Beer To Whiskey Calculator
Ilario Grijalva
So how do you calculate how much water? i get the 2lbs grain per gallon. But lets say you want to make a 600 gallon mash. how much strike water to start with? if you start by heating 600 gallons then you add 1200lbs of grain , you will have much more than 600 total gallons in that tank. in the brewers world there are calculators for this. i have not found one for mashing corn, rye and barley. Am i missing something?
I had the same question, my plan was to add grain and warm/hot water simultaneously with a flow meter on the water, then cook it with the steam jacket. That way, in the future, if it is better to add your grain to a certain amount of water, you will know the amount. From what I understand, there is no harm in steeping then cooking as opposed to getting the water to temp then adding grain(correct me if I'm wrong!!). Best of luck.
so let me ask it like this, i have a 600 gallon mash tun. i am told the standard for a 10% wash is 2lbs per gallon. That said i will need 1200lbs of grain correct? now with a quarts per pound ration of 1.25 that will require 375 gallons of water
according to rackers.org can i mash it, my 600 gallon fermenter can handle 1500 lbs of grain and at 1:25 qts/lb i will have a 588 gallon capacity. now the question is. What would target OG be of that mash?
Depends on the grain being mashed and your overall mash efficiency. If you are talking corn, with solid mash efficiency, maybe 1.13 or 1.14. Keep in mind that's more than 3 pounds a gallon ... not a fun mash.
3. How would you design this above? Promash and Beer Smith is for Beer. Is there something similar for Distilling. i use HoochWare and they have a recipe section but no calculators to help me with mash design. In beer we did not mash corn only grains. there is a grain entry in promash for flaked maize, flaked rye, and flaked barley; is that the same for target specific gravity calculations?
so according to 's can i mash it, this will not fit in my 600 gallon mash tun at 1.25 qt/lb . 1800lbs of grain at 1 qt/lb would require 594 gallon mash tun capacity. A grain in mash is thick, will it be ok to do 1 qt/lb???
Georgeous - The American whiskey industry uses the term "beer gallons" to describe mash thickness for grain-in fermentation and distillation of things like corn, rye, wheat and malt. The reason for this, is most equipment and process can handle one level of mash thickness, and scaling up or down or comparing yields from plant to plant or recipe to recipe is much easier done this way.
So, for 500 gallons of finished mash, we start with 16 and 2/3rds bushels. This is important as bushels are a measure of volume, not weight, and we are working in volumes here. So this means my mash with 61 lb/bushel corn has more pounds of corn than if I used 56 lb/bushel corn, yet it has the same thickness so I know my pumps, agitators, exchangers and hoses can handle it. We start with about 380 gallons of 90 degree F water, and use live steam inject to add about another 55 or 60 gallons worth of water getting it to high temp. With the grain we hit 500 gallons +/- 5 or 10 every time.
These weights are for field grains, not flaked. I'd also recommend starting with a 30 gallon beer and see how your equipment runs it, and thicken/thin it out based off experience. We test all of our grains upon receiving, and update our mashbill in pounds to match the new test weight.
that is a lot for me to digest and learn. I really appreciate this explanation. i really need to test my system once finished hooking it up. Just need to finish glycol lines and electric then will see if i can make all this work as well as it does on my 50 gallon system
So back to my original question is there a program that will do this for me?
so most mash calculators are designed for making beer not spirits and do not support or give yields for corn. 1st question does a calculator exist for distillers? Also what you wrote here for my 600 gallon system should that yield me a 1.065 starting gravity? if so that only has an alcohol potential of 8.58%ABV. i want to have a 10%ABV potential, so how to scale that?
Also what you wrote here for my 600 gallon system should that yield me a 1.065 starting gravity? if so that only has an alcohol potential of 8.58%ABV. i want to have a 10%ABV potential, so how to scale that?
In addition to being more difficult to move, a lot of thick beers might have a hard time converting or fermenting out, leaving you to loss of yield. We see this with high gravity rum washes on the forum all the time. People have really high starting gravities and struggle to finish, have long fermentations or stress their yeast.
If you are going to shoot for a 10-12% wash, I'd guess that you are going to be in the neighborhood of 1,750-2,000 pounds, depending on what kind of efficiency you are expecting. Please keep in mind that there are may variables in the above assumptions....other things you are going to want to think about are yeast attenuation, grist profile/size, enzymes or malt only, will you cereal mash, etc..
when using brewers friend, what do you select for the corn? do you use the flaked corn as reference and if so how accurate is it.There are several of the programs out there but none seem tailored for distilling. yes the rye and barley we can use to calculate but the corn is the odd thomas
Again, I stand by my recommendations above. You may want a 10% abv mash, but start thinner and see if your equipment handles it OK before committing to a thick mash that could plug your pumps, valves, HEX and not stir well with your agitators. And if it doesn't ferment out all the way so you are throwing money away anyway.
If you want higher yields, but are limited by thickness, look for higher bulk density/test weight/bushel weight grain. We use a corn that averages 61 or 62 pounds per bushel versus the average 56, that's a full 10% more weight (and therefore starch and alcohol) than we had with the 56 pound bushels. Yet the thickness of the mash is the same, and therefore my equipment is unaffected.
again thanks and your advice makes great sense. i am buying locally sourced Texas grain and the corn is 56lbs per bushel. i will scale as i go. i do have huge agitators on my mash tun and fermenters so i should be able to scale, but will tread the waters first. Check us out
disregard previous i see you said start with 528 gallons of water. i am not steam injecting, we have steam jackets heating from outside in. i am just curious how you came with the 528 gallons as 2lbs per gallon should be 548?
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