Extra ingredients in rolled corn?

I've been wanting to make BM's cream ale, a mexican lager, and a CAP. My LHBS didn't carry flaked/rolled corn, so I picked up a bag and the local feed store. The question is: Other than the corn itself, there's two other ingredients listed. I'm not really sure what they are, if they're something I want in my beer, etc. The two extras are Propionic Acid (as a preservative) and Ammonium Hydroxide. my google-fu is failing me, so hopefully HBT can come to the rescue. Is this something normal, or are either of these ingredients something I don't want in my beer?

I doubt Ammonium Hydroxide is the greatest ingredient to have going into your beer. Feed grade fermentables are generally used in other applications, its not like your gonna run your beer through a still to clean it up, lol.

propionic acid smells like cheese, ammonium hydroxide according to wikipedia is just a mixture of ammonia and water.

If I were you and couldn't get flaked maize from the homebrew store, I'd use grits from the grocery store, instead. Just cook them up in some boiling water for 15-20 minutes then add them to the mash.

mkling said:

If I were you and couldn't get flaked maize from the homebrew store, I'd use grits from the grocery store, instead. Just cook them up in some boiling water for 15-20 minutes then add them to the mash.

Click to expand...

Yeah, me too. Feed corn isn't what the recipe author had in mind- it would have to be processed somehow to make the corn useful to the brew. I"m not sure what it would be, but if you've ever seen flaked corn, well, it's flaked. Like the cereal Corn Flakes, sort of. I wouldn't use kernel corn, but grits would work, or even the cereal I guess. Or, you could order flaked corn from an online store.

I wouldn't want to put animal feed-grade anything in my beer, especially if it has additional, sketchy-sounding ingredients. I'll second mkling's suggestion to use corn grits from the grocery store instead.