poor fermentation

[Greenfield]

what formulas are you folks referring to? I currently take a gravity reading with a brewing refractometer that has a gravity scale right on it. Are you guys suggesting that the reading on the instrument is incorrect because it is intended for lautered beers? (im grain in)

 

Thanks

[captnKB]

A refractomer is only intended to read pre fermentation. If you rely on it to read post fermentation is is very easy to mix up a finished ferment with a stuck ferment as they will both register a brix of roughly 6-8 on a refractometer. Best to strain out a bit of clear juice and read gravity with a hydrometer as it it the only sure fire bet to know ferment is truly complete.

[captnKB]

@Greenfield a good target for your PH of water before you add grain is 4.5 to 5.5. I would suggest not adding you malted barley till temp is under 155. Ideal conversion temp is +- 150 F and if you swap your two row for 6 row barley youll have a better DP and should get faster more complete starch conversion.

Hopefully this should help fix a few of your issues

[captnKB]

oh and dont forget to aerate your mash. That yeast needs oxygen if it is going to do its job fast and well

[Scrounge]

Greenfield-the "formula" is needed once fermentation has started as the ethanol makes for a false reading. So you need to find an on-line calculator that figures this for you. They will have an assumed "wort correction factor" that you can change, usually. I use a wort correction factor of 1, and I start stripping a 20 brix ferment at about 5 brix on the refractometer. If you punch that in to the calculator, I showed a potential of somewhere between 10-11% and at 5 on the refractometer I'm pretty well finished out. Yields also will verify. Google- abv post fermentation - and some calculators will come up. Make sure you know what your stating brix was. Or strain some out like captn says and use hydrometer.  I find it much easier to just take an eye dropper sample as opposed to straining it out, cause I'm fairly fine grind. Many ways to skin the cat though. 

[jeffw]

Why would one add the rye at a lower temp and not just add it with the corn at 180+?  It will gel up there just the same, right?  Some off flavor or something?

[PeteB]

17 hours ago, captnKB said:

oh and dont forget to aerate your mash. That yeast needs oxygen if it is going to do its job fast and well

My understanding is that you aerate / oxygenate only before addition of yeast, not all the way through fermentation.

I once tried aerating for several days and got a very low yield.

Was told that the oxygen stimulated multiplication of yeast cells, not production of alcohol

[Roger]

Let's begin, again.

A-use the hydrometer, and you don't need a college degree or computer to figure out the deviations.

B- add your enzymes below 150 (except for a small amounts to keep the mash thin)

C- add your non corn items after the corn has rested at 180+, and those items will help to bring your mash temp down so you can get to (B) in an orderly and timely fashion without wasting to much energy.

 

[Roger]

And don't over aerate, never o er a few hours. The yeast need O2 to propagate, but will not produce alcohol until it is used up.  They will however consume your sugar

[PeteB]

3 hours ago, jeffw said:

Why would one add the rye at a lower temp and not just add it with the corn at 180+?  It will gel up there just the same, right?  Some off flavor or something?

I was told that adding rye at a high temperature causes foaming (might have been at ADI conference with Dave Pickrell) but at lower temperature there is less foaming.

I do 100% rye mashes all the time and add my un-malted rye at over 180 F, I do get a poor yield hence my interest in this conversation. I have tried lower temperatures but no better yield. I had a foam issue only once, that was when I used malted barley instead of my own green rye malt.

 

[Roger]

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=grain+gelatinization+table&view=detailv2&&id=95763D0036F5ABCEE3D93EB04568DB0BD7169A25&selectedIndex=0&ccid=kn88auKE&simid=607988897138478579&thid=OIP.M927f3c6ae284639f47afa5a2d614e14eo0

[rcornel]

11 hours ago, PeteB said:

I was told that adding rye at a high temperature causes foaming (might have been at ADI conference with Dave Pickrell) but at lower temperature there is less foaming.

