some really good results with gins & whiskey’s, but I was keen to try my hand at all grain whiskey. So I did what a lot of us inexperienced distillers do, I read everything I could on this forum and YouTubed the crap out of the subject. So a big thanks to those that have provided their experience here on the forum.

My Grain Bill:
70% (6.67Kg) Malted corn
16% (2.134kg) malted barley
14% (1.87kg) malted rye

Equipment
60L Brewzilla gen 4 to do the mashing.
Brew bag (inside the malt pipe)
5 Star milk an double element boiler, with Vevor football pot still head

Method:
Ground all grains to what appeared to me to be of a good size & consistency.
Filled the BZ with 40L of water & adjusted the pH to 5.5.
Heated water to 72/73 deg C, added the corn & was intending to mash for 30 minutes. However as the corn was still pretty tough to chew, I let it run a a little longer
Lowered the temp to 64 deg C, & added all the other grains
Ran for a few hours as I had problems holding the temp at 64 deg. (Originally I was trying to use the PID system on the BZ but ditched this as it struggled to either reach the temps I set or blasted right past them.)
Tried to do an iodine test. Couldn't tell if it was converting (need more practice), so I took a sample & used a hydrometer (adjusting for the temp).

I ended up with 33L of wort in the fermenter at an SG of 1.067, so overall I was relatively happy for my first attempt.

Using Angle DADY I pitched 33 grams of yeast
After 3 days the pH dropped to 4.4 & a gravity of 1.012, so I pitched another 10 grams of yeast & half a dozen oyster shells (not sure why, I think I panicked:))
Kept an eye on over the next few days but the pH never changed & after 15 days the FG was 1.011, giving a potential ABV of 7.35% so I decided it was time to run it.

Finished with 1.55L at 60% ABV, sitting on 15 grams of charred oak cubes for at least the next 3 months.

Very happy with my first attempt but well aware there is some room for improvement.

Lessons learned:
Don’t put the brew bag inside the malt pipe as it restricted the flow of the re circulation pump & makes it an utter bastard to drain the liquid out of it.
Use the cooling coil correctly (that came with the BZ. (I didn’t lower the temp low enough & had to wait ages before I could pitch my yeast).
Learn more about the use if the Brewzilla (I have since done a number of trial run’s to sort out the PID & can report it’s working well)
Although I thought my corn soaked, Zac’s Cornflake wash whiskey was good, I’m very impressed with the flavour of whats aging in my jar & I don’t think I’ll be going back to sugar washes for my whiskey’s/bourbons’s.

I would be very keen to get some feedback from forum members on any suggestions or changes I should make before attempting my second all grain mash.

Again thanks to everyone on here for their experience & support (through the information found in the forum)

[howard]

good job, i'm thinking of upgrading the old 35L BZ.
i put that grain bill in an app and your SG is not bad.
the 1.011 is probably as low as it will go.(ag's don't generally go much lower)
grain bill is 62%/20%/17.5% ?

i've never used malted corn.
apparently it's pre-gelled but with a low DP.(almost enough to convert itself)
Beerco recommends to just mill it with your other grains.

i only use the 500W element when mashing (on the 35L BZ)
temp fluctuations..........
i'm not sure if the Brew bag would cause much problems.
maybe the rye gave off some glucans and blocked the mesh and/or bag?
if that happens during mashing, the recirculating arm is still pumping wort to the top and below the concealed bottom can get 'empty'.
this would probably have an effect of the temp sensor and the control of the elements.
this may have caused the temp fluctuations?

BTW did you sparge?

[GrantB]

Thanks for your response.

As for the grain bill percentage, I read on this forum that the grain bill percentage should be based on the sugar content of the grain. Now I wonder if this is the norm or something particular to this particular recipe .

I think the issue with the temperature fluctuation was more to do with the brew bag inside the malt pipe not allow the water to flow through freely enough. I had the pump running too fast, so the water was building up on top of the grain bed & not flowing to the bottom of the BZ quick enough. With less water in the bottom I think may have caused BZ temp monitor caused it to overshoot, because of the temp difference between the bottom temp monitor & the Bluetooth monitor.

Cheers