As with other ancient practices, (I have brain tanned leather, soap tanned leather, made soap, made gun powder, etc.) Folks back in the day did not have those enzymes. They would have had to use an alternative, or they would just manage with what they had. I did not use an enzyme, but rather chopped grain along with 3 X the sugar. It worked. My recipe was (per gallon) 1 lb corn , 3 lb sugar, 1/3 teaspoon of yeast. (when I added the yeast, I looked up the proper amount, and was shocked by how small of an amount was needed). Like I said, I got 1/2 gallon of 90 proof liquor as measured with a hydrometer. Try cooking the corn just a bit before adding the yeast. Cooking will break it down. I believe the mashing in is the sensitive part. It has to be done correctly or a failure to produce will occur. ( I even thought I had botched it at first).
When you add table sugar you don’t need to do a conversion of the starch in the corn because the yeast already has their food from the table sugar. That is the Uncle Jesse recipe. It is not true corn moonshine. The corn you use only adds flavor, not any sugars for the yeast.
The way I’m talking about is using straight ground corn, holding it at 160 degrees to get the starch into the solution, then using the enzymes in the barley to convert the starch in the corn to sugar. That is the way they did it in the old days. The new way is to make your corn mash with no additional sugar, then add liquid enzymes to turn the starch in the corn to sugar. Then your yeast can eat the sugar. This guy talks about and uses the enzymes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtnboJ3Kxeo
This guy talks about why you need to add barley to corn to get the sugar out. Otherwise it is just a starchy corn water with no sugar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UskxlzIpm2U
When you move to the next level you will need to use me of the above methods. The rest are just cheating. It still makes a good product, especially when you add backset from the last batch to the next one to keep the flavor profile going.
I looked up that recipe, interesting read, thanks.
I'm not afraid to say I'm learning this. I don't quite completely understand most of it, (yet), but it's gonna be one hell of a fun journey. Right now, I'm going to enjoy my 90 proof, and order a new grain grinder.
(post is archived)