CORN & THE THREE LEGGED STOOL

[Music] mooners welcome back to barley and hops I'm George the channel That dares to unlock the mysteries of home to still and we're so glad you're with us today now this is our another video in our series that we're going to produce here um it what it is is it's we intend to make you as successful as we possibly can whether this is your first time distilling or you've given it a try uh and maybe you weren't real happy with your results and or maybe it failed who know who knows look it happens to everybody but all we got to do is follow some basic principles you know I always like to describe the uh distilling is really like that three-legged stool and if you look back on some of our videos I've I've driven this home over and over again and it's like a three-legged stool and there's three things you really need you need equipment you need ingredients and you need a process if you've got those three that stool will remain sturdy now once you short change one of those principles um what happens think about it yeah that stool Falls over so you can have the greatest ingredients in the world you could have the best process and you could have poor equipment and what do you think the result are going to probably be oh well they're going to probably be poor you follow that train of thought so what I want to do is I want to try to reintroduce those three basic principles because they're really simple and they're the foundation of this hobby yeah so that's what we're going to get at in the beginning yeah there was corn why do you think we made corn liquor think about it I mean it you stop and wonder why was corn liquor so popular well it during the period of time during prohibition corn was really readily available you know there was you know after harvest there was a lot of corn left over and what else are you going to do with it Farmers soon learned and they figured out the amazing properties of corn and what they were capable of making with it so we're going to do some corn I'm going to show you how prepared the grains because we have grains we have adjuncts and of course then you have some special additives you know oh by the way I've got a box here uh this this arrive we're going to get to that on the next video because uh that's that new 8 gallon 2in Dual Purpose Pro uh from Mile High distilling and we're going to put that together we're going to that's that's how we're going to operate we're going to make all this work and you're going to be there with it step by step corn corn is loaded load I'm talking loaded packed it's like 70% starch um but we should know by now that starch is not fermentable well you know that brings up an interesting point even before we even get started with that is uh what is a recipe well a a re I could give you so many different analogies but let me tell you this up front um I'm always leery of the person who says oh you like that yeah that's a secret family recipe I share that with nobody well you already blew it but because you called it a secret which means it's not really a secret any longer because after a couple sips of that you're going to probably want to share it you know but but what always makes me wonder is why why would you want to keep that to yourself if it's something good here on this channel we like to share everything that we know or everything we could come up with uh in hopes that someone else can take that and run with it uh and do even better so um I'm always Leary about the secret recipe thing the bottom line is I can tell you what's in every without exception I can tell you what is in every recipe fermentable sugars water and yeast and that's it fermentable sugars water and yeast three ingredients three ingredients to make a mash a wart whatever you give it a name you want to but we have we have terminology that is kind of universal in the community but to produce that and then what are we going to do with it we're going to put it in a a Contraption we call a still and we're going to separate the alcohol from the water and we're going to keep the alcohol so that's all there is to it now how you get to that is again your process as long as you have a solid process and you're using oh quality ingredients M and you've got good equipment huh what do you think yeah I know bear with me um I've got this corn and this is whole yeah this is whole Colonel corn I already it's 70% uh starch and you you know you can ferment just about anything um and I say just about anything because I know I've heard of Froot Loops I even did corn flakes Frosted Flakes oh my goodness um Rice Krispies oh my potatoes sweet potatoes oh gee was berries blueberries strawberries apricots uh all different types and styles of grains if you understand what we're getting ready to go over here uh you'll be able to ferment just about anything now I say just about anything because there are some exceptions there are some things that you can't distill and or ferment um and that's only because they they really contain no starches or fermentable sugars so what we need to do is we need we need to take all those starches and convert them to fermentable sugars and we do that we can do that a couple of different ways but before I get to that um oh I know everyone recognizes uh the old corn kernel um I I just want you to keep this in mind I'm not trying to be morbid but um if You' had a really good steak meal at night or some type of a meal you had corn that goes along with it you know you eat corn um every once in a while you won't fully bite or chew on a kernel and maybe you swallow it whole um we've all seen that kernel again have we not uh okay and the only reason I bring that up uh is to sort of demonstrate or illustrate that if your stomach acid will not eat through the outer layer of a corn kernel what makes you think that a small one cell yeast is going to do that yeah or you being able to convert the starches that are inside that uh how do you think we're going to do we need to crush it okay uh in some way some way manner shape or form now there are a multitude of methods to do this you know and this is one of those where equipment plays an important role but there are some options you know okay now I've got this one you you can recall this from other videos I've had this thing for oh my goodness four years maybe um and I think and recently I checked it runs about 200 bucks but you don't have to go out and buy one of these for 200 bucks if you've got a TI oh if you have a kitchen aid uh mixer um it's got the extended port on the front of it you can you you can order one of those they're like 70 bucks and they're great Grinders uh they even have them listed Amazon's a pretty good source to kind of look um you can go from Amazon you can go to some brew shops and there some there are there's a plethora of sites and and and available sources for uh a mill a grinding mill and you've got hand Grinders uh but unless you're only going to do one batch and get over with I don't know if I go through the hand a hand grinder is a workout um I've got this adjusted and the reason I wanted to show this to you is because this is important what is important about this is