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Cereal Mash |
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This is just a brief explaination of how I do a cereal mash. I have made three batches with a cereal mash: a CAP, a Cream Ale, and a Kentucky Common. The cereal mash is very easy to do and it only adds a little extra time to your brew day depending on how long you want to boil. The process is simply to mash corn (or rice):malt at 3:1 (maybe 2:1 if you have 2-row) to ~153° F with enough water to avoid scorching. Hold it for 10 - 20 minutes (complete conversion isn't necessary) and then boil it until it's completely gelatinized. *** Be sure you have enough water and STIR,STIR,STIR!!!! *** Old texts1 suggest boiling 45 minutes for corn meal and 75 minutes for grits. I recommend that these guidelines be followed. I didn't boil as long as I should have , especially with the grits in the pictures below, and most likely didn't get all I should have out of them. What you're getting besides gelatinazation of the starches that weren't converted in the cereal mash is melanoidin production for flavor. Some darkening will occur and depending on the style of beer this may be desirable or it may not. It is desirable for a CAP, not for a Cream Ale and it doesn't matter in the case of the Kentucky Common. Then you either add this to the main mash, which you have mashed in a bit earlier so it is ready to be boosted to the next temperature when the cereal mash is ready, or you cool it down to your strike temperature and mashin for a single infusion mash. Obviously doing the single infusion mash you would need to add more water to the cereal mash and then heat or cool to your desired strike temperature and mash-in the grains. I did it this way because I am a bit lazy and didn't feel like dealing with two different mashes at the same time. It was much easier for me to add extra water to the cereal mash and bring that whole mess to the proper strike temp and mash-in the rest of the grain. *** I can't emphasize this enough. You really need to pay attention to the water content and not let it get too low or you will have scorching. Stirring a lot also helps prevent scorching. |
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2009: I have updated this page with some new pictures from my latest cereal mash brew. I made another creamale using grits. I used whole kernel coarse ground corn meal. For a larger, more detailed picture of the 2009 pictures take the "_m" out of the file name in the address bar and it will give you the link to the larger picture. |
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2009: This time I only added 6-row to the cereal mash. This is 3 lbs of grits to 1 lb of 6-row. Just enough water to wet everything down and make it easy to stir. |
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This picture is showning the difference between Polenta (left) and cornmeal (right). The Polenta is like a large grit that really needs to be boiled for awhile to break it down. The cornmeal is broken up more so it doesn't require as long of a boil. |
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Here is the grain I used for a cereal mash with my Kentucky Common. Clockwise from the left is cornmeal, Polenta, and malt. The reason I am using both Polenta and cornmeal is that I had some Polenta left over from another batch and I didn't want to waste it. Also you can see some Carafa malt in there which wasn't supposed to be there. I forgot to take out the malt I would need to cereal mash so I just grabbed enough from the whole grain bill. |
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This is what the whole mess looks like at the beginning of the Saccarification rest. Notice how everything is wet but it is still in it's original form. I held this at 153° for about 20 minutes and then started to boil it. |
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2009: This is at the beginning of the saccarification rest as well. You can see all of the white starchy material in the liquid. It is very milky in color at this point. |
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2009: Heating and stirring the mess. Continual stirring is the only thing that will keep this from scorching and ruining the cereal mash. It gets very sticky so additional water is needed from time to time. Scraping the bottom of the kettle while stirring keeps the mash from sticking also. |
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2009: Part of the way through the boil. |
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2009: End of the boil. It is a thick, gelatinous mess at this point. Very thick and sticky. The corn aroma is very nice. |
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2009: End of the boil. This is showing the mash a little closer. |
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And finally, here is the cereal mash after the boil is complete. I only boiled this for about 24 minutes. As you can see the meal/Polenta starts to break down into a porridge like consistency. I probably should have boiled this a while longer since the Polenta doesn't look completely broken down here. |
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References1 American Handy Book of the Brewing, Malting and Auxiliary TradesRobert Wahl and Max Henius Pages 466-467 & 468-469 contain the info on corn and rice. |
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Send email to: maltmasher@yahoo.com Last updated: October 2009 by
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