Using Corn for Wine...not beer

[torilen]

I know...you're thinking this should be under the wine thread. But, no...here is my question...and it is a beer question:

I've been looking up corn wine recipes, and all of them, basically, involve crushing up some corn and cooking it with sugar, then fermenting it.

Here is what I see is the problem...what you get from corn is starch, right? Isn't that why you have to mash corn with barley when you use corn in beer? To convert the starch into sugars?

If that is the case, if one wanted to make real corn wine, with the sugar and flavor from the corn, wouldn't one need a little bit of barley to convert the starch?

Thanks
Matthew

 

[AZCoolerBrewer]

Amylase enzyme is what is in barley that converts the starch into sugar, so yes you can use barley to convert the corn. The problem is that if you just use a little bit of barley, you don't have enough enzyme to complete the conversion. You can purchase the enzyme itself which is beneficial because you can get varieties of enzyme that better fit your needs. I have a plan to one day make a corn, mesquite bean and sage beer which would be mashed with enzyme and fermented with yeast nutrient.

 

[Paps]

Amylase enzyme can be purchased in powder form to do the starch to sugar conversion. Barley isn't "needed" but indeed "can" be used for the enzyme in it.
The choice is yours to make as to which you personally preffer/wish to use.

 

[torilen]

So, I'll try to remember to keep you all posted on this...but here is what I have so far:
1/2 gallon batch...just a test.
12 oz frozen yellow corn
4oz pale 2-row
2 cups plain white sugar

I crushed the 2-row, then tried to crush the corn. Should've put the corn through the blender just a bit, and if I make this again, I'll do that.
Put the corn and the 2-row in the steeping bag and cooked it at around 160F for an hour. I put in a bit of amylase enzyme at the beginning, to help make sure I got some of the starch from the corn converted. Took the bag out, stirred in the sugar, and that's that.

I let it cool and used wine yeast. The online calculator put the 2-row and sugar alone at almost 11%ABV, so if any starch from the corn got converted, I wanted to make sure it could be eaten up...and the beer yeast I have on hand can only handle 11%.

It tasted interesting before I threw the yeast in. Not much corn flavor...very mild.
I took a small taste today (fermenting for only a day, so far), and it is getting
quite interesting. The corn seems to be coming out more.