Corn advice

[FloppyKnockers]

Gonna do a Mexican lager this weekend. It calls for flaked corn... I'm out of flaked corn. As I see it, I have a few options:

Instant grits. They're white and less sweet and corny, but it's readily available.
Regular grits. Best practice is to do a cereal mash, but I really don't want to take the time to do so.
Polenta. Same as regular grits.

If I were to do an overnight mash with regular yellow grits (or polenta), would that gelatinize them enough? Any problem with just doing instant white grits?

I'm probably overthinking, but if it weren't for overthinking, I probably would have never thunk at all.

Thanks in advance for your input.

 

[Agent]

At a rate of 2lb/gal, I'll boil the water, remove from heat, and add the regular grits. Do this about 30 minutes before your strike water is ready. At T-10 minutes, add two big handfuls of crushed malt and stir it in. This will loosen everything up enough to easily transfer at pretty close to normal mash temperature.

It's a hands-off way I've been doing my cereal mashes.

 

[jtratcliff]

I've used instant grits in my versions of Cream of 3 Crops... It seems to work OK...

 

[IslandLizard]

A cereal mash is probably overkill.

I usually simmer (lightly boil) the "flaked corn" for an hour (sometimes longer) in plenty of water (around 1-1.5 pound per gallon?) to fully gelatinize them. It ends up being a thinnish corn soup. This becomes (part of) the strike water for the mash.

I reckon you could do the same with your grits or polenta, they're created by a similar process. Just make sure not to get Hominy, as that has been processed with lye...

 

[day_trippr]

fwiw, flaked corn is made by heating and steam-cooking corn, then passing it through hot rollers to create thin, flat flakes. This process causes the gelatinization necessary to allow for later conversion of the corn starches to sugar during the mashing process, so even though they're sold dry, they don't need further processing before mashing.

Otoh, grits are pretty much just coarse ground dried corn. There's no heat or moisture or pressure involved, which is why they need to be cooked to gelatinize the starches before mashing...

Cheers!