Mashing of unmalted grain

[perfection]

I understand that mashing of malted barley with hot water allows the amylase to break the starch liberated during germination into fermentable sugars

What i would like to fully understand is how does it work when using unmalted grains.......

If unmalted grain (say corn or rye) is the source material to be used to make a spirit (lets say vodka) it would have to be cooked first to gelatinize the starch in the grain (possibly pressure cooked to speed things up or for 'stubborn' grains) - is this cooking done in mash tubs/ranks/tuns? after which it will be cooled to circa 65 degrees Celsius, awaiting the addition of malt meal (or added enzyme) that will break down the starch into fermentable sugars OR are cooking the unmalted grain and mashing it in a tank with malt meal (or enzyme) two separate operations in two different equipment  

Thank you folks at ADI

Regards and many thanks

[Foreshot]

Start here:

http://howtobrew.com/

https://homedistiller.org/wiki/index.php/Beginner's_Guide

https://blog.homebrewing.org/what-is-diastatic-power-definition-chart/

http://beersmith.com/blog/2010/01/04/diastatic-power-and-mashing-your-beer/

[Silk City Distillers]

This process is generally executed within a single tank, as a single batch, where time, temperature, pH, and tank contents are varied depending on the process steps - see Foreshot's links. 

Pressure cooking is very uncommon, and largely unnecessary, at craft scale.  This actually has more to do with speeding up gelatinization time, as opposed to increasing starch conversion.  You don't really see this anymore, as many large scale (fuel) plants, have moved over to inline starch gelatinization (continuous mashing).

Realistically, almost any vessel can be used since we don't lauter corn or rye.  We only need mechanisms to heat, to cool, and to be able to easily clean.  Having a built in mixer is very nice to have, but you can stand by with a paddle getting a steam facial too.

What you'll find working with 100% raw mashes, is that they are indeed a bit more "stubborn" with regard to gelatinization and overall handling than malt.  This generally means having to cook them at a higher temperature, for longer, and possibly milling finer, and it usually means dealing with a thicker, higher viscosity mash (higher glucans, etc etc).

[SlickFloss]

 

The term mashing is synonymous with cooking with hot water, whether we are talking malted or raw grains

99% of distilleries in America (not saying you’re in America just speaking on my limited worldview) are converting with enzyme, thus malted grains are mostly for decorum and flavor. 

 

there are enzymes other than TAA and SGA that help with mashing raw grains- viscosity/proteolytic enzymes being a few along them

 

for any mashing function there are enzymes that will make things easier

 

cheers