Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

I want to go down the all grain distilling path and I would like to ask a question before I venture any further.

I have been all grain brewing for many years so I am well equipped with all the gear needed to crush grain, mash, boil, cool etc. I have recently purchased a bag of Bairds Medium Peated Malt which wasn't that cheap ($75.00 for 25kgs) so I don't want to rush into things.

I have taken note that most sugar based washes are likely to ferment down to as low as .990 SG and lower, these figures are almost impossible with beers as I believe the enzymes are destroyed during the boiling stage of the wort. There is a modern tendency for most of the larger breweries to create 'dry, low carb' style beers which seems trendy because they are simply lower in carbohydrates. I believe that these low carb beers are created by the addition dry enzymes to the wort at the same time of pitching the yeast.
I usually boil my worts for a period of 1½ hours so that I can reduce the size of the malt run off and also allow for additions of hops and different times to achieve different hop profiles. Now that I won't be adding hops I would still like to boil for the 1½ hours to reduce the size of the wash and concentrate the malts to achieve a higher specific gravity. Does anyone have any idea of how much Low Carb Dry Enzyme (readily available at home brew shops) should be added to a 23 litre wash to bring specific gravities down into the .90's :?: Can I chuck a whole heap in to the wash or not. :?:

i only use enzymes when cooking corn....

as far as dry beer enzymes go, country brewer have a liquid that they recommend using at 1ml / 23l batch http://www.countrybrewer.com.au/product ... -30ml.html
others suggest 3g / 23l for dry powder type http://www.westbrew.com.au/showProduct/ ... ves/570002

personally I reckon that a lot of flavour would be impacted by using this enzyme. why not try 1 batch with & another without?

DONT use it in beer unless you like drinkin cat piss. I tried it once tipped 40l of beer :violence-stickwhack:

It's probably worth comparing mashing low for a batch @ 63*C and see what it gets to

And then try again with the enzyme at the same temp

Then comparing and seeing if there are any off notes when using the enzyme

If the non enzyme version got to 1.000 or there abouts I wouldn't bother with the enzyme

A little bit more grain should get you in the same position as the enzyme or you could supplement some aussie malt to make up the difference

Cheers

I remember watching u tube vid on whiskey and the guy said he puts one mash thru and the second rinse (same mash but less sugars) is saved for the next batch to increase available sugars. He also mentioned his wash being only 7-9% which should be achievable without needing to go below 1.0 sg. As far as I understand u only need to sterilize your mash by a 20 minute boil. As I haven't done a all grain this is just food for thought.

From what I have read (read no hands on experience) it would be more beneficial to step mash at different temps to break it down as much as you can to get full conversion then it should ferment more and produce a "thinner" beer.

I guess the difference being when making beer to drink you want to have that body to it, if you are going to distill you just want everything to be fermented out.

Boil it and thats it all over red rover . I spent quite a while checking (as in more than a hundred hrs) this out and if I can locate all my notes (that my kids drew pictures all over) I listed the most important malt enzymes , temps they activate at and are at their full potential at and the temp they denature at . It is different for each type of enzyme hence why they do the step and rest for these sorts of mashes . Temps start of quite cool , my first rest (Holding at a given range of temps) was only between 40 and 45' . That was Beta Glucanase to break down and release glucan , I skipped the step before it and time will tell if I'll regret that . Anyway I held it between those temps for one hr so that was my first rest , 4 rests later was Alpha Amylase one of several enzymes to convert starch to sugar and that needs to rest at between 71 and 72' (pretty tricky) . Beta Amylase was denatured to active this enzyme which after cooling will very slowly continue to convert throughout the fermentation . if you were to go over 72 at any time well thats it shows over folks what ever you got is what ya got and you will be adding a significant amount of sugar to do an UJSM sort of deal or adding more enzymes . So in short no don't boil the living fucking daylights out of it for 20 min :D EDIT I did use one of those copper tun low carb sachet I put one in 80 ltr because I had one so yes I think they would help don't know how much is wasting ya money but at $2 a pack its not to bad

croweater wrote:So in short no don't boil the living fucking daylights out of it for 20 min :D

How do you kill off all the bugs which are currently sitting in the nice worm wort just itching to eat all those sugars if you don't bring it to the boil?

make the conditions perfect for the yeast and let the cage fight begin :icon-lol: , unless ya thinking of drinking the wash :icon-razz:

No, not planning on drinking the wash (never smells good even with a good ferment) - so basically it doesn't matter too much if the wash has been fermented by unwanted bugs rather than yeast as long as alcohol is produced?

