Hey Pal, read through some of the recipes in the recipe section, there are some there that give step by step direction and I think that will help. Try the whiskey section.

"I further educated myself by reading this: http://homedistiller.org/grain/wash-grain/mashing



Should you ferment on the grain, or sparge the grains ? Ian Smiley suggests..
If you're doing an all-grain mash of corn, rye, and or wheat, just ferment it all on the grain and strain it out later. It'll strain much more easily and efficiently after the fermentation. In fact, this is exactly what the commercial whiskey distilleries do.

If you're making an all-barley-malt malt mash, you should sparge the grains out after mashing. Again, this is the way the commercial malt whiskey distilleries do it. However, keep in mind that malt mash does not undergo a kettle-boil the way an all-grain beer mash does, so you must limit the amount of sparge water you use or you'll over dilute the mash.

Brainsolenoid cautions ...
I must admit humbley that I get a bit skiddish when I hear folks talk about fermenting on grains. There are a few items surrounding the mystery of fermenting / boiling grains, and in the Brewing community, these are some of the more basic items:

1.) Grains were boiled in the late 1,700's up through modern times by Belgian Monks and German Brewers. They were performing what was referred to as a ""decoction"" mash, which was used to guarantee a cotrolled mash temperature in the times prior to thermometers. Part of the mash (and a little liquid) was pulled off the tun and sent to the kettle, where it was brought to boil, and then added back into the mash. This doesn't kill the enzymes as they survive in the liquid part of the mash. It makes a great Bock or other fuller bodied lager.

2.) Brewer's boil their wort for numerous reasons, but mainly for reducing wort volume (and increasing sugar content), breaking proteins out of the wort for clearer beer, and for another extremely important reason......sterility. I get nervous when folks walk away with a snippit of info and fail with it. Yes, you can make a wash without boiling, but you are running some risks, sterilization wise, and will require an good size pitch of fast yeast to get things moving quickly. Even after boiling, I answer a lot of questions by Homebrewers who's wort has gone to mold even after boiling and pitching yeast. Long lag times produce off-flavors and and infections, and boiling helps at least to minimize what's carried over from the bacteria on the grains.

3.) Now, I will preface this by saying I'm no chemist, but it is our belief that you have to boil for quite a while......say 90 minutes at least and it's still a function of wort gravity.....to get even close to the type of flavors found in extracts. Extracts, so we believe, gets that band-aid type background from overworked melanoidens. These produce the type of extreme maltiness you feel in Dopplebocks and higher gravity beers. Extracts are just worked to hard to get them in extract form and in contest tastings I can taste them right off.

4.) Brewer's don't ferment on grains because it produces off-flavors as well as clarity nightmares. It's been written in brewing circles as well that fermenting on the pulp material produces methanol, though I have read to the contrary in (2) distillers resources that only pectins produce methanol. Since it is considered a ""wood alcohol"", we have always considered it as a byproduct of pulp fermentations. Though the ""pectin"" story seems to be spread throughout messages on this site (their source being the same (2) I've seen, no doubt), the Brewer / Engineer in me will stick with the logic that if fermenting on cellulose is a good thing, then we'ld all be cutting our trees down for hooch.

It may be true that some Distillers are boiling their washes and are fermenting on grains, I'm sure you'll find some that aren't. The use almost laboratory standards that we don't have access to. Further, their pitching rates / oxygen contents are much higher than the amatuer distiller.

To which Ian Smiley replies:
The information that BS gives is very accurate and completely consistent with the regimen I've learned and have been using for many years as an all-grain beer brewer, and achieving excellent results. I've done triple decoctions and cold lager fermentations to make continental pilsner, and I've done heavy English ales with dark specialty malts using other methods that BS mentions.

I'm also aware that to ferment a beer on its grains would not only impart all kinds of off-flavours and undesirable bitterness from the husks, but it would engender yeast autolysis later in the fermentation cycle. And, for beer mashes, one definitely has to boil for about 90 minutes. This is not only important to achieve the hot break and to stabilize the flavour, but it's the only workable way to perform and control the hop extraction: bitterness, flavour, and aroma.

Having said all that, I must point out that in my last contribution I was referring to whiskey mash, and not beer mash. There's a significant difference in the two processes. Whiskey mashes that are fermented on the grains are high-adjunct mashes (typically 80+% corn, rye, or other cereal grains) and mashed to optimize fermentability. The mashing temperatures of around 65C (149F) for 60 to 90 minutes are more than enough to sterilize (i.e. Pasteurize) the mash.

