MinnesotaShine
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Hi Partaly Keny: BeverageCommander’s answers are well written. With regards to malted corn, it is functionally not much different than malting barley. Get the corn wet, let it sprout and then dry it (so it stops sprouting). The sprouting of the grain creates an enzyme (amylase) needed to convert starches to sugars. I use a gunny sack and fill it with corn, then soak it in warm water (until all kernels are good and wet). Then put the bag somewhere warm and let the kernels sprout (1-2 weeks). The trick here is to keep it warm, wet/damp/moist throughout the sprouting process, while still getting enough air through it so it doesn’t mold. I roll the gunny sack a couple of times a day, also, to keep the kernels moving – again, to help prevent mold. Once the sprouts are about as long as the kernel itself it’s time to stop the sprouting. If you do not, it will keep sprouting and will eat through the enzyme you are trying to produce. Open the bag, spread the corn out and dry it. I use fans and sunshine. You can heat it – but be careful not to get it above 115F. You don’t want to burn it – just dry it. Of course, if you are using the malt immediately there is no need to dry it. You only need about 15% malt (for the amylase enzyme) in your mash bill to get a proper starch to sugar conversion during mashing. So 85% corn, 15% malted corn (or 15% malted barley, etc.) should suffice.
Hey Fadiver – couple of things here. Methanol will boil earlier (148F) than ethanol (173F) which will boil earlier than water (212F). However, you don’t have pure methanol or pure ethanol in your still. You have primarily water (in your previous example you had 85% water) and 15% of it being alcohols. The distillation process is all about separating the alcohols from the water. While the methanols and ethanol (and acetone, ethyl, propanol and others) all organize in the boiler during heat up, water molecules do bond to all of it, therefore raising the temperature needed to vaporize. Here is a chart to help you understand how the starting ABV% will directly correlate to the boiling temp http://www.clawhammersupply.com/blogs/moonshine-still-blog/12243869-making-moonshine-still-temperature But you are correct, the first things that start to boil off will always be acetone, then methanol and ethyl acetone. Then comes ethanol. How would you ever know what you’ve produced? Once you get used to it you’ll get a feel for the look, smell and taste. For now, I would suggest using math. First, make sure you know how much alcohol is going into your boiler (volume * ABV%). Then start distilling… Collect some distillate, measure it (volume), then put a hydrometer on it to measure the alcohol. You can then keep track of how much alcohol you are producing. You will have to slowly keep turning up your heat throughout your run – again, see chart. Hope that helps!
I’ve purchased variety packs of honeycomb wood from Black Swan in MN http://www.blackswanbarrels.com/shop I have used their Cherry to flavor in glass jars. Personally, I am a white oak medium charred barrel aged connoisseur myself. That said, these woods (cherry specifically) will give fantastic color in short order (6-8 weeks), good taste and apparently not enough toxicity to kill me. Without doubt, there is a difference between distillate in wood, vs wood in the distillate. Cherry does provide good taste, and won’t kill you. Hard maple was actually excellent.
Fadiver. It has nothing to do with space or pressure, or leaky joints. It has entirely everything to do with math. Pure (key word) ethanol boils at 173.1F. If you had 100% pure ethanol in your still, it would in fact start boiling at 173.1F. However, you do not. You said you started with 15% – which means you have 85% water. Water boils at 212F. The more water you have in your still, the closer you will be to a 212F boil. The more ethanol, the closer to a 173 boil.
