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Showing results for tags 'alcohol vs grain'.
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I've been wrestling with figuring out how efficient we are being on our mash/ferment/strips. According to your average home brew calculator we are doing really well, but compared to industry standards we are doing really poorly. Right now we are getting about 65 pg on the strip from 1280lbs of grain (flaked corn, 6 row malt, and rye), which breaks down to about 2.8 proof gallons/bushel. We get about 1.085-90 OSG and it goes down to around 1.017-18 over 5-7 days. I know that major producers are getting almost twice as much (5 pg/bushel). I've played with longer cook times and different rests along the way and different amounts of alpha-amylase at different stages, played with different pitch temperatures for the yeast (using DADY). The owners are hesitant to spend money on beta amylase or any other enzymes (they were home brewers for a long time and don't see any problem with the yields we are getting. But I think we can do a lot better). I would play with yeasts but at this point I would be concerned about altering the flavor too much. 1)Does anyone have any insights on what a high efficiency would be in terms of proof gallons/bushel for a small distillery? 2) Has anyone played with using an alpha-amylase for the liquification step then cooling and adding a beta-amylase for further saccrification? Does this make a major difference? 3) Any ideas on why there seems to be such a large discrepancy between what home brewers would consider an efficient mash and what industrial spirit manufactures are getting? (besides the lack of demand for 12.5% beer and the lesser consideration for final taste of the beer in a distillery. Im wondering about specific process differences that explain the difference in yields). Forgive me if this is already posted somewhere or if its not entirely clear. Cheers
