Making corn Vodka without cooking

[Nordeast Spirits]

Anyone out there making Vodka or Whiskey from corn without cooking?

I've heard of a few places that make can a mash without cooking. Any experience on this would be appreciated!

Also options for cheap equipment to make a 175 gallon mash!

Looking to save some $$$ on start up expenses.

Cheers!

[3d0g]

Material costs are significantly higher, but you could go flaked corn.

[ebstauffer]

Still need to raise the mash to sach rest temps -- high 140s. Flaked corn is quiet expensive. You could always use D/LME for whiskey (and vodka I suppose) and you wouldnt have to cook that.

[John McKee]

There are some enzyme based "mashing" alternatives, in which very little heat is required. I think they're still mostly experimental, but look around the interwebs for something along these bases. I want to say I read about it in a Novazymes PR booklet, but can't remember specifically.

Sorry to not really add much,

Good luck,

John

[CDE]

I second the flaked corn, that option is probably your best bet for a cold cook method with decent yields. Throw a low temp alpha-amylase and a glucoamylase into the mash for the starch to sugar conversion and it can all be done at room temp.

If you want to use ground corn, the real problem you are going to run into is efficiencies. Gelatinization of the corn starch is only(really) accomplished through heating in the presence of water. If the starch is not gelatinized properly/thoroughly, the yields will be in the dumpster. Exogenous enzymes could help to some extent, but the starch in the corn needs significant amounts of heat to be freed up enough for the enzymes to munch on.

Good luck!

[Dehner Distillery]

I use the cold cook method with great success. For the heat source I use an instantaneous water heater that puts out 184° at 9 gallons a minute.

I also use Alpha and gamma amylase. I average about a 10% loss on yield compared to a full boil cook. But the time saved in the energy saved far outweighs the 10% loss. So it puts me in the black more.

[Roger]

I have heard the argument before that flaked corn is too expensive to consider, but i haven't found that to be necessarily true. The last time I looked at numbers on a given day for flaked, vs raw dent, the price differential was less than 10%, exclusive of the energy saved by not having to gelatinize.

[Skaalvenn]

I have heard the argument before that flaked corn is too expensive to consider, but i haven't found that to be necessarily true. The last time I looked at numbers on a given day for flaked, vs raw dent, the price differential was less than 10%, exclusive of the energy saved by not having to gelatinize.

From a few suppliers I saw non-organic flaked being over $0.50/lb--which is ridiculously expensive compared to dent.

[Roger]

These are good people . http://patobrienfeeds.com

[Dehner Distillery]

What are there prices for flaked corn? per lb?

[Nordeast Spirits]

Thanks for the replies guy's. Sorry I've been offline since I posted. I'll look into all of this.

Any used Equipment on the market right now Joe?

Cheers!

[Shindig]

Dehner

What volume of grain mash? Doesn't the water cool off too much after hitting the vessel and grain to maintain 180dg? It would be great to use this method!

[Nordeast Spirits]

Would be looking to make either 150 or 300 gallon mashes.

[Dehner Distillery]

With 184F hitting the corn at lets say .... 75-80F and the vessel, it does cool to about 155-165. I know what everyone is thinking, "thats not hot enough" but that is the idea of the enzymes. You have to remember 10-15 years ago this process was not even possible. Thank you ethanol plants!!

I use a medium temp alpha amylase form specially enzyme, and convertaze ag300 (gamma amylase) from bsg. I would buy everything from specially enzyme but they only sell product in 2 1/2 gallon Jerry cans. The product that I get from BSG is the same thing that specially enzyme has but BSG sells in 1 L containers.

For both SAB 100 is rated at 125ml will convert 600 lb of grain. I use 125 ml of each per 600 lb of corn or grain my self. You need both because thats how the whole idea behind the process works. One is an exo, and the indo, one dills holes in the starch particles and the other eats from the inside out.

The AG300- put in the same time as yeast. Never ever put in over 100F. It is a very slow worker, it takes 4-5 days for it to do its job. You can see from my example how the gamma increases the sugar faster than the yeast can consume it until there is no more to convert, that is when the brix falls of the face of the earth.

I have used this method ever since I started out. I could afford a big mash cooker. This process has saved me so much time and money it is not even funny. It took a lot of experiments to find my grove. Also, I did my own experiments comparing a full cook to this process so that I could see the difference.

example-

day 1- mash and cool , brix 10% starts to ferment

day 2- brix 13% fermenting like crazy

day 3- brix 13%-14% fermenting like crazy

day 4- brix 11% still going crazy

day 5- brix 3%-5% starting to slow

Note: agitation helps but will not speed up the AG300 (gamma amylase)

[Dehner Distillery]

sorry mistype

"I could not afford a big mash cooker starting out."

[Roger]

Dehners process seems much like how they make flaked corn, and/or run continuous cooking operations. In house you only have to "steam" the ground corn momentarily to gelatinized it. Thereafter it can cool down quickly to the 155+/- range allowing you to add your alpha/beta and let it have at the starch chains. In the case of the flaked, you put it in dry, bring it up to 155ish at a 30 gallon beer level (total grain blend as desired) and add your chosen alpha/beta and or malt.

I was at the flaked corn facility I listed above, a short time ago and it was amazing how fast, and at what volume they were pushing corn through a system that would steam / gelatinize and flatten it, then dry it. You could back a pick up under the chute and fill the bed in minutes. Of course it would all fly out on the trip home, but you get the picture.

[Shindig]

Dehner

Thanks for sharing ! You seem to be one of the only peolpe that share exactly how you do things.

[Dehner Distillery]

call any time

515-559-4879

take care

[bluestar]

agreed, flaked corn works fine.

you do have to cook it somewhere, or turn it into a flour, or add an acid. corn needs to have the cell walls broken down somehow (heat, mechanical, chemical) BEFORE the enzymes can do their job.

[Mverick160]

On 12/18/2014 at 6:14 PM, Dehner Distillery said:

I use the cold cook method with great success. For the heat source I use an instantaneous water heater that puts out 184° at 9 gallons a minute.

I also use Alpha and gamma amylase. I average about a 10% loss on yield compared to a full boil cook. But the time saved in the energy saved far outweighs the 10% loss. So it puts me in the black more.

You just saved me a whole lot of money.  LOL

I was considering trying this.  As for Mash pots I have a 120 gallon Stainless steel commercial Hot water tanks that had be taken out of service.  They're fully insulated already and were high Efficiency.  The plan was to cut the top off to put grain in, and use a small torch head in the bottom port that used to house the HE burner to heat it up.  To get a speed increase on heat up I got a Instant hot water heater to use to fill the pots.  So that will put the water in around 185.  It sounds like I won't need to mess with the burner in the bottom.  They're tall so was trying to figure out a way to get a mixer in it.  But it sounds like I don't really need one.  Plan was to fill with cracked corn.  Add hot water and enzyme.  Let enzyme work.  Stir with something a few times.  When temp drops.  Add second enzyme.  Let it do it's magic.  Stir it up and filter out to a holding tank.  Add yeast and let it go to completion.

My plan was to use enzymes.  I got Ferm Soulutions Aha 400 and GA 150 to use.