Corn for an American Lager

I'm going to make an American lager. BJCP allows for 40% rice or corn in standard and 25% in premium. I'll be using 25%.

It was going to be flaked corn, but no lhbs has any. They have chopped corn and say it's a dry good and intended for brewing.

I found this thread

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/cracked-corn-173842/

Any more thoughts on using chopped corn and the difference between chopped and flaked? The thread calls it cracked corn. I imagine it's the same thing as chopped.

What about using both in one beer, 12.5% of each?

The lhbs suggested rice over corn because it ferments better.

Have you thought about corn flakes?

Yes

Kellogg's Corn Flakes
Milled corn, sugar, malt flavor, contains 2% or less of salt. BHT added to packaging for freshness. And a bunch of vitamins.

Doesn't seem too bad.

1 1/4 pound of salted flakes though. Would it be enough to make salty beer? Maybe a different brand of corn flake with less salt?

They're toasted. I wonder if they'd impart a toasted flavor.

I've never done it (I use flaked corn from the LHBS) but malticulous has brewed his CAP with popcorn.

Yeah, popcorn- popped with an airpopper. No lie. You could search the forum for it, I'm sure to see how much he used. But he threw that popped popcorn right in the mash and I know he loved the results.

BMW has flaked corn.

Popcorn, eh? He even talks about corn on the cob corn in one thread. And here I thought we were just being yahoos earlier.

In this thread, https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/popcorn-172838/ , he says he read it in Radical Brewing. I have that book, right here in front of me. Sure enough. Page 148.

It says popping the corn instantly gelatinizes the starch and makes it soluble.

Zuljin said:

I'm going to make an American lager. BJCP allows for 40% rice or corn in standard and 25% in premium. I'll be using 25%.

It was going to be flaked corn, but no lhbs has any. They have chopped corn and say it's a dry good and intended for brewing.

I found this thread

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/cracked-corn-173842/

Any more thoughts on using chopped corn and the difference between chopped and flaked? The thread calls it cracked corn. I imagine it's the same thing as chopped.

What about using both in one beer, 12.5% of each?

The lhbs suggested rice over corn because it ferments better.

Click to expand...

Make sure to boil the cracked corn to gelatinize the starches before adding it to the mash. Flaked corn already has its starches gelatinized, so you don't have to do it with that. Rice would need to be cooked as well. Using both would be a good idea.

Good luck!

Cheers!

Zuljin said:

Popcorn, eh? He even talks about corn on the cob corn in one thread. And here I thought we were just being yahoos earlier.

In this thread, https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/popcorn-172838/ , he says he read it in Radical Brewing. I have that book, right here in front of me. Sure enough. Page 148.

It says popping the corn instantly gelatinizes the starch and makes it soluble.

Click to expand...

I have Radical Brewing, but I definitely missed that part!

I'd try it, and it's definitely cheap enough to do.

Yooper said:

I've never done it (I use flaked corn from the LHBS) but malticulous has brewed his CAP with popcorn.

Yeah, popcorn- popped with an airpopper. No lie. You could search the forum for it, I'm sure to see how much he used. But he threw that popped popcorn right in the mash and I know he loved the results.

Click to expand...

A local brewery here in Indy, Sun King, have a seasonal that has popcorn in it. I missed out on trying it, but if they have it in 2013 I'm going to give it a shot. If you guys watch Drinking Made Easy, they visited Sun King this season and talked about the popcorn beer.

Minute Rice is pre-cooked and gelatinized so it can be added directly to a mash. I have successfully used it. I forget its potential, but I believe it's about 1.038 or 39. I think quick grits can also be added directly to a mash. I don't know what the potential is for the grits though.

You can also use creamed corn, right out of a can. Or you can use grits/cornmeal, but you have to do a cereal mash to them, since they aren't pregelatinized like flaked corn or corn flakes. I've also used tortilla chips in my mash as well.

I've been using Albers Quick Grits from the grocery store. I think you can add them directly to the mash but I've been cooking them according to the directions on the box, cooling to mash temp and adding them in at the beginning of the mash. Subtract the volume of water used in cooking from the total volume of strike water if the grits were included as part of your total water/grain ratio. Rice hulls may be needed as well to avoid a stuck sparge.

Revvy said:

I've also used tortilla chips in my mash as well.

Click to expand...

Wow! What effect did the oil have on the final product?

Minky said:

Wow! What effect did the oil have on the final product?

Click to expand...

None. The grain absorbs it and filters it. Same with using chocolate.

Minky said:

Minute Rice is pre-cooked and gelatinized so it can be added directly to a mash. I have successfully used it. I forget its potential, but I believe it's about 1.038 or 39. I think quick grits can also be added directly to a mash. I don't know what the potential is for the grits though.

Click to expand...

I think you are right with this, but you definitely need to use some rice hulls because the minute rice and quick grits will disintegrate in the mash and you might get a stuck sparge.

I use quick grits in a lot of my recipes. My mash tun is a bag in a bucket. When I use grits I dump the grits in the bag. A gallon of boiling, or near boiling water. Cover the bucket and let the grits gelatinize and the tun temp to stablize at the same time. Then stir in the rest of the strike water to the temp I'm shooting for and add the rest of the grains and start timing the mash.

Does anyone use cocoa powder in their mash?

rcsoccer said:

I think you are right with this, but you definitely need to use some rice hulls because the minute rice and quick grits will disintegrate in the mash and you might get a stuck sparge.

Click to expand...

Yeah. If I recall correctly, I think I've gone as high as 10% of the grain bill with Minute Rice without the addition of rice hulls, but I may have been pushing my luck. I've never had a stuck sparge, but I can imagine it is not fun.