I'm guessing you mean wild yeasts , it is more likely than not that the yeast you add will be more vigorous and kill off other strains . Many washes are not heated at all much less to 72' so you can imagine the yeasts in them have more bacteria and wild yeasts to contend with and they get the job done so I wouldn't sweat it , try to imagine how much stuff is in decaying fruit ;-)

as crow says, no boil. I was reading a post (can't recall if it was here or on AD) where one of the members had been emailing the distiller at 1 of the is lay (i think) distilleries & he confirmed no boil as the wild flora a part of what give their brew the desired character - along with the added yeast ;-)

Divey, going on this and other posts of yours that I've read, you're going for an all-grain whisky — Harry's Glenmorangie clone/Frank's Fine Scotch Whisky to be exact?

I'd be interested to hear how you went with the dry enzyme.

I'm looking to do an all-grain recipe too. There's an interesting fluff piece produced by Novozymes on an enzyme that they sell which, they claim, eliminates the need for malting. It's mainly intended for beer brewing. But, gee, there's some potential for the Scotch-style whisky distillery too. Instead of using 100% malted barley they could — if the enzyme lives up to the claims — just add this enzyme to an unmalted barley mash and achieve the same results. The financial savings from cutting out the malting step in whisky production are obvious. But for the home brewer, whoo, were this enzyme ever to become available it would make all-grain whisky production a hell of a lot cheaper — providing the enzyme didn't cost an arm and a leg.

Anyway, you're playing with the idea of adding standard dry enzyme to malted barley (malt). Have you considered experimenting with using dry enzyme on unmalted barley? I can see that you're going for Harry's Glenmorangie clone. But unmalted barley is, what, $15-$20 for 20kg and regular dry enzyme is a few bucks from the home brew store. The experiments wouldn't be that expensive. And, because I've got a bucket load of barley, I'd be happy to run a few experiments and exchange notes.

However, it would be good to get some feedback from the experienced all-grainers (and others) about whether this is just a hairbrained scheme.

:handgestures-thumbupleft:

Wow, thanks for all the input. I have not been receiving notifications as I did not tick that tricky little box on my first post. ;-)

I'm going away hunting tomorrow morning for a few days and when I come back home I'm going to give this bag of Bairds Mild Peated Barley a good old workout. I have over half a pallet of other malts here so I'm not worried about chucking a whole pile of malt into a mash (I usually do single infusion mashes as I just can't stand the extra work and time involved with decoction mashes) and batch sparge (I usually fly sparge and get efficiencies up in the low 90's) and just extract two run offs, crash cool with an immersion chiller and pitch the yeast. I reckon I may aim for a 1.080sg wash.

Divey wrote:Bairds Mild Peated Barley

Divey wrote:Bairds Medium Peated Malt

So Divey
Is that medium or mild peated malt you have? :handgestures-thumbupleft:

You phuckin know, why ask me.

It's the one in the middle. What's the difference between mild and medium. You've seen what's written on the bag is that enough to convince ya. FMD.

Bit sensitive last night Huh Divey.
Surely you realize I was just having a joke with you. :razz:

croweater wrote:Boil it and thats it all over red rover ... if you were to go over 72 at any time well thats it shows over folks

Agree with you totally Croweater but all these steps and decoction boils sure are a lot of work. Hours of watching the mash calculating just how much to draw off to boil - I was even thinking of running steam pipes through the mash so as to lessen the melanoidins. Seems to me that their taste always creeps into the finished product. IF Divey's idea of adding enzymes after the boil works then it will sure simplify the whole process. I will be watching with interest.

On the question of all-grain brewing and enzymes, I've come across a variety of commercial enzymes that are designed to replace malted barley with unmalted barley + enzymes.

Here's a bit of a hit list of sources:

• 'New age beer revolution to boost farmer bank balances', ABC Rural, 26 June 2012, Tara De Landgrafft. Contains a good little audio file on developments in enzyme brewing.
• 'Chapters 6 & 7', The Manual for the Home and Farm Production of Alcohol Fuel. A great intro to enzyme ferments.
• Microbrewing.com.au directs people who are interested in DSM's range of brewing enzymes, which includes a range of enzymes to convert nearly all of the starch in barley to fermentable sugar, to RejuvaCare, who are apparently the Australian distributor.
• Novozymes also produces an enzyme that converts starches in unmalted barley, called Ondea® Pro, but I don't know that you can get it in Australia.
• However, if corn is your grain of choice, there is some encouraging older research on the effectiveness of the amylase group of enzymes for converting corn starch to fermentable sugars.

:handgestures-thumbupleft:

yeah stilly you can do this for sure and in a reversed mash (done while cooling down) none of the enzymes would need to be denatured making it a lot more efficient I'd think . The problem seems to be getting the full range of enzymes here in Oz , seems the home brew shops haven't looked into this enough as most of the enzymes they carry are specifically for the brewing market but a combo of the available brewing enzymes and baking enzyme might do the trick , i wasn't aware until GTH's post that Amylase was present in bread improver great because its otherwise pretty fucking hard to get I believe