All Grain AG experiments

[maheel]

In other posts i said i was going to try some all grain distilling and as i make AG beer it's not that much difference I will just leave out the hops.
I use the BIAB "brew in a bag" / no-chill method to make the wash using malted home brew shop grain, for these experiments i am adding non-malted adjuncts to lower the cost but hopefully get a good ABV potential wash.

these include, rolled oats, oat bran, boiled mushy rice, cracked corn and maybe Asian "liquid" rice malt

the boiled no chill method is a beer making way of making wort and keeping it in a "cube" for fermenting in the future. The step may no tbe needed but for my 1st few i intend to use my beer methods to ensure a clean ferment.

here's my kit
19L big W SS pot
15L pot
swiss voile used for the "tea bag"
10-12L no chill cubes
temp gauge / hydro / normal brew stuff

todays mash gran bill
1.25kg Pilsner malt
500g oat bran
500g rolled oats
200g boiled rice (left over from dinner)

it may push the limits of the Enzymes in the Malt i have been doing some reading and 60% malt to 40% Adjunts is considered "high" my 50-50 may be pushing the limit but here's to trying :)

method
heat 16-17L strike water to about 72'C this allows the cold grain to pull the temp back to about 65-67'C mashing temps
put voile in pot of water as a big tea bag.
pour in grain
mash it up and stir to get rid of lumps
wrap it up to keep it warm +-65'C
wait and hour and a bit
drain bag and do a sparge
boil to "sterilize" the wort (20mins + heat up time )
drain to "sterilized" no chill cube to "cool" overnight
pour back into fermentor and ferment
distill :)

[maheel]

so i am at the wait for conversion stage after mashing
i mashed in and the temp was about 67'c 30mins later i gave it stir and it was 65. 67 is a little warm but ok i am going to mash about 1.5 hours on this to hopefully allow a good conversion of the Adjuncts

[maheel]

the above pic shows you the swiss voile bag, i just use a big square but some make drawstring bags and the like
it's about $4 a meter at spotlight so i replace it every now and then...
it allows you to just pull the grain out of the pot like a tea bag and the pot goes back onto your stove or outdoor burner.

come back in a while for more pics :)

[reknaw]

Maheel you have been a busy fella :)

The rice has got me interested....... I am wondering what it would be like adding rice to other types of washes?

Have you done much with rice before?

[maheel]

nahh never used rice in beer but plenty do, supposed to give a creamy / slick mouth feel. you got to boil the shit out of it to make it like jelly...
not sure i would use rice again soon, it made the wort very thick as well. Not sure how that is going to go...
no big loss :) just time and about $7

back to the mash, i mashed out at about 63 after 90mins
then i took a slightly different path as i thought i might get 15L out of the mash :)
i decided to re-mash the grain to get a "2nd runnings" for another 30 mins while the big pot came to the boil

1st mash gave me about a SG of 1042 @ +-13L
2nd runnings were lower at SG of 1020 +- @ 4L

bang them on to boil
gave them 15 mins boil
no-chilled the lot into a 15l cube (more like 16.5Lish) that's putting the boiling liquid into the cube and letting it cool in there
it pasteurizes as it cools so should be "sterile" for fermenting
in about 1 hr i will put it on the swimming pool to cool :P
chill it to about 18'c overnight then ferment using us-05 yeast @ 18'

[maheel]

few more

hope to do the same in the morning to get total 25 L ish
but maybe no rice.....

