Anyone know of the proper procedure for making flaked corn? We have amazing locally grown sweet corn here in jersey and i’d like to start using it in my cream ales. I searched a bit but didn’t find much that helped.
Any help appreciated,
Thanks!
Tonyp
I think they par boil or flash steam it and send it through a roller. Seems like you could just crush the corn in a blender or something and add it directly to the mash. Might need to do a cereal mash with it though.
+1 to this. A lot more work to go through the process of making flaked maize than it would be to just do a cereal mash.
I also suppose you could malt the grain similar to you would with raw barley by soaking it moist, allowing it to germinate, then dry, and toast in the oven.
I would just cereal mash it…
good info thanks
A pro brewer friend of mine uses #10 cans of corn in some of his homebrews. In the blender then into the mash. If you are using fresh corn, then I would cook it (simmer) for about 15 minutes to gelatinize the starches, then off to the blender.
I’m pretty sure that flaked corn is made from flint corm, not sweet corn.
I agree that the sweet corn grown in NJ is some of the best in the country. Never thought to use it in brewing!
Some experimentation is in my future!
Couple comments about using sweet corn.
First of all, the corn you buy as flaked corn is from field corn (probably dent corn but it could be flint, the name refers to the starch hardness in the kernel cap). Either way, it’s not sweet corn. Sweet corn has some starch but it also has a very high sugar content which is what makes it taste good. Let an ear of sweet corn dry out and the kernels will shrivel to almost nothing. Basically there isn’t very much fermentable material in it compared to field corn. The other thing is that the sugars in sweet corn break down fairly quickly which is why it’s best to eat sweet corn the day it’s picked. There are some varieties of processing corn that have to be frozen within hours of picking or the sugars are gone.
The other thing is that whole kernel corn is going to contain the germ which is where the oil is. That could be an issue for head retention but I don’t think it will be a big factor in sweet corn because the ears are harvested before physiological maturity so I doubt that there is much oil.
I’d go ahead an use sweet corn but I think you’re gonna have to do a cereal mash or boil the corn first. I expect that the boiling process (leave off the butter and salt) will gelatinize what little starch is in the kernels. You probably don’t need to do anything to the available sugars but I have no idea what the sugar percentages would be in the kernel.
Although no one asked, I’ll mention that corn starch actually comes from a fairly specific type of corn called “Waxy” corn. The differences are based on the starch branches and structure. Just throwing it out there before someone says that corn starch comes from field corn or something.
A lot of great info, thanks guys, and I def agree about the cereal mash.
My initial thought was to localize my recipe a bit by using a few locally grown ingredients, which automatically sparked my interest in the corn.
It really wasn’t my intention to change the flavor profile or fermentability, but to simply replace the ingredient with a locally grown option that i knew tasted good. I guess i could switch the sweet corn with locally grown field corn and see if the outcome is the same as my flaked corn control group, then do some experimenting with the sweet to better gauge the differences. I’d also know if my cereal mash procedure was dialed in.
I guess the next logical question is how to determine how much fresh corn to buy at market to end up with the equiv of 1lb of flaked corn.
Sweet corn is roughly 70 percent water. Field corn is dried to 15.5 percent. I’d guess 4 or 5 lbs. I’d try 4.
Not to thread jack too much, but if there is local popcorn you could use that. Pop it first, leave off the salt and butter. 
A guy in the club has done this for a CAP. Sun King from Indianapolis got a GABF gold for a popcorn beer.
+1
I’ve done this and it works great.
Use a hot air popper though.
there is another thread with corn and shows popped corn in it. question though, could you just take your popcorn and crush it and put into the mash?
The guy I know just puts it in the mash like you would with flaked corn.
The air popper was a good catch.
great, thanks
I’d dissagree about the cereal mash. A cereal mash is to make starches in hard grains available to the enzymes. Flaked maize avoids this by increasing the surface/body ratio so that water and enzymes can easily penetrate the kernel. Sweet corn is so juicy that just cutting the kernels off is going to expose any starches to the mash enzymes. I’d just smash the corn up and add it to the mash.
flaked grain avoids the need for a cereal mash because the starch is already gelatinezed. It is throughly steamed before rolling. You may not need a cereal mash for sweet corn but it is not because of surface area.
I was wondering along the same lines but since I had never used it I wasn’t sure. Hence the reason I said you “might” need one.
The flaking process results in the corn being gelatanized, making the starch available to the enzymes.
But because sweet corn has more sugar than starch, skip the cereal mash and see what happens. You may not get 100% of the fermentables but I think you’re after the fresh corn flavour anyway so it probably doesn’t matter.
I’d add 4 lbs of raw kernels to the mash (and I’d even throw the cobs in after it’s cut off to get all the corny goodness).