Whiskey mashes are fermented from 60 to 84 hours, then they are strained and distilled. Given that the substrate is reasonably free of bacterial contamination (as it would be after 90 minutes at 65C) and that a copious and clean yeast starter is added, there's insufficient time for an infection to establish itself before the mash is brought to boil in the still. This is very different from a beer mash that has to undergo primary, secondary, and tertiary fermentation over numerous weeks, which would afford amply time for bacteria to thoroughly establish itself.

Whiskey made from mostly cereal grains are not only fermented on their grains, but in some pot-still bourbon operations that use steam pipes to heat their still boilers, the grain is even placed in the still. Now, a flame fired still could never do this without burning the suspended grist on the bottom of the still pot.

Malt-whiskey mashes are sparged the way beer mashes are, and are not fermented on the grains. But, they are usually not boiled, they go straight to the fermenter, are oxygenated, and are fermented for 60 to 84 hours, then distilled.

I hope this helps to clarify my prior contribution re fermenting on grains and not boiling."

Thank you, the final running is at 1.015 after sparging. I don't run off any more after that so that I don't get tannens, etc. My Boil OGs are in the range you mention.

Does it hurt to boil to bring up the sugars when making a all-grain?

After the hot break, do you scrape the proteins (fine foam scum) or leave them in?

In beer brewing, I scrape them off before the first hop addition as I have found it tends to make the krausen less messy and prone to blow off.

For distillation ferments I don't bother removing foam. But I usually have 3 to 4" head room in my fermenter and run two locks, or one hose and one lock, so I don't worry about blow outs. Been there and done that.

"Did you gelatinize/paste your corn (cook it out) before you attempted to use it? Also a 25 minute mash sounds way short to me.

Which amylase were you using? The alpha or the gamma (gluco)? What was your pH and temp, and how long did you hold the temp after adding the enzymes. Also, what was the specific enzyme product?

The alpha is for liquefaction. Given you actually had some soluble corn starch in your mash, you likely need some glucoamylase to saccharify. Many types of corn have 75% (or more) amylopectin, so the alpha won't be able to finish the job by itself."

"If you finished at 1.004 after five days I'd say you're doing pretty damned good (given a reasonable OG). The reason I'm asking all of the questions is because I do a lot with rice. The gelatinization temperature range of rice is similar to corn (but it's a bit broader) so I have to deal with many of the same issues.

Based on your comments, it sounds like you got your corn pasted. So that's step one. The next thing that helps considerably is to get it liquified. The point where you added the 130 F water to thin things out is where you want to add some alpha. The alpha will chomp on the corn starch and thin out your mash very nicely, and the thinned mash will make life much easier for your barley malt to do its job.

The different commercial alpha products are not all created equal in terms of their optimum pH and temperature ranges. In addition, virtually all alpha amylase requires calcium ... and they can have different calcium ion concentration requirements. Add to that the recommended dosing. So knowing about the alpha product you're using is very helpful. If you're using the alpha from Brewhaus, which is supposed to be BA-100, then you want your pH around 5.5 and your temperature around 140 F - 158 F (60 C - 70 C) and Ca++ under 100 ppm. With the BA-100 I target 70 ppm and just use a combo (half & half by volume) calcium chloride and calcium sulphate (gypsum). I have well water that goes through an ion-exchange filter and two stages of carbon filtering, so it essentially has zero calcium ... that's why I do the adjustment. The dosing I use is 1 gram/lb ... which is roughly 1/4 tsp pound. I could probably get away with less.

To keep an eye on your pH, I'd recommend the pH test strips from your LHBS. They're cheap and adequate. I tried a pH meter and found that it was junk. It worked fine at fermenting temps but was mostly useless at mashing temps. I accidentally put my meter into a mash that was still to hot and the probe cracked. So along with trashing the cheap meter, I had glass (or whatever it was) in my mash. I didn't care so much about breaking the meter. But given the time, effort, and cost of materials in preparing the mash, I considered it a big loss. Anyway, the test strips have worked very well for me.

Back to the liquefaction ... so you can add the alpha to thin out your corn porridge. You can paste it, cool it, then add the alpha (e.g. BA-100). Or you can use something like the SEBstar HTL (a liquid vs. powder) that can deal with much higher temps ... which eliminates the need for cooling as it'll work up to 194 F (90 C). Beyond that you have to deal with the saccharification ... but if your FG is 1.004, I think the barley malt did a good job. If you have troubles here you could try some of the GA-100 gluco. The gluco will chomp on the dextrins that the alpha leaves behind. It can also break-up those pesky branch bonds from the amylopectin. Same deal with the gluco ... it has it's own optimum pH, temp, and dosing.

