Brewing With Polenta

[reviled]

I was at a motor show in Bris many years ago and the hot chip stalls had cups made from that stuff, you ate the cup afterwards :huh: . Tasted about as good as the chips IIRC and far less litter, any thrown away would get eaten by the pigeons.

:lol: hahaha, thats hilarious! Did they deep fry the cup as well? :lol:


On the topic of Budweiser, was watching discovery the other day and they were doing a thing on Anhauser Busch, and they are so massive, that instead of buying empty cans off of a company, they just make them themselves It was the Anhauser Bush Canning plant?!?! Crazy!

 

[Sammus]

Sam,
In Australia cornflour is often made of wheat.

So... for all the polenta brewers... what makes polenta better or worse adjunct or better suited than table sugar or dextrose?

I think this one might have some corn in it



Is there any advantage of using any other kind of corn over this kind?

 

[BjornJ]

I used to work at a warehouse years and years ago.
There was a "tradition" that when a new guy was trained up on the shift, he would be taken to the loft and offered a handful of the packing chips made from corn. Even after working there 2 weeks they would never realise the chips were in fact like the cheese tasting snack things (Cheese doodles), just without the spices and their eyes would bulge, hehe.

After a while one guy we had taped a small carboard box to his forklift and filled it with the "corn chips", driving around all day eating them..


So I am sure you could mash with them.

Bjorn

 

[reviled]

I used to work at a warehouse years and years ago.
There was a "tradition" that when a new guy was trained up on the shift, he would be taken to the loft and offered a handful of the packing chips made from corn. Even after working there 2 weeks they would never realise the chips were in fact like the cheese tasting snack things (Cheese doodles), just without the spices and their eyes would bulge, hehe.

After a while one guy we had taped a small carboard box to his forklift and filled it with the "corn chips", driving around all day eating them..


So I am sure you could mash with them.

Bjorn

:lol: haha, gold!

I cant believe it, packaging made out of food?!?! How have I not heard of this yet?

 

[Bribie G]

If you are a 'high church' Christian and go to communion the priest shoves a round bit of something similar on your tongue and tells you it's the body of Christ. And the blood of Christ is lo alc.

RE cornflour, that would be the refined milled whitest of white part of the maize grain and no flavour, polenta is bright yellow and basically made from the same stuff as cornflakes.

 

[reviled]

If you are a 'high church' Christian and go to communion the priest shoves a round bit of something similar on your tongue and tells you it's the body of Christ. And the blood of Christ is lo alc.

RE cornflour, that would be the refined milled whitest of white part of the maize grain and no flavour, polenta is bright yellow and basically made from the same stuff as cornflakes.

So you do a step mash with polenta Bribie? Or just single infusion?

 

[Fourstar]

I was at a motor show in Bris many years ago and the hot chip stalls had cups made from that stuff, you ate the cup afterwards :huh: .

Haha, yeah ive heard about those cups before. Going green even before its time!

 

[Phoney]

Sam,
In Australia cornflour is often made of wheat.

Actually, I just discovered the other day that generic "Home Brand" cornflour is 100% wheat gluten. Whitewings cornflour is 100% corn based flour and is gluten free!

 

[Bribie G]

Single infusion mash, but I give it 90 minutes to let the enzymes do their job. Another advantage of polenta and rice is that, being huskless, they get almost completely eaten during the mash and in the case of BIAB don't contribute to the weight of the spent grain, so an adjunct brew is easier to hoist and bucket sparge and IMHO seems to drain a lot better as well.

 

[Sammus]

Actually, I just discovered the other day that generic "Home Brand" cornflour is 100% wheat gluten. Whitewings cornflour is 100% corn based flour and is gluten free!

Yeah, I wasn't doubting Darren, just showing that we can get the proper stuff here Wiki says in Australia, cornflour usually refers to wheatstarch, as opposed to cornstarch.

 

[Swinging Beef]

Yeah, I wasn't doubting Darren, just showing that we can get the proper stuff here Wiki says in Australia, cornflour usually refers to wheatstarch, as opposed to cornstarch.

I only know this because I have some friends who are silly yaks. The fact that coles puts "100% corn" on the front kinda proves my point.

