Mashing efficiency - Cracked corn, milled cracked corn, corn meal

[kmmuellr]

I was looking for some info the other day and couldn't find it, so I thought I'd share something to the forum instead of just asking questions! What is the difference in starting gravity using cornmeal vs cracked corn, and does milling the cracked corn make a difference?

Long story short:
Cracked corn - 15 brix (1.061sg)
Milled cracked corn - 16 brix (1.065sg)
Food grade Corn meal - 17 brix (1.070sg)

I've been homebrewing since 1996, and AG since '97 or so. I've never really been a numbers kind of brewer until I started distilling last year, so I could estimate what I should get out of the still. For Christmas I got a mill (Cereal Killer from Adventures in Homebrewing) and have been playing around with my gap trying to improve my efficiency in brewing. I've gone from 55-70% when the store milled my grain to 81-85% when I have the mill gapped at 0.029". I brew in a bag on an electric, PID controlled brewery where I recirculate the wort continuously. My mashes are 75-90 min.

My first bourbon and first cereal mash was in January and I used 60%/20%/20% corn/rye malt/barley malt, 2lb grain per gallon of water. I used cornmeal that I got from an Amish store in northern Michigan.
1. Bring 12 gal water to a boil in beer boil kettle.
2. Drain water to open keg fermenter, and mix in corn while adding water to break-up any clumps. Settled in at >185.
3. Wrap in blankets to insulate. Wait, stir, wait, stir, etc. All told I was confident the cornmeal was gelatinized after about 4 hours. I waited another hour (temp in the high 160's), cooled and added my rye and barley malts and rested at 148 for ~3hrs for conversion. No added enzymes.
4. Cool, pitch yeast and ferment on grain
5. Bucket ass press in brew bag to separate grain from beer.

Yesterday I repeated this w/ slightly longer rest times on two batches. One with with cracked corn, and one with cracked corn that I ran through my mill at around 0.032-ish (gap opened during crushing from 29 to 32 or 33.)

Cracked and milled showed an obvious difference in texture of the beer/wort after a few hours. The cracked NOT milled stayed pretty thin, where the milled appeared to start gelatinizing, but nothing like the cornmeal did. That turned to polenta in the kettle!

After an all day mash, I cooled and pitched at the gravities mentioned above.
Cornmeal at $0.50/lb
Cracked corn was $13 for a 50lb bag, so $0.26/lb. I'm sure I can get it cheaper up north at the co-op near my in-laws summer place.

Depending on how the separation of the beer goes in a week or so will determine if I continue to use cracked corn, mill it, or use cornmeal (assuming the taste is comparable). I'll also likely start doing an overnight corn cook vs starting in the morning and waiting all day. Corn meal was a bit of a pain in the ass. If the cracked corn separates significantly easier, I'll sacrifice the lower starting alcohol!

K

[Deplorable]

I have the same mill from Northern Brewer. I haven't tried it for milling cracked corn, because both sites state that it's not designed for milling/cracking corn or soy beans. You have had good success with this wiht no adverse affects on the knurled rollers?

[kmmuellr]

I have the same mill from Northern Brewer. I haven't tried it for milling cracked corn, because both sites state that it's not designed for milling/cracking corn or soy beans. You have had good success with this wiht no adverse affects on the knurled rollers?

Everything that I read lead me to believe that you are not to use it on WHOLE corn. It munched through the cracked corn no problem. Slightly more torque required than milling barley. I haven't inspected the knurling, but its a basically new mill, so I doubt there'd be any noticeable wear.

K

[Walshie]

Hi guys - I'm trying to get away from using sugar, just cracked/milled corn. So you didn't use sugar, but you also didn't use an enzyme to break down the corn further?

How did the ferment turn out? How long did it take? What was the start abv?

Thanks,
KW.

[OldSmitty]

KW,

OP used malted grains for enzymes. If you use enough malted grains at the right temps, you don't need to add enzymes or sugar.

[Windy City]

Hey Kmmullr
I also came from a brewing background when I started this journey. While a good understanding of all grain brewing is extremely helpful in this hobby we also have to look at things a little different. As brewers we are normally mashing and sparging out our grains. But in this hobby (as you are doing) we are not sparging out our grains but are fermenting on the grain.
When making beer we generally just crush our grains so that we can lauter through our mash tuns. When fermenting on the grain it is a whole different story as you have found and the finer the grind the better the efficiency.
I hammermill all my grains with a consistency of about 25% flour 75% meal. I regularly get a 85% + efficiency.
The finer the grind the more you can pull out of the grain.
As far as corn goes your method will work (obviously) but you will be amazed and quite happy should you start using high temperature enzymes. They just chew through that corn and turn it from polenta into water in no time. Definitely worth the money
Good Luck in your journey
Johnny

[Truckinbutch]

Finer the grind and liquid enzymes ; the better the conversion you get in a cook .

[kmmuellr]

Hi guys - I'm trying to get away from using sugar, just cracked/milled corn. So you didn't use sugar, but you also didn't use an enzyme to break down the corn further?

How did the ferment turn out? How long did it take? What was the start abv?

Thanks,
KW.

As stated above, I used malted barley and rye for my enzymes. I insured that the recipe that I used had enough diastatic power to convert its own starches and those of the corn to sugar. They fermented out completely to 0.099.

Ferments were what I would call normal for a beer. Nothing stood out as unusual for me. They were completely fermented out in a week, and I think I stripped them at 2 weeks, maybe less.

Separating the cracked corn was definitely easier than the corn meal. I wouldn't say that there was much difference between the cracked, and cracked and milled.

RE: Enzymes, any online source recommendations? What kind, etc? Any good links for reading and learning about the different types and ways to properly use them?

K

[Not sure]

So I'm using cornmeal now and I think other than the mop bucket I'm getting a better result