Malt quantity wise, I shoot for an average DP above 40 L. For your grain bill of 14 lbs that would be a minimum of 560 (14 x 40). With a 130 L malt that would be 4.3 pounds (560/130). But that's just how I calculate things ... a few of the bourbon guys use much, much less and just give things more time. If you're using commercial enzymes to supplement your mash this may be mostly irrelevant."

Gravelier,

If your softner is an ion-exchange filter (the kind that uses salt and a cylinder with a polymer mesh) then you're basically exchanging hardness for sodium. The post filter water likely contains a very low calcium content (but an elevated sodium content). I would expect a pH at least in the 7.2 - 7.8 range. In any case, you might want to try using your post-filter water and add some calcium to help your alpha.

As for RO, I would love to get one. I just haven't had the time or money to install a system. But I would expect the post-RO water to have a pH very close to 7.0 if it's working properly. The nice thing about having an RO is you'll know that's it's basically pure water ... so you can build your water chemistry to whatever you want.

Good luck!

--JB

Hi Gravelier,

That's a real eye-opening post for me. I guess I never really thought much about what happens to water when it is highly purified (as in RO) ... it basically loses all of its buffering capacity. So just a tiny bit of dissolved CO2 and it's acidic. Now I get it, thanks!

--JB

"I don't do iodine tests anymore ... for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that I don't bother clearing my wort. Once I lauter and get to the proper pitching temp, I get the fermentation going ASAP. So the wort (I'm talking pure rice in my case) is very cloudy with lots of suspended solids. So I'll get a false positive no matter how successful the mash turned out. I tried some small scale experiments clearing the wort ... and even boiling it down to a nice thick syrup. But it was a lot of work with little benefit. However, the same wort that showed a very dark purple, once adequately cleared, gave me that nice reddish-brown that we're all hoping to see. So suspended solids, especially any proteins, interfere with a meaningful test.

The second reason I don't bother is that it tells me little or nothing about the limit dextrins. I know you have pretty extensive beer brewing experience, so I'm sure you're very aware of the ongoing (and subjective) debate over mouth feel. I've seen studies that indicate that the limit dextrin mouth feel thing is a bunch of balogna. However, I know for a fact, that some people seem almost gifted in their ability to detect subtleties in flavor/aroma sensations that leave me in complete awe. So I continue to believe that some of us may truly be capable of sensing a different mouth feel based on dextrin content ... I'm just not one of them.

That said, when we distill, the whole issue is moot. So we're left with basic fermentability metrics ... which I simplify to final gravity since it's something a hobbyist can actually measure ... and that's where the limit dextrins come in. Yeast (S. Cerevisiae) can metabolize sucrose (via invertase), glucose, fructose, maltose, and maltotriose in roughly that order. But if you even have something as simple as iosmaltose (two a(1,6) bonded glucose units), the yeast are out of luck. So all of those dextrins with a(1,6) bonds remaining don't help us produce alcohol ... and the iodine test won't detect them.

So I think what you may have observed is due to the clearing. Clearly the alpha did a good job with your corn liquefaction. Now that your wash is fermenting, I would be evaluating how low it goes. With my rice washes I've only gone as low as 1.005. I have a wash that should finish soon (maybe another week) that I produced using only SEBstar/SEBamyl. I had to adjust my process a bit as this is the first time I used those two products together for a normal sized batch. Once I can measure the FG, I'll know if I actually did any better.

The only other comment I would make is that your 3:1 unmalted-to-malted would require your malt to have a DP around 160 if you're conducting a mash with typical beer brewing rest times (assuming a minimum average DP of 40). I know that some of the AG bourbon guys use a much lower average DP, but they also seem to use much longer times ... and, as distillers, they're not concerned with tannin extraction and all of that stuff. I'm still not clear on all the details, so I hope I'm not talking out of my
$$. But apparently that's how they get away with such high corn content and run-of-the-mill malt. Maybe someone with experience can chime in on this. Regardless, I'm sure that using some commercial alpha will let you get away with a lower average DP.

Anyway, sounds like your mash is moving along nicely with the enzymes. Keep us posted. This is good stuff.

Regards,
--JB"