Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

:handgestures-thumbupleft:

Let’s us all know how it goes.
At the risk of sounding like your mum and nagging you to death , beware of scorching lol

Wellsy wrote:Let’s us all know how it goes.
At the risk of sounding like your mum and nagging you to death , beware of scorching lol

Yes mum lol

Wellsy wrote:beware of scorching lol

I'll be racking and squeezing as much of the liquid off the grain before it goes in the boiler. Definitely don't want scorching... But my element is also a few inches off bottom too.

Wellsy wrote:Let’s us all know how it goes.
At the risk of sounding like your mum and nagging you to death , beware of scorching lol

:text-+1:

:text-+1:
I managed to scorch my last one after hearts had started, it doesn't just happen on heat up....

Birdman85 wrote:

Wellsy wrote:beware of scorching lol

I'll be racking and squeezing as much of the liquid off the grain before it goes in the boiler. Definitely don't want scorching... But my element is also a few inches off bottom too.

Let the yeast settle out too! Do not want it either.

I done 5kg of cracked corn and topped up to 20L
Sat at 70°c for a few hours before I brang the temp down and pitched some yellow angel yeast. Took off for 2 days and now doing nothing... do I need to add nutrients or anything? Surely it's not already done. I have aerated the wash once a day like the packet said.

is 70C a bit low to gelatinize corn?
i think it's stir every day for 3 days, not aerate.
it is slow and sometimes it seems as though it's not doing anything, but it''s quietly fizzing away.

It’s instructions suggest 15 to25 days and it is done. Remember it takes time for some of the sugars to be available for conversion.

5kg for 20L is pretty low, I'd suggest it's done.

I use 8kg of oats for the same water and it takes 3-5 days.

if you can't get it going, strain it and run it and see what your stripping run yields. If it's worked your corn will be stripped back pretty hard too.

howard wrote:is 70C a bit low to gelatinize corn?
i think it's stir every day for 3 days, not aerate.
it is slow and sometimes it seems as though it's not doing anything, but it''s quietly fizzing away.

I didnt think I had to gelatinize it being yellow angel yeast but heard to chuck the corn in hot water and let it sit for an hour or 2.
ah ok must have misread. its had a few good stirs then :D
seems to be a bit off an on. its fizzing away again tonight but didnt look like it was doing anything last night.

Wellsy wrote:It’s instructions suggest 15 to25 days and it is done. Remember it takes time for some of the sugars to be available for conversion.

yeah thought it might be a bit slow but didnt even look active. seems to be going again now. I'll wait the 25 days and see.

oddian wrote:5kg for 20L is pretty low, I'd suggest it's done.

I use 8kg of oats for the same water and it takes 3-5 days.

if you can't get it going, strain it and run it and see what your stripping run yields. If it's worked your corn will be stripped back pretty hard too.

I wasn't sure what to use. I read the website it says 100kg to 250-300kg of water (guessing L as 1L is basically a kg) but a few other posts on here say 15kg/50L and 10kg/40L

Ended up choosing 5kg to 20L so I can do 4 generations I could used less water but figured it might be a bit cleaner product if its lower abv. without doing an SG reading I don't really know where im at (yes it bugs me a little) but the convenience vs making an all grain properly is outweighed.


I done 7kg in 23L for crushed wheat and it overflowed my fermentor. it was very active in that one! now just ticking along slowly

I didnt think I had to gelatinize it being yellow angel yeast but heard to chuck the corn in hot water and let it sit for an hour or 2.

sorry, when you said 70°C, my mind went to usual corn mashing temps and forgot we were talking about yellow angel.
still, corn is a hard grain and you probably did no harm to soften it up.
i think if i used cracked corn with yellow angel, i would run the corn through the grinder until it was fairly small bits.
i've read that some folk still gelatinize the cracked corn, despite using yellow angel.
when i've used angel on on normally milled grains, it does seem to access the starch easily at fermenting temps.
it would be a good experiment to run a side by side comparison with gelatinised & non gelatinised corn and different grain sizes.
it would be hard to measure accurately, as no SG readings are possible?

B-Man wrote:I done 5kg of cracked corn and topped up to 20L
Sat at 70°c for a few hours before I brang the temp down and pitched some yellow angel yeast. Took off for 2 days and now doing nothing... do I need to add nutrients or anything? Surely it's not already done. I have aerated the wash once a day like the packet said.

It is not done yet, and don't call me Shirley.

Activity for yellow label tapers off really quickly but it is definitely still doing stuff. I normally leave my wash for at least two weeks. After the initial burst of activity, I give it another stir, put the lid back on, and forget about it for a little while.

renedox wrote:
It is not done yet, and don't call me Shirley.
.

