Not sure if you’re brewing or shipping fragiles overseas… That just looks bizarre.
I forgot about the germ and oils. Darn it. I may try flaked corn that they use in calf starter. Not sure what it’s like but it’s cooked and flaked and costs about 20 cents a pound and doesn’t require a 4 hour round trip to get. Worth the experiment at least.
Make sure it doesn’t have any “stuff” in it that you wouldn’t want in your beer.
Lime is calcium hydroxide, a base. Check out the wiki article on hominy, its interesting. The treatment dissolves the hull, as well as degrading some of the protein and gelatinizing the starches. Seems like hominy would be a good material to use in a beer.
Whats that one pound of popcorn?
Hey, you’re the one growing the 3rd arm. If I grew a tail, it would be handy for brushing away all these pesky flies…
I’ll be sure it’s just plain corn. They also have feed barley, wonder how hard it would be to start malting my own…
One thing I’m finding about this hobby is that it’s like fly fishing. Take a ball of yarn that costs 2 bucks, cut it into 100 little pieces and sell them in packages for tying flies and that same yarn is worth about $125 bucks a ball. I know flaked corn won’t break me but at over $2500 a tonne, someone is making a killing and it isn’t the guy growing it.
I’m not sure I would want anything biscuity or toasty in a cream ale but popcorn might be an interesting alternative in a English ale.
I’ve gotten very good results in terms of a good corn flavor from Bob’s Red Mill polenta/grits bought from a store with good turnover on them. Definitely better than flaked corn bought from a LHBS that generally has very good turnover (a typical yeast package bought there is less than a week from manufacture).
It’s two pounds, but if I take out the old maids it’s like 1.75 pounds. I don’t think the whole kernels convert.
Here it is in a glass at a couple of weeks after brew day.
It’s a base of half 6-row and half pils with 20% popcorn.
on my way to the thrift store to get a hot air popper ;D
I’ve never entered a contest. Is that good or bad?
It’s good for me. :-\
I’ve only entered six comps, about 20 beers total. I have six ribbons from them. I average a 34 or so. I bet if I could send 40 beers to each comp I could get some 40+'es.
But what’s the best you can do? I’ll have to enter a contest some day but for now I’ll just be the judge (BTW, I got first place in my last solo contest)
Best is 50. It’s not possible. 46 is the highest I know of.
Keep in mind those scores are not from the batch in the pictures. The pictured batch was considerable better to me. I only sent that one in because I had already entered it (and payed) before I brewed it. I’ve only made popcorn cream three times.
Nice looking brew there Malti, it’d be interesting to have a beer that light with some biscuity notes.
In my very limited experience, beers scoring in the upper 30’s usually go to the “finals” for a given style. Means you’ve got a sollid recipe and good execution.
Enter the KCBM comp, we give out 50s like candy :
(tomsawyer got one of them).
Seriously though, I have given as high as 46 in about 500? scoresheets filled out. My highest (consensus) score received was a 45 I believe in maybe 125 beers entered.
Scores seem to vary a bit in generosity from local group to local group but I would say average is around 30-32 and a 40 is the top 10th percentile if not a bit more rare. 50s should be extremely rare, like once in a lifetime events for a judge or an entrant (if that).
The general point being that the whole 50 point scale is used*. This isn’t Beer Advocate where anything that has seen a barrel is guaranteed a high score. Nobody should feel bad about a score in the low to mid 30s or even one in the 20s (good brewers get them all the time). When you talk about a score like 48-50 you should consider what that (hopefully means), the judge fully expects this to be one of the best small handful out of hundreds or thousands of examples tried in that style.
There’s a brand of masa harina called Pan. I’ve never used it but supposedly it is great in a Cream ale. You’ll find it in the Mexican section along with the Goya brands most likely.
I might do one this week. But, I’ll use the masa in my cupboard. Basically nixtimalized corn or hominy.
I use masa harina frequently …various brands, and they all work great. Also maize poha, purchased at an Indo-Paki grocery store (there’s one of those about every mile here in central NJ where I live). Popcon is also great, as long as it’s plain, hot air-popped.
The poha is simple flaked corn. Lately I’ve been buying it in bulk for a buck a pound.
Rice poha is great as well.
All of the above gelatanize at mash temps too, so there’s no need to precook.
I can’t help it if the guy liked my beer! And it did come in second, so the other one must have really been a 51.
If only I’d used a can of corn…
Wait, you scored a 50 and it came in second? ???
Happens to me all the time……
;D
Sorry
