ya I know mostly not a good idea, but we have a challenge from my brew club to make a beer from any cereal for a future meeting. My Question is the best way to add the cereal.
Some of my ideas are…(1)put it in the mesh when sparging…(2) in the last of the boil…(3) maybe last of the fermentation… (4) make a Tincture of the cereal after the fermentation (could be the secondary) and put it in then, or even just before bottling.
If any of you have been successful at this tell me what you did.
What kind of cereal? Corn flakes could go right in the mash.
Oatmeal would be good for a lot of beers, or Cheerios (un-sweetened type)…Cocoa Puffs in a stout? I would be inclined to have them in the mash, rather than risking a gummy mess in later stages. Just my 2 cents.
The guys at Basic Brewing did a few cereal beers. They might give you a cpl ideas.
Not mashing the cereal would mean that you have starch in your beer. That would make the beer unstable microbiologically as there would be plenty of food for various microbes in the beer.
One of the breweries near me does a Count Chocula stout every year around Halloween. It’s very sweet, but delicious. According to what I’ve heard, the cereal is put in the mash.
I’d choose a cereal without added sugar and add it at beginning of mash. With today’s highly modified grain you could go to around 20%. I suppose you could use sugar infused cereals too. In either case, give it enough time in mash to convert. I assume all the highly processed cereals wouldn’t need to be gelatinized.
Ever read the ingredients on the side of a box of Grape-Nuts? Whole grain wheat flour, Malted barley flour, Salt, Dried yeast. It wants to be beer …
I was going to add that I used Grape Nuts in a beer many years ago. I added it in the mash. I don’t remember is adding much to the beer though.
Paul
I have not had personal experience (as you asked) but another thought regarding a brewery to contact to see if they could share information- Bosque brewery here in Albuquerque did a Fruity Pebbles cereal beer last year that very much had the flavor carry through to the finished beer.