I do 100% rye mashes all the time and add my un-malted rye at over 180 F, I do get a poor yield hence my interest in this conversation. I have tried lower temperatures but no better yield. I had a foam issue only once, that was when I used malted barley instead of my own green rye malt.

 

--Rye at any temperature will cause some sort of foaming due to the lack of natural foaming agents in mash (i.e.- corn oil).

Can you quantify "low yield"? Because sometimes you have to sacrifice yield for flavor (not just in the distillation part of the process).

Regarding malted barley vs. green rye malt, have you tested diastatic power of the two? They may be very different.

[Silk City Distillers]

I don't see how simply dropping the gelatinization temperature is going to result in a higher efficiency, that's counterintuitive.  Industrial continuous processes regularly use jet cooking at temperatures and pressures far in excess of what we would consider typical temperature ranges (for unmalted grains, obviously).

@RogerI've always questioned that chart - Corn gelatinization between 62-78c?  No way.  We hold 90-95c, and going lower than that does impact efficiency.  I wouldn't even dare to try 62c, it would be like heating your still by burning dollars under it.  Maybe pure corn starch at 62c?  Theoretical temperatures for pure starch granules?

When using other unmalted grain (oat, for example), we gelatinize with the corn, to full temp.  You invested all that energy to bring the liquid to that temperature, why wouldn't you take advantage of the higher temp?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[PeteB]

1 hour ago, rcornel said:

--Rye at any temperature will cause some sort of foaming due to the lack of natural foaming agents in mash (i.e.- corn oil).

Can you quantify "low yield"? Because sometimes you have to sacrifice yield for flavor (not just in the distillation part of the process).

Regarding malted barley vs. green rye malt, have you tested diastatic power of the two? They may be very different.

I don't use any anti-foam additives and never get more that 1/2 inch of foam in my fermenter when using green rye malt. I used to think it was the green shoots and roots that might act as anti-foam but have done a few batches with those removed and still no foam, only foam when I once used dried barley malt. There was no obvious difference in yield between commercial barley malt and my own green rye malt. (green rye malt = sprouted and not dried)

I am very happy with the large amount of flavour I am getting, I quote Jim Murry describing the taste of my rye in his Whisky Bible 2016

Taste 24.5/25   That is just one fantastic delivery. Perhaps the most concentrated rye arrival I have tasted for a couple of years from any part of the world. Just so sharp, almost three dimensional. On one hand crisp and jagged, as the best rye whiskeys should be, but also a more oily, softer, less fruity version underneath; brittle dark sugars at every turn.

     As rcornell said above "sometimes you have to sacrifice yield for flavor".  I don't want to reduce that flavor just to get a few more bottles of just OK whisky.

I currently get about 5 proof gallons per 100 pounds of rye, I should in theory get double that.

[Skaalvenn]

15 hours ago, Roger said:

 

B- add your enzymes below 150 (except for a small amounts to keep the mash thin)

 

Wouldn't you want to add your enzymes at the temperature that the manufacturer recommends?  If you add a high temp enzyme below 150 you might as well not add any enzymes.

[rcornel]

45 minutes ago, PeteB said:

I don't use any anti-foam additives and never get more that 1/2 inch of foam in my fermenter when using green rye malt. I used to think it was the green shoots and roots that might act as anti-foam but have done a few batches with those removed and still no foam, only foam when I once used dried barley malt. There was no obvious difference in yield between commercial barley malt and my own green rye malt. (green rye malt = sprouted and not dried)

I am very happy with the large amount of flavour I am getting, I quote Jim Murry describing the taste of my rye in his Whisky Bible 2016

Taste 24.5/25   That is just one fantastic delivery. Perhaps the most concentrated rye arrival I have tasted for a couple of years from any part of the world. Just so sharp, almost three dimensional. On one hand crisp and jagged, as the best rye whiskeys should be, but also a more oily, softer, less fruity version underneath; brittle dark sugars at every turn.

