First Recipe, please be gentle!

Mother's Day Pale Lager

1 kg flaked corn (steeped 75 minutes at ~150*F)
1500 g pale DME
500 g amber DME
19 g Cascade 60 minutes
36 g Bullion 25 minutes
12 g Saaz 0 minutes
Cooper's Cervesa yeast (all I had at the time)

OG 1.054 (May 10, 2009)
FG 1.002 (June 30, 2009)

Yield 17 L

Taste at bottling: Nice and hoppy, while I did use leftover Cascade hops, I must have done something right by putting them in at first boil. Strong hop taste, I think I've been hooked on hops.

According to TastyBrew's online calculator, I have a 96% or so yeast attenuation. I know I've calculated the gravities correctly, so is this possible with a generic yeast?

You have already brewed the beer so it's a little late to ask for suggestions.

Steeping flaked corn only gets it wet. Starchy adjuncts need to be mashed. Do a search on partial mashing and next time blend the flaked grain with some base malt to convert the starch to fermentable sugars.

Bullion hops are not know for their flavor. Using them for bittering and adding the Cascade might have yielded a better flavor IMO.

96% attenuation does not seem likely. Almost every beer yeast on the planet is in the mid 70s.

Glad you like the beer and hope this has been gentle enough.

I think that your FG reading might be off.

1.002 would make this beer bone dry.

I understand about the Cascade, but I do not like it as it's too citrusy for me. As for the FG, that is exactly how I read it (it might be *slightly* higher for temperature).

What is the difference between steeping and mashing, especially at that temperature?

Vuarra said:

I understand about the Cascade, but I do not like it as it's too citrusy for me. As for the FG, that is exactly how I read it (it might be *slightly* higher for temperature).

Click to expand...

Huh. Maybe it's the yeast. That's really high attenuation.

My understanding is that with steeping, you are only really extracting the colour and some character from the malt. In mashing, you are extracting colour, character and, most importantly, the fermentable sugar that you need. It's my belief that you also extract the certain 'je ne sais quoi' from mashing malt rather than using extract that makes all-grain taste the lovely way that all-grain tastes. Was that diplomatically Canadian enough??

Some grains and adjuncts can't be converted without the enzymes from malt, so adding them without mashing with convertable malt will result in nothing being added to your beer. For example, the flaked maize that you used won't do anything for the beer without being mashed with base malt. Like BigEd said "steeping flaked corn only gets it wet". Partial mashing is an excellent next step.

Anyway, if it tastes good, it is good. I'm a big believer in the K.I.S.S. principle with brewing.

Good luck.