:laughing-rolling: Engage auto pilot :laughing-rolling:

renedox wrote:

B-Man wrote:I done 5kg of cracked corn and topped up to 20L
Sat at 70°c for a few hours before I brang the temp down and pitched some yellow angel yeast. Took off for 2 days and now doing nothing... do I need to add nutrients or anything? Surely it's not already done. I have aerated the wash once a day like the packet said.

It is not done yet, and don't call me Shirley.

Activity for yellow label tapers off really quickly but it is definitely still doing stuff. I normally leave my wash for at least two weeks. After the initial burst of activity, I give it another stir, put the lid back on, and forget about it for a little while.

yeah I expected the corn to be more broken down than it is. also didnt expect it to be done in 2 days... was thinking it might have crashed and needed a ph adjustment... but its still ticking away slowly

out of interest, if you've done corn normally before, compare the remaining kernels after fermentation and see if you think that YL has 'dissolved' all the contents.
on other grains, it feels like YL just leaves the husks, and by that logic, gives good efficiency. (eventually :smile: )

So I thought I'd post my results just in case it helps someone.

1st Run - Cracked Corn - Feed from Pet store.
2kg in 8L of water. Sat the corn at 90C for a couple of hours and let it cool naturally to 30C before pitching. Seemed to bubble away, left it about 6 days before the corn all settled to the bottom. Strained and ran it, sat it on oak chips for 4 weeks (not long but a test batch, basically just oak tea bagged) and it was... ok. I won't do it again though.

2nd Run - Oats
2kg of Quick Oats in 8L of water. Poured in the water at 40C, cooled to 30 and pitched. it spewed all over the place... leave more head room! This thing needs heaps of head room for Oats.

3rd Run - Oats
7.5Kg Quick Oats in 25L of water. Pitched at 60C. I don't recommend this, the oats started cooking and balled up heaps. Had to break it up by hand. Pitched at 30, maitained at 30. 7 day ferment until quiet, all the oats sink to the bottom. Very large head but lots of room in the 35L fermenter. Produced 2L after pot still strip and refulx spirit run.

4th Run - Oats
7.5Kg of Quick Oats in 25L of water. Pitch at 40C. This works well and if you stif as you put it in it doesn't clump. Takes about 8 hours to kick off and then goes of with a bang, lots of head, leave lots of room. I ran this about 4 times to get it right. EAch time getting about 3L spirits. Very tasty outcome.

5th Run - Oats
Increased the volume to 9.5kg int he same water. It spurted out the top of the fermenter haha, I don't recommend this. I salvaged what I could and got about 2L

6th Run - Oats
I've started adding 1.6kg Dextrose to the Oats as a test to see if I can increase the yield without impacting the flavour. This is fermenting away happily right now, hopefully it goes well.

Oats make an amazing vodka and makes a wonderful Gin with a fantastic mouth feel.

howard wrote:out of interest, if you've done corn normally before, compare the remaining kernels after fermentation and see if you think that YL has 'dissolved' all the contents.
on other grains, it feels like YL just leaves the husks, and by that logic, gives good efficiency. (eventually :smile: )

I haven't done corn normally before so no idea

oddian wrote:So I thought I'd post my results just in case it helps someone.


2nd Run - Oats
2kg of Quick Oats in 8L of water. Poured in the water at 40C, cooled to 30 and pitched. it spewed all over the place... leave more head room! This thing needs heaps of head room for Oats.

Cracked wheat needs alot! Of head room too

done a stripping run of the corn. ~18L got 4.2L with a total of 24% I ran further than I normally would as I was still in my free power window

any ideas how to gauge the abv of the wash and efficiency collected? guessing it was around 6%?
I normally collect to about 10-15% and assume im getting in the 90% efficient

the corn didnt look too broken up still quite solid in chunks.
I topped up the leftover with water while running and it started bubbling again so don't know if it crashed due to ph or what.....
I chucked another 5kg through a grinder I have and basically turned it into a powder so see how generation 2 goes this was all the backset the old corn the new corn "flour" more water and a sprinkle of new yeast just incase I killed the old yeast. it was about 45° when I tipped that in.

I'm a bit lost on my volumes and calculations with the next generation. as I tipped it all into a 200L fermentor thats wrapped up and normally marked for 200L guessing its about 40L total volume so probably be quite a low abv again. with the bulk of the corn in there from the other batch aswell its probably not as bad as I think.

How do you guys work our your batch levels and generations?