I’m using 1/3 my grainbill to be corn… Now I’ve heard a couple big Brewers up north claim to have a off flavor in the background… I can’t say I’ve ever noticed… One guy said he fixed it by doubling the boil… And keep it quite vigorous… Any one know/noticed this?
Sneezles61
Why would you do that
Boil off the precursors of the after taste…
Sneezles61
No I mean use that much corn?
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I brewed an american lager with 30% flaked maize once. I can’t say it tasted corny, but it was definitely different than all barley. Same as when I did 30% rice.
Different in a good way?
In a ‘different’ way. In my experience it provides a sweetness to the beer.
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Well I dosed it 2 times with low AA hops in the first half hour… Smells good…
Sneezles61
I was not a fan of the first corn beer I made. I’ll revisit again sometime because my standards have changed since then. @voltron what do people do when they add rice to beer. Rice on its own is not fermentable by yeast. Is flaked rice, or whatever people use, processed with koji or some chemical process to make it fermentable?
I used flaked rice at 30% of the grist along with pils malt. It was really slow to covert, but eventually I hit my target. If I was to do that again, I’d probably look into using rice syrup solids in the kettle instead - or actually measure my mash pH to see what was going on and adjust accordingly.
What I’m hearing you all did it once but it’s not one of your rotational beers. That tells me what I need to know.
Mostly due to lack of time, but I prefer a nice hoppy pils instead. They both made good lawnmower beers.
I’ve made at least a dozen batches of American lagers using rice or corn. Corn seems to lend a Sweetness that rice doesn’t. So I feel you can hit a little higher IBU with corn. I never had problems with flaked rice converting like @voltron mentioned.
It would be interesting to brew the exact same beers using rice and corn and see the difference.
I’ve brewed pro pils and Mex lagers that came out well. Heck I evened brewed with Kelloggs corn flakes they came out good but 30%?
Actually just looked at my Uncle Tony’s Lager and it was 20% it was good but my notes said use less.
Yeah 30% is the upper limit I would go. Of course you need to make sure your mash stays above 30°Lintner. I to usually go about 15% on corn and maybe yo to 25% on rice.
My sample didn’t taste sweet…but then using a bit more hops for bittering may have covered up the sweetness… See what it’s like after it ferments.
Sneezles61
Too early for my brain to process. Need another cup of coffee 
OK I get it has to do with diastatic power like 6 row has more than 2 row and that is why the big breweries use it to squeeze out more. How is this scale figured out on a homebrew level @loopie_beer Use small words 
@hd4mark I’ll use the smallest words possible.
First, you need to find out the Diastatic Power (DP) of your malt. You can find this on your malt analysis. However, here are some averages the °L is Lintner in this case NOT lovibond).
American 2 Row Pale Malt: 140 °L
American 6 Row Pale Malt: 160 °L
British Pale Malts: 40-70 °L
Maris Otter Pale Malt: 120 °L
Belgian Pale Malt (2 row): 60 °L
German Pilsner Malt: 110 °L
Munich Malt (10 SRM): 70 °L
Munich Malt (20 SRM): 25 °L
Vienna Malt: 50 °L
Wheat Malt, German: 60-90 °L
Essentially the more it is toasted/roasted the less DP the malt is going to have. You can figure that caramel/crystal malts, roasted malts, and adjuncts have zero, as they can’t convert themselves.
To figure out your DP of the MASH you multiple the °L by the amount of malt for each malt, add them up, and then divide by the total of the weight of malts. For example that say you are brewing this American Lager using:
10lbs of US 2 row
3lbs flaked maize
So, 10lbs x 140 = 1400; 3lbs x 0 = 0; as you can see you have 1400 Points. Take this and divide it by your total mash weight, 1400/13 = 107.69°L. This plenty to convert the starches in the malt AND the adjunct.
30°L is the lowest you can have to get conversion. I don’t think I would push that and would likely never go below 50°L.
If you do find a mash that is pushing 30°L or BELOW you can add Amylase Enzyme to help with conversion.
With all this in mind most AG bursts are going to have plenty of DP to convert. The most worrisome times comes when utilizing a low °L malt with a complex grain bill full off specialty malts that are really low in °L or have none.
Hope this was easy to understand as I’m not a math guy.
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