     As rcornell said above "sometimes you have to sacrifice yield for flavor".  I don't want to reduce that flavor just to get a few more bottles of just OK whisky.

I currently get about 5 proof gallons per 100 pounds of rye, I should in theory get double that.

Very interesting! I'm going to have dig deeper into what causes foaming. I would think it's a combination of yeast non-fermentables (beta-glucans, pentosans, etc.) combined with CO2 release and long-chain starches.. A lipid of any sort (naturally occurring corn oil, or I've heard of people using mineral oil) will knock it down, hence the reason most bourbon mashbills don't ever have foaming issues.

Tasting notes sound well-balanced, is Belgrove available anywhere outside of Tasmania?

Does your fermentation ever get "vigorous", or is it normally pretty gentle? The only other reason I would think you wouldn't get foaming is due to low activity, which would coincide with a lower yield.

[Greenfield]

Alright Folks, todays the day! Already began stripping half of the mash, Ill have results for yield at the end of the day!

 

...looking promising though!

[Greenfield]

Ok so all done,

from 2000L mash I yielded 396.18L of Low wines at 40%ABV. This back calculates to about 8% ABV after fermentation.... Still seems a little low

This batch I mashed at pH of 5.5, added malt at 150F, and fermented at a cooler temp of 82F as opposed to 90F. Not too sure where I can make more improvements

 

Thanks

[Roger]

How many gallon beer ? 

[Greenfield]

@Roger

 

Hey Roger, 

looking at appx 2000L (528 USG) 

I was doing efficiency calcs and even with 100% efficiency down to FG of 1, fermentation ABV would be around 9-9.5%. Im thinking that I'm on the right track.... just now questioning what a realistic ABV is for an all grain bourbon mash. Any idea what is typical yield for pound of grain?

 

Thanks

[Roger]

You should get aprox 5.1 PG per bushel of grain (56# corn for example)

that will be broken out between heads/hearts/tails.  You can generally rerun your tails to extract maximum efficiency 

[Greenfield]

Hey @Roger

I'm sorry..., PG per bushel? what do you mean by that ? 

 

Thanks

[Roger]

Proof Gallon 

[Tom Lenerz]

12 hours ago, Roger said:

How many gallon beer ? 

Roger is trying to figure out how thick your mash is. Beer gallons = volume of liquid/bushel. A bushel being typically 56 pounds for corn or rye. 

Running a 30 gallon beer for 528 gallons means about 17.6 bushels (~1000 pounds), industry standard yield for the big guys is about 5 proof gallons a bushel.

Assuming you are running a 30 gallon beer (SG of 1.060 to 1.065), total PGs possible would be around 87.5, by my math it looks like you got around 43.

Here is a link to a post where people discussed yields a few months back... 

[PeteB]

On ‎8‎/‎6‎/‎2016 at 0:07 AM, rcornel said:

Tasting notes sound well-balanced, is Belgrove available anywhere outside of Tasmania?

Available Australia wide, and world wide by mail order except US and Canada. Currently working on distribution to US.

 

On ‎8‎/‎6‎/‎2016 at 0:07 AM, rcornel said:

Very interesting! I'm going to have dig deeper into what causes foaming. I would think it's a combination of yeast non-fermentables (beta-glucans, pentosans, etc.) combined with CO2 release and long-chain starches.. A lipid of any sort (naturally occurring corn oil, or I've heard of people using mineral oil) will knock it down, hence the reason most bourbon mashbills don't ever have foaming issues.

I have noticed my fermenters often have some oil floating at the end of fermentation. Maybe my variety of rye is high in oil !! Australian bred King 2

This subject has had me looking for possible solutions.

I am not sure if it was on this forum or a scientific paper I read on yield versus fineness of milling. I know that a coarse or finer milling with 100% malted barley does not make a very big difference but with un-malted grain there may be a big difference.

Could this be part of the solution to Greenfields low yield?