coop

No solids are being put into the still. We will run a batch in the AM. Still not sure we are getting enough sugar out of our recipe to convert alcohol %. Coop

I was just wondering what all of you do with your spent grains? We are selling ours as quick as we can get it into containers that are furnished by local farmers. We are getting 70% of the original cost of the grain. Are we selling too low? Coop

Well here goes. Starting SG was 1.20 finished today at 1.08. Nice fresh beer smell and wash settled out well. About 2" foam in still after pump transfer, dissipated within minuets. Thank you all for all your help. Coop

Right now the temp of the mash is a nice 75.6 F. This run looks as if it may be working much better than the last. I reduced the temp of the room to 70F maybe this will not stress the yeast as much as the higher temp? Coop

We have an infared heat gun to check temp of mash. At first the temp of mash rises a few degrees but this I think is common.

Sorry it took so long to respond. Been busy. We had nothing to backset with so we are starting fresh. Our yield was a grand total of 2 qts middle run. We have a Bavarian/Holstein 300 L steam fired still with an additional 18 plate column. It has another column with additional plates and other features. Our water has nothing in it except a little chlorine that the state requires. We are using Rahr, two row barley.

We filter after dilution this way we take care of anything in the water also. Our water is very clean here in Colorado. The only thing in it is a little chlorine. We remove it first with an inline carbon filtering system. coop

We use granulated also. I built a filter out of a 55 gallon drum with a screen in the bottom. We use small diaphragm pump to circulate the alcohol. Taking the gpm on the pump to calculate how many times it passed through the carbon. It has 104# in it with a spinning head to disperse the alcohol on top. How much does your filter hold? This would give me an idea how long ours will last. coop

We add much more water. Total water ends up at 240 gallons. Sorry for the confusion. Coop

We are getting what i feel is a good fermentation. What we do not have is very much alcohol after distilling. So what you are saying is taking temp up to 170 is killing off the enzymes that convert the starches to sugar. That being the case no wonder we are getting but a little alcohol. We pass the iodine test but only enough sugar to show we passed. No backset as we are just getting started. coop

234 lbs. corn, 36 lbs. wheat, 30 lbs malted barley. What i did is put in about 40 gallons water then turn on steam while heating up added all the grains. Bring that up to 150 F for two hours then to 170 which i now know that killed all the enzymes that were needed to convert all starches to sugar. The SG at that time was 1.20 which should produce about 5%. It finished at about 1.10. Does this help you? coop

This is coop out in Colorado. We are just starting and seam to be having problems with fermentation. We have a 210 gallon mash kettle, direct steam injection. We are heating up a grain mash of corn, little wheat and malted barley to 150 F then holding that for 2 hours. Then up to 170 F to kill all unwanted bacteria. We cool down immediately to from 85 F to 90 F. Then use the iodine test. We seam to be ok till here. We move the mash to a fermentation room. Cast the yeast. We are using a super start yeast from White labs. It is supposed to be able to take this temp. We are getting little if any conversions after 5 days. We keep the room at 81F at all times. Any suggestions? Coop