Has anybody tried making wine from cracked corn with Angel leavening?

[Erik the Awful]

I just bottled my rice wine a week ago, and as I opened the cabinet to inventory my wine making supplies, I still have a couple dozen packets of Angel leavening. I was at Tractor Supply last week buying wood pellets, and I saw they have a pretty good stock of feed. Now the wheels are turning.

I know the distilling guys sometimes use feed corn for their mash, but the distiller's license here is a solid four figures in price, so I'm sticking to the wine making processes I'm familiar with. I've heard that the leavening works just as well on corn as it does on rice. I'm a cheapskate, but I know enough to skip the deer corn and go for the feed corn. Tractor Supply is pretty close by, and I can get a 50# bag of cracked corn for $13.

Is this a good idea? Has anybody tried it and have any input? I'm willing to guinea pig it out, but I'm just wondering if there are any readily avoidable pitfalls or if there's a knowledge base out there.

 

[Erik the Awful]

Since I haven't had anybody tell me I'm stupid yet, I'll take y'all along on the adventure. I went to Tractor Supply looking for cracked corn, but they only had whole corn. That's what I got, for a whopping $14. I think I spend about $40 just on cherries for this year's batch of cherry-jalapeno wine. I'm sure cracked corn would give up the sugar a little easier, but I'm making wine, so time's on my side.

I put half a gallon of corn in a pot on the stove with half a gallon of water. I'm trying to simmer it instead of boiling it, and it's slow going. I think I might need to go ahead and boil it, but in my experience with fruit, that tends to make pectic haze. It might be different since I'll be using Angel leavening instead of EC-1118 yeast.

At the same time I put a half gallon of corn plus water in the Insta-Pot on the rice setting. The corn is still a bit al dente, but it's not like I'm going to be eating this right out of the pot.

My current plan is to fill two four-gallon buckets most of the way with cooked corn. I'll sprinkle Angel leavening in them as I fill them up, and once they're full, I'll keep them moist for a couple days until the leavening produces enough liquid to keep the corn wet. I used this technique on my rice wine, and it worked well.

Instead of doing a one-week primary fermentation and then moving them to secondary, I'll probably just set both buckets aside for a month or two and then rack them into secondary. I know that's not normally the process with rice wine, but I'm doing what has worked for me in the past.

I'm also considering putting a couple gallons of bananas in with the corn to help sweeten the flavor. Partly because I have plenty of frozen bananas, but also because I think the two tastes will complement each other.

 

[huckdavidson]

The angel leaven instructions should give a good general direction, seems you're on the right track.

https://en.angelyeast.com/products/distilled-spirits-and-biofuels/angel-leaven-yellow-label.html

 

[waynetempro]

Erik, Please be careful with that cracked corn. If the bag says "not for human consumption", then leave it be. Those have a small amount of mycotoxins that are allowable for deer and cattle but are at a level that are poisonous to humans.

 

[Erik the Awful]

There are no "not for human consumption" warnings anywhere on the bags. I did look for that before I bought.

I've been spritzing the top of the corn with water morning and evening, and I have a nice, thin layer of white mold on top of the corn each time. The liquid level is now just about flush with the top of the corn. The corn hasn't softened, and the stuff on top has lost its al dente and gone back to "slightly softer than a rock". Reading the Angel Yeast instructions above, I really needed cracked corn, or I needed to mill it, or I needed to cook it for a several hours.

I currently have it in two 4 gallon buckets with the tops covered by paper towel - I have the plastic tops cut out to hold the paper towel flush. Some time in the next week I'll put solid plastic lids on and move the buckets to the garage for at least two months to let the leavening work.

 

[DuncB]

This would have been right up the alley of one our recently deceased members @bracconiere

I've got nothing to offer you re your plan, but distilling videos using sour mash corn might give you some clues.

 

[passedpawn]

Erik, Please be careful with that cracked corn. If the bag says "not for human consumption", then leave it be. Those have a small amount of mycotoxins that are allowable for deer and cattle but are at a level that are poisonous to humans.

Pfft. Jimmy cracked corn, and he don't care.

