5 pounds of sugar in 5 gallons of water will get you about 5% alcohol by volume. Yield has a lot to do with the proof output of your still. If you collect an average ABV of 50% (100 proof), you'd get half a gallon at most.
Corn meal added to a mash without amylase is mostly wasted. Adding amylase will turn that into more sugar.
Not sure where this caculstion comes from, but for 20 years I've never come to that result. Though you are absolutely correct on the waste of cornmeal. As another matter , not converting the starches to sugars before fermentation will actually stress the yeast and lower the potential of any ABV.
Kaleb, you'll need to cook your cornmeal, like grits. It will be thick, and I mean thick. At this point you need to allow the grits to cool to 150f, and add Alpha Amylase while holding 150f for 60-90 min. What you will see happen is amazing, it will be very soupy and thin like you never cooked it. From here you want to strain out the remaining solids, this will leave you with the fermentable portion of the cornmeal. Get that hydrometet and check your specific gravity before adding your sugar to the mash. At this point I target my SG to become 1.100. Start adding your sugar slowly allowing it to desolve completely until you reach your targetted SG. Keep in mind that yemp affects SG readings. Try this calculator link, use 60f as you calibration temp.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjADegQIHBAC&usg=AOvVaw2FnpYtxj8I8QdwqwhpfMdv[/URL]
And to calculate ABV I target my final SG to become .990. Here you could use this calculator:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...Vaw30nVCpxdIvRcPjyFY69j2S&cshid=1614011308544[/URL]
As for fermentation I would recommend a good distillers yeast, something like Red Star DADY (Distillers active dry yeast). It can take as much as 7-14 days to completely ferment depending on temps. But be sure to do so in a sealed tub with an air lock. When the air lock stops bubbling, open and stir your mash, check you SG again, reseal and allow to rest 2 more days to be sure , watching your air lock for signs of activity. If no activity open and check SG again. If you have hit your targetted final SG then you're ready for your stripping run. Be sure to eithet siphon your mash off the spent yeast or strain you mash going into the boiler/still. I made the mistake on my first run by not straing it. Talk about a foul taste of afteryeast! But I was able to recover most of it by carbon filtering. Anyway, you should be set for distilling.
When I run a 5gal batch I can expect to get an average of 1 1/2 to 2 gal between foreshots, heads, hearts, and tails. This allows me to some what calculate how many containers to have on hand for cuts. I preffer using 16oz mason jars here because they are small enough to allow for eadier cuts. I set up with no less than 16 jars. A 2 gal finish would fill all 16 jars. The first jar gets pitched, those are the foreshots( methanol vaporizes between 160 and 173f. Once you reach 174f you will be developing heads). From there I fill as many jars I can and divide the numbet of jars in thirds. If I get 15 jars from this point tje first 5 I label heads, the next 5 jars hearts, and the last 5 tails. Check your hearts with an alcohol proof meter, my first run produced 138 proof. To me that's as far ad I need to go because I'm going to temper it down to 100 proof anyway. The heads and tails go back in on my next batch and the fun begins again. But you may also chose to collect several batches of hearts and re-run them as a final spirit run trying to increase you proofing.
Good luck and happy distilling.