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Ive been doing cooked mashes with flaked maize, but have thought about using cracked corn instead, flaked maize costs me $60/50lb (brew shop) while cracked corn is $8/50lb (farm services). Ive read that for cornmeal you add the corn at 152f w/ a handful of malt and bring to a boil, then let it cool and add the rest of malt. will this be the same for cracked corn? Will there be a big taste difference when using cracked corn vs. flaked maize?

-MM

cracked corn works great and it's more traditional. the question is how hard is it to disperse? you gotta boil it pretty well. remember, corn whiskey is (by law) 80% corn, so the other 20% can be 2-row or some other malted grain to jump start your enzyme activity for you.

don't boil 2-row, of course

I always get poor yields when I used flaked corn. cracked is much easier to work with...

Ive used cracked corn a couple times and like it. But, like Jesse said you gotta boil it to get the starches out. I boil it to the consistency of creamed corn.

PS your avatar makes me bug out. Is that something from Bevis and Butthead?

ATHF is where he gets the avatar from.

thanx dixie, never heard of it before. I did google it and found the site thou. might have to study up on it a bit. Looks off beat for sure.

I've been using cracked corn/maize rice and do a stepped mash prior to the boil. I put in about half my malt with the maize, and let sit at 40C, 50C, and 65C for 20 mins at each temp. Then I boil and continue the mashing procedure. I find that the pre-boil stepped mash allows me to do a nice long boil to get good gelatinisation, without it turning unmanageably thick.

Cheers,
J

TRANSPLANTED HILLBILLY wrote:thanx dixie, never heard of it before. I did google it and found the site thou. might have to study up on it a bit. Looks off beat for sure.

Off beat??? (do you have a little dyslexia(sp) of the words). Haha. Actually, ATHF is the greatest cartoon show ever made, ............. for idiots.

I watch it (lol), it does make me laugh. My 18 yr old son likes it, and the wife HATES it (which makes it more funny to watch). I have to put up with her home decorating crap shows, and other trash, so it is my little payback.

The show is strange, and hard to follow, but after you figure the characters out, it is funny trying to follow their strange antics.

H.

What about backset? i know its essential for sour mash, will it improve cooked mash? also it is my understanding that the more backset you add to the next mash the LESS flavor will obtain from it, is this correct?

That is not my understanding for backset. Backset is good for the flavor profile. Almost all of the commercial distilleries do it. Most are up to 33% backset (Jim Beam and Maker's Mark) and they are doing it for flavor and to save on water as well as to reduce PH. Backset is around a ph of 3 so there is an effective limit on how much to add back to the mash but the yeast seems amazingly tolerant to the lower ph.