[maheel]

just got the 2nd batch to the boil

2.5kg grain
8 weetbix
250g rolled oats

hit about 1045

both batches going in the fermenter tomorrow

[MacStill]

That looks like a lot of work mate, I'm watching with a lot of interest and waiting to hear how this goes... ;)

[maheel]

yeah making all grain beer is a bit harder than tins of goo.... but we all avoid turbo's as well...
once you taste the difference between a well made all grain beer and a normal tin of goo "kit and kilo" you never can go back to the tins...
it's not that hard and if you enjoy the process as much as the beer it's an enjoyable task and if you upscale to about the 23L SG it worth it
i like beers like little creatures pale ale, stone and wood ales, white rabbit and other true craft beer.
i now cannot bring myself to drink XXXX, VB, Carlton, Crown etc i just cannot enjoy it (even free :P ).


back to the brew
this batch is fizzing away nicely in my ferment fridge at 27'
the rice gave it a bit of a slick taste when i tried it out of the fermentor not bad tasting just unusual
the 2nd batch really had that grain flavor / smell and i nearly added hops and made beer :)
here's hoping it distills across on the pot still to something interesting

the next batch i do will have no rice i reckon

[reknaw]

You have got me thinking about throwing in 500 grams of rice into Mcstills whiskey wash, I am wondering how it'ld go?????? Only one way to find out I suppose.

Are you going to take a bottle to Mcstills for "testing" :)

[maheel]

this looks to have either stalled at about 1005 or there is to much un-fermentable stuff floating around in it effecting the FG
it also does not have a pleasant taste anymore, not infected but not "nice" like

hope to cook it this weekend depending on if the gravity changes or not

yield is looking low.... :( hope taste works out...

[maheel]

ran this this morning using the pot head

writing it off as a total fail..... product smells bad, very low yield into high temps :(
has a real bad caramely malty bad smell
downside was the effort for a fail :roll:

might have even burnt a bit in the keg (2200 element)
has a real funky caramel smell, might be from un-fermentable sugaz and stuff ?
i am yet to dump it as it's cooling a bit

wash tasted a bit sour but smelt like day old beer going into keg and i did not have high hopes

going to try again, no rice and mash at 65'C (no higher) to get a thinner hopefully more sugaz

oh well you got to try things right :mrgreen:

[R-sole]

Sounds like the conversion went well, just not enough grain to your liquid.

The common claim in the distilling circles is 1.5 to 2 lb to the gallon. Which is around 180-230 gms per litrIf we take an average 200 gms that'll give ya 3.4 kilos for your initial 17 litres. Should give you the 1050-1060 you're after i think looking at your 2.5kg and just guessing?

[Heffers]

Ah, you win some you lose some. At least you had the balls to give something different a crack.

I'm still in the stage of using tried and tested recipes and haven't even come close to venturing out into the big world of experimentation.

Good on ya Maheel for documenting your efforts on that one and I hope that you sort out whatever the problem is.

Cheers, Heffers

[maheel]

thanks guys

Your right 5Star more grain would bring up that SG and hopefully the yields.

got to crack some grain for another bash at it :) and do some beer as well.

[maheel]

back into the grain game :)

now have my mill sorted out

mashed in 4kg of pale ale and 4kg of unmalted barley (feed store)
after boiling i ended up with about 25L of 1050 that i no-chilled (around a 8% potential wash at FG of 0.990)

i reckon i should have got a better FG more around the 1070 mark based on brewmate software, i tested with iodine and it looked "fully converted"
and only got 12 points more than 4kg of pale ale woudl have given me. my mash in temp was a little low more like 63 and was looking for 65...
let it mash for a bit over an hour

not to worry, tomorrow once it's cooled off it's getting some of Punkins yeast

here are some pics :)

the color of the wort is a very nice golden liquid in that plastic bottle, the flash does not show the color well.
thats break material etc floating in there

[maheel]

just pitched punkins yeast into it and into the temp fridge @ 25 ' C

the yeast starter in the bottle fired up real fast... bit worried there will be a mess in the fridge :think:

[wynnum1]

beer will not go to 0.990.

[maheel]

beer will not go to 0.990.

i agree and disagree....

it depends on many things, mash temps, yeast , etc

i am not "expecting" 990 but hope to see close to it

[maheel]

ran this today.....

pot head puked some shit at me as it came up to temp... must have been foaming a lot
so i ran the PSR-25 to reduce heat input to about 75% (using the dial)

resulting small yield does not smell promising
seems to be a fail...

will taste some later after it airs a bit but i dont hold much hope