that as we Mill this I wanted to Mill it and it needs to be very as I I want it in mine when I make it as coarse as I can possibly get it and the reason for that is one I've breaken I've broken the shell so I can get at my starches so I can convert them to fermentable sugars so that I can ferment them and then distill them you see you see how how how it continues well what do you think has to happen before I put all of this in the still give that a Ponder and I know I know someone out there's got the answer already yeah you got to remove it it's it's in because if you put all of this in the still it winds up C uh and then it's what we call scorching then you get that really awful Nast no there's no way you can get that taste out you just got to start all over again with a new batchet so I know that these have got to come out sometime the larger they are the easier they are to remove um I can strain them out I can do this in a bag uh there's many different ways but if you grind it down to a powder will it work why certainly um it'll work but you're going to find it very very difficult to if not impossible to get all of that out and leave the sugars behind so grind it oh down to a probably a little just about a half a p size um that just makes it a whole lot easier for you to remove and separate which brings up the old a old question okay George do You ferment on the grain or off the grain well you know that's really a personal choice um both of them work uh they're both as a effective remember it's process um I like to ferment off the grain uh because it leaves me more room in my f in my fermentor which oh by the way I'm just about ready there's my wide mouth fermenting jar I've got a couple of those but it leaves me more room for liquid so I've got to remove the grain at some point uh I can remove it prior fermentation if I've rinsed everything thing sparge yeah if I've rinsed all the grains and I've got all the sugars out what have I got left well I'm might have a big old bag of stuff um or I could throw it all in the fermentor and then ferment on that but before I put it in the still I still got to remove it so I kind of like to get that first step out of the way and remove it beforehand okay now we've already talked about this I've got all this starch now how do I convert this to Sugar well I I need a method to do that and you do that with water we do that with water and we need what's known as amalay Alpha amalay primarily Alpha and beta amalay together they work in tandem with each other but Alpha amalay does the hard job does the big leg work um and but what we have is we have an abundance of that in other grain as an example I've got turo here and turo you can see this has been Mill the same way and you'll notice that you can still see the husks but all we've done was is break open the husk so that the inside of that that barley that grain is going to be accessible to the water now what's loaded inside barley to our benefit is a whole lot of enzymes are a whole lot of enzymes and those enzymes will convert this barley here the starch that's in this to fermentable sugars plus whatever's left over will convert my corn because two row barley is rated at about 140 on the lender scale of what they call diasthe power we we'll we'll do a whole diasthe power video some other time but that's what it is there's very little or none at all dithe power in whole kernel corn uh but there's a bunch in two row Believe It or Not six row six row barley is like 160 you only need 40 to convert itself in something else enough to do that a good goal is around 70 so and of course there are formulas for all this and and trust me we we've got plenty here to do that with so what I will do is I will add both my corn into a pot of hot water and you starch conversion takes place between 142 and 162 Fahrenheit okay yeah and I'm going to have to put this on the screen because you know our European buddies they use celsius and I know it we're used to Fahrenheit go figure uh Celsius is so much easier to use all by the way so between 142 and 162 uh Fahrenheit and what I'll do is I my strike water is going to be at about 156 or so somewhere right there in a happy middle and I'll add all this corn just mix it in and then I'll add my two row barley now one thing we will do before that with that we'll put that on the next video as well is we'll adjust the pH the pH plays an important role in sacrification and also in preparation for fermentation oh yes now do we have any other options why you you may uh you may just just have corn and you may not have access to two row barley or six row um are there other options well yeah there are other options um as a matter of fact one of them is you can you can just purchase a bag of alpha amalay itself and this is like a third teaspoon per gallon uh to to convert all these starches to fermentable sugars that's one option uh the other option is is if you're just looking for that corn flavor that mysterious corn flavor that a lot of people tell me about cuz I can't find it but a lot of people just tell me about um you know corn you can also just add some fermentable table sugar and you can also use table sugar we probably will just to boost our original gravity specific gravity which gives us an indication of what our potential alcohol by volume will be go figure see how all those all these things just Cascade into one another and it just makes so much sense so if you're able to understand that starches need to be converted to fermentable sugars and there are a couple of different ways to do that um and then you need water in order to do that conversion along with that Alpha amalay that's resident in turow not in flake corn um sorry in whole kernel corn flake Corn's a different story flake Corn's a little bit easier to use um all right that that's on to another topic um so you kind of get the gist now is there something else is there another way to make just a real quick Mash just to get going why certainly what is it we already we already there yeah fermentable sugar water and yeast we're going to get to all of that thanks for being with us today yeah we've covered the real Basics and this is something that should open up the doors of understanding on how to manipulate and or handle grains uh versus adjunct s this is be this would be considered a base malt um and we're using that not for the flavor as much as we are not the flavor profile we're using that for the alpha amalay that's resident in that to convert our corn which is we're using as our base our malt itself oh wow our grain and for the flavor profile 51% we can call it a bourbon can't we you sure can happy to stilling

Channel: Barley and Hops Brewing

Views: 18,390

Keywords: neutral spirit, sugar wash, barlerandhops, hops, home, Sugar (Ingredient), sugar mash, distilling, barley, corn sugar vs cane sugar, corn sugar mash recipe, making a wash for distilling, running a still for the first time, first distillation, using yeast, mooshine, whiskey, making rum, making vodka, bourbon, baby step bourbon, making bourbon at home

Id: Q6y9qRilf1w

Length: 17min 34sec (1054 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 13 2023