 

[Sammus]

The fact that coles puts "100% corn" on the front kinda proves my point.

Lol I didn't even think about that till you point it out, now I find it quite amusing. "Try our new cornflour! Now contains corn!"

 

[Nick JD]

Wouldn't there be a whole heap of fructose in polenta - or is the "sweetness" removed?

 

[Bribie G]

Polenta is made from mature maize as fed to chooks, not 'sweetcorn' which is immature maize or more accurately, a type of maize grown to be eaten fresh. Polenta isn't sweet, about the same as rice or semolina.

 

[Nick JD]

Polenta is made from mature maize as fed to chooks, not 'sweetcorn' which is immature maize or more accurately, a type of maize grown to be eaten fresh. Polenta isn't sweet, about the same as rice or semolina.

Thanks BribieG - So polenta is ground, uncooked popcorn? I suppose the yanks get their high fructose corn syrup from sweetcorn? I much prefer American coca cola with fructose.

Another question: can wheat beers be made with a kg of wholemeal flour thrown into the mash?

 

[Bribie G]

Thanks BribieG - So polenta is ground, uncooked popcorn? I suppose the yanks get their high fructose corn syrup from sweetcorn? I much prefer American coca cola with fructose.

Another question: can wheat beers be made with a kg of wholemeal flour thrown into the mash?

Nothing so folksy and wholesome, unfortunately. They take ground maize and subject it to industrial enzymes to convert the starch into sugars (what we do in the mash tun but in an evil way )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_syrup

I don't know about that amount of wheat flour but have heard rumours that Coopers Sparkling is made with some flour. To avoid too much glugginess and stuck mash I would tend to use semolina in a wheat beer as an adjunct. Most guys use Wheat Malt that can convert itself but if you have spare enzymes hanging around then adding just flour or semolina should work. Many brewers in the UK use torrefied wheat which AFAIK is the wheat equivalent of popcorn and is available from LHBS over there.

 

[Nick JD]

Maybe I'll try Honey Wheats. Probabaly some nutricuiticals in there for the yeast too!

 

[Bribie G]

I made a kiwi gold lager with a kilo of ALDI cornflakes, turned out fine :icon_cheers:

 

[///]

When contemplating using corn or rice to make CAP's, there is no better expert thna Jeff Renner and there was a huge amount of stuff on the Home Brew Diest (HBD) well over 10 years ago.

The first mistake is to confuse 'cornie' flavour of European or Asian made beers with those using corn. This relates to a DMS profile, not corn, and is not acheivable with the JW Export Pils or Barretts varieties availible in Australia. That being said, I have no doubt malt is produced from these manufacturers with the DMS precursor, but it is not sold and not acheivable, no matter what the ney-sayers say...

Flaked corn is heated via steam and rolled, hence gelatinising the product, fit for chucking straight in. Polenta I have alwasy 'cereal cooked' via boiling, like rice, to gelatinise. I have just stumbled on a powdered maize from an Asian store in Randwick which I am about to play with. It is amazing that at the turn of the 18th century Centuries needed to be posted at wheat and corn feilds to save the crop from brewers wanting to pinch the products for use in brewing, but now finding locally produced flaked maize is now near imposible, save for the UK stuff.

THe maize/polenta will give a stiff white head and a smoothness to the beer. Also helps to lighten the profile, but I suspect from the proteins added does not give the dry finish as you get when using amalayse in a low carb beer.

Research the info from Jeff Renner and that will set you on the correct path of enlightenment. From my own experience, for a CAP 10-20% maize/rice with halletau and a damm good lager yeast and 10C ferment is a match made in heaven.

scotty

ps. Skinny Blonde from Brothers Inc uses flaked rice in thier low carb beer, probably the tastiest low carb beer on the market and the only one I would buy ... but I have a vested interest as one of the contract producers ....

 

[BjornJ]

I made a kiwi gold lager with a kilo of ALDI cornflakes, turned out fine :icon_cheers:

I am brewing on Sunday, using the instant-polenta and considering chucking in a 500 gr package of Corn Flakes as well, now!

Have adjusted the recipe already.
No idea how this will turn out, a light-colored beer with only 19 IBU and corn adjunct, no beer fridge and an ale yeast..

Sounds fun!!

Bjorn