Speaking of rice hulls, I'll never forget the first time I bought them. When the brew store guy asked how much I wanted, I said "how about five pounds". He asked if I was sure. Then he showed me how much that was. It must have been a couple of bushels!!

Minky said:

Wow! What effect did the oil have on the final product?

Click to expand...

Revvy said:

None. The grain absorbs it and filters it. Same with using chocolate.

Click to expand...

About the grain absorbing the oil. I was inspired by Wild Ginger to use chopped pecans in an all grain brew recently. I did toast and blot them, but not to the Nth degree. No oil issues in the end product. No oily residue. It forms a great head.

So, not wanting to go near a grocery store today, I stopped at the farmers market for popin' corn. They had none. They had fresh corn on the cob.

Well I be damned if fresh corn on the cob isn't made of corn. I want to put corn in a beer. Corn seems to be a good choice of product to get corn from.

I guess I should cook, or cereal mash, this like when I used buckwheat and spelt, you think?

I've 10 ears for 5 gallons.

My recipe now is
5 pounds two row
5 pounds six row
2 1/2 pounds flaked rice from the lhbs
10 ears of corn on the cob
1 oz Liberty hops
1 oz Mt Hood hops
Fermentis dry lager yeast, either S-23 or W-34/70

If I use all the rice and corn, it would count as a Standard American lager by BJCP style. Maybe if I knock a pound to a pound and a half of rice off, it would be Premium. I'll have to weigh the corn.

Style aside, do you think this is too much adjunct? Would 10 rather large ears of sweet corn be too much? Should I take it off the cob or chunk it in cob and all. I'm leaning to cob and all, just cut in half for easier handling.

No. Now I think about it, not being lazy and taking it off the cob will let me get more out of it.

I'm betting that the kernels' skins won't mash. I suspect you have to break up each kernel to let the enzymes get at the starches, so probably cooking the corn, then putting it through a blender or food processor will get you better utilization. Definitely uncooked corn isn't gelatinized in any case. If you need to prove this to yourself, put a whole corn kernel in your mouth and see if it's sweet before you bite it. No sweetness, no sugars and no starches.

Also, you're aware that corn adds its own unique flavor to a beer, and that rice mostly doesn't? Substituting rice for corn will get your alcohol up, but it'll taste different than if you added corn.

It's much more work than flaked corn, but doing a cereal mash on corn meal works great. I especially like cereal mashing blue corn meal.

Cromwell's right, I think you're probably going to need to do a cereal mash with the corn to convert it. No big deal, take some 2 row, and the corn and boil it together for awhile.

My mouth says corn is sweet, raw right off the cob. But yeah, cooking/ cereal mashing is in order.

And yes, some corn flavor is what I'm going for. Why? Because.

I like the blender idea. Liquify.

Zuljin said:

I'm going to make an American lager. BJCP allows for 40% rice or corn in standard and 25% in premium. I'll be using 25%.

It was going to be flaked corn, but no lhbs has any. They have chopped corn and say it's a dry good and intended for brewing.

I found this thread

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/cracked-corn-173842/

Any more thoughts on using chopped corn and the difference between chopped and flaked? The thread calls it cracked corn. I imagine it's the same thing as chopped.

What about using both in one beer, 12.5% of each?

The lhbs suggested rice over corn because it ferments better.

Click to expand...

I make cereal mashes regularly. Go to the grocer and buy plain old fashioned corn meal in the amount you need. Set up your pot and cold water in a ratio of one part cornmeal to two parts water by volume. Slowly bring to a boil stirring constantly. By the time the mixture has boiled the cornmeal has gelatinized and can be added to the main mash to bring it up to sachrification temps. A bit more trouble but makes good CAP.

5 good size ears got me 1 lb 11 1/2 oz of corn. I used a vegetable cleaver to lop it off while raw. I'll go with that this time so I see how much corn flavor how much corn gives me.

Did a cereal mash. All the corn with 2 qts water, heated to 150F, let rest 15 minutes, brought to boil for 15 minutes.

Then I put it in the blender and liquified. I think this did a good job of exposing the inside of the corn

Wow- you made polenta. I think I'd eat that, with a little salt and pepper and butter, and forget about putting it in beer. It looks great! :rockin:

That's a lot of ingredients for a 5 gallon batch. What was your OG?

Yooper said:

Wow- you made polenta. I think I'd eat that, with a little salt and pepper and butter, and forget about putting it in beer. It looks great! :rockin:

Click to expand...

It was hard not to do that. Had to remind myself this was for beer.

shelly_belly said:

That's a lot of ingredients for a 5 gallon batch. What was your OG?

Click to expand...

I did use only 5 ears instead of 10.

1.062 OG. Hopville said it should be 1.067 to 1.078. I expect the ABV will be a percent or so higher than most American lagers. Maybe 6.5 to 7%

Going into secondary I'm at 6.5% abv.

The color is more brown than I wanted and it's not as clear as I'd hoped. Well, in the secondary. In the hydrometer, it's pernt near what I was going for.

The flavor though is dead nuts on. Bulls eye. 10 ring. :rockin:

If your LBS is out of corn maze, Look for a Mexican food store. They carry corn maze it's the same stuff. I have used it with the same results.

Bottled at 1.012, 6.56% ABV.

Taste is still on it, on it. Clarity is, well, I'll adopt Southern Star Brewing's motto, "Clarity is overrated".

You used sweet corn for your beer, the CAP uses yellow dent corn.
Its a different beast, but I am glad you like your beer!