 

[Erik the Awful]

I've got nothing to offer you re your plan, but distilling videos using sour mash corn might give you some clues.

My biggest note right now is that next time I'll use a large pot and simmer batches of corn on the stove for a couple hours at a time.

The buckets are in the garage. Time will tell if it works.

 

[skunkape]

Corn and banana wine. Hmm. Hope this works out to something amazing cause it kinda sounds like something convicted felons would dip out of a toilet with a tin cup. I’m guessing this will need distilling eventually to become more than an experiment. I salute your adventurous spirit.

 

[Erik the Awful]

Most of my wines are combinations that most people don't think of - usually because my freezer space is limited and I never have enough of one fruit to make a whole batch. Cherry-jalapeno is my most popular, so I make it every year now. My potato-mint was far better than expected. I recently made a wine from old jam that turned out very nice. Don't hesitate to try something new.

 

[skunkape]

Most of my wines are combinations that most people don't think of - usually because my freezer space is limited and I never have enough of one fruit to make a whole batch. Cherry-jalapeno is my most popular, so I make it every year now. My potato-mint was far better than expected. I recently made a wine from old jam that turned out very nice. Don't hesitate to try something new.

Cherry/Jalapeno sounds interesting. Potato/Mint I'm not so sure. I've done just enough experimentation to know that the flavors you associate with certain ingredients don't manifest the same way - if at all - in a finished wine. Watermelon and persimmon come to mind. Never made dandelion but that always tastes like oranges me - or whatever other fruit is added besides the dandelion petals.

My dad was not scared. He brewed wine with oak leaves. Onions. Tomatoes. They all came out tasting like paint thinner to me. Then he would back sweeten them or make them again with more sugar than the yeast could handle and they'd taste like sweet paint thinner.

Potato vodka is pretty good. Wicked hangovers though.

 

[Erik the Awful]

I opened my buckets yesterday to check. One had turned gray and smelled foul. The other had severe flowers-of-wine going on. The corn was still very stiff and there was more solid corn than liquid. Both buckets went into the trash.

I still have about a third of a bag of corn left, so sometime soon I'm going to try again, but this time I'm going to cook the corn all day before putting it into primary.

 

[waynetempro]

Eric, what else did you have in there besides corn, water and yeast?

 

[Erik the Awful]

Bananas, simply because I needed room in the freezer.

 

[waynetempro]

Bananas, simply because I needed room in the freezer.

OK Erik, I think that I figured out where you went wrong. Corn needs to be crushed and cooked. But it then needs to be cooled to about 150 F and then mashed with some 2-row or 6-row malted barley. The amamyse enzyme in the barley will convert the starch in the corn to simple sugars that can them be fermented. Adding bananas is OK too but they need to be cooked as well to kill any microbes on them. Instead of the malted barley, you can use some amalyse enzyme to convert the corn starch to sugar. The mashing process usually takes about an hour. But with cracked corn, the efficiency will be lower than using ground corn or grits.

 

[Erik the Awful]

Yeah, I have whole corn, which is even less efficient than cracked corn. This next attempt I'm going to put the corn in a crock pot all day, and then I'm going to blend it. I'm thinking that with the leavening amalyse enzyme won't be necessary. That's the whole purpose of this experiment, to use up some of the large number of Angel Leavening packets that I have.

 

[Erik the Awful]

It's been a while since I've started a wine, and last week I embarked on this again. I probably should have read these notes, because I didn't blend the corn.

A little after noon on the 8th I filled my crockpot 2/3 full with corn and then added water flush with the top. I had to add water every two hours, and I left it overnight. When I checked it in the morning the lid was 2" above the rim of the crockpot and it was out of water. I split it into two more pots on the stove and finished a full 24 hours of cooking the corn.

Note to anyone following along, fill your crockpot 1/3 full with corn and fill it nearly the rest of the way full with water. Check often, because dried corn is thirsty.

By evening it had cooled sufficiently, and I put all three pots into two four-gallon buckets - each about half full. I sprinkled a packet of Angel Leavening into each bucket at different levels as I filled them. I added water to just below the level of the corn, as I did with my rice wine last year.

The next evening I already had flowers of wine appearing in one bucket. For the next several days I aggressively scooped out flowers from the top of both buckets. The second bucket started fermenting nicely and the flowers disappeared. I tossed the first bucket.

I also have a bucket with 2 gallons of old jam and apple butter that has a packet of Lalvin EC-1118 working nicely on it. Some time in the next couple days I'll combine both buckets into a single 5 gallon carboy and top it off with sugar water.

 

[Erik the Awful]

I waited about three days longer than I wanted to to move it to secondary - it's been busy. There is still plenty of corn that hasn't broken down, so I blended the entire bucket and put it into a carboy. I added 1.5 gallons of water, 8 cups of sugar, and another Angel Leavening packet. It's starting to smell pretty nice. It'll probably be about two months until the next update, although I might err on the early side of caution to get it off the old lees. It'll depend on how well it starts to separate out.

 

[Erik the Awful]

I racked this about a week ago but forgot to post an update. I lost about 2 gallons to sediment. The Angel Leavening will break it down fairly well, but it doesn't break it down all the way. The flowers of wine are gone, but the taste isn't "anything". It really needs something else. It's so not-sweet (not necessarily dry) that I refilled with 16 cups of sugar simmered until dissolved in 2 gallons of water. I also added 2 tsp of bentonite to help clarify it.

 

[Erik the Awful]

I'm racking again tonight and adding sparkolloid for a final two-week shot at glory. I'm having to add about a quart of water to replace what was lost to sediment. The liquid level dropped in the carboy, and the flowers of wine tried to return. The flavor is "good", but it has a musky smell. If the final clarification process doesn't clear that up, it'll go down the drain.

I put "good" in quotes because it doesn't really taste like anything. It's a bit sweeter than I like, which is probably good because it only tastes like corn syrup and alcohol. If it clears up, it'll probably be made into sangria one bottle at a time. Still, it's wine and it fermented just fine. The proof of concept is there, just know that if you try and follow my footsteps, the first few days you have to stir the must frequently. I'll post back in two weeks-ish.

 

[Erik the Awful]

I bottled it tonight. Most of the musky flowers-of-wine smell is gone; the sparkolloid did a good job of dropping that into the lees. It is an exceptionally clear pale yellow color. It is extremely sweet. A dash of lime helps mellow the sweetness and bring a little more flavor in. It's not good by itself, but I think it will be redeemed as a white sangria, and I won't have to add sugar to make it into sangria.

Next time I'll have to watch it closer on the front end and stir it every few hours until the liquidation becomes aggressive. I'll blend the corn to help it break down. I'll add considerably less sugar on the back end. I'm definitely going to try again, because I still have half a bag of corn left. I need to get a 3 gallon carboy so that I won't have to add so much sugar water to make up for lost volume.

 

[Erik the Awful]

 

[Erik the Awful]

Put the following into a pitcher, stir well, and rest in the fridge for a day:
1/2 gallon corn wine
1/2 cup rum
1/2 cup triple sec
1/2 cup sugar
1 sliced orange
2 sliced lemons
1 sliced lime
8 maraschino cherries

 

[IAmPistolPete]

If it is the "yellow label" Angel yeast, it has a fungus - Aspergillus and/or Rhizopus I think - that breaks down the starch into sugars for the yeast so you don't need additional enzymes. It likes fairly warm conditions, around 80+F. The finer you grind the corn, the easier time it has saccharifying. And if you gelatinize the corn by cooking it at 185F for 20min or so will also speed up the process. Stir the ferment every few hours during the first 3 days, then weekly. Can take several weeks to months to fully make its way thru. This yeast is well known in distilling circles for no-mash all-grain worts. I've used it with many grains, but most notably bananas. The wine was pretty pungent, but the distillate was so much better than from the normal wine process.

 

[Erik the Awful]

It's white label Angel Rice Leaven, with rhizopus oryzae according to the packets.

I was in tractor supply last week, once again stocking up on wood pellets for the winter, and saw they have cracked corn right now. If I weren't in the middle of a batch of rice wine, I'd have gone for round three.

 

[IAmPistolPete]

That one likes all the same conditions. The good thing about corn is that it stores well til you're ready for it.