Why bother with a cereal mash? Seems likhttp://www.homebrewtalk.com/e a waste.

[highgravitybacon]

What am I missing here? Why is a cereal mash necessary? If I have two pounds of grits, I can boil them seperately to make the starches accessible to the mash enzymes, and add it direct to the mash.

Why would I mash something for 20 minutes, boil it for an hour when I can simply boil it to be put in the main mash?

People talk about a cereal mash like it's sacred. It seems to be a waste of time unless I'm totally missing the boat. YES, I get that ground, unmalted grains need to have their starches made accessible. But the boiling should take care of that.

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Edit, somehow the title got messed up. It cannot be edited. Sorry.

 

[Malticulous]

I just makes it easy to boil it. Less starch makes it less gravy like when it boils. It is worth the time. A better way is in a pressure cooker. At the higher boiling temp you can gelatinize even more starch for even higher extract.

 

[BigEd]

Cooking them will suffice. However, a cereal mash in which the adjunct grains are cooked with a portion of malt helps facilitate the process and keeps the goods from clumping making it easier to mix into the main mash.

 

[highgravitybacon]

I just makes it easy to boil it. Less starch makes it less gravy like when it boils. It is worth the time. A better way is in a pressure cooker. At the higher boiling temp you can gelatinize even more starch for even higher extract.

How long at what psi with what water to grain do you use for corn? I love pressure cooking anything I can.

 

[Malticulous]

How long at what psi with what water to grain do you use for corn? I love pressure cooking anything I can.

I can't say. I haven't done it. I need a cooker. Jeff Renner has talked about it on the AHA fourm. I first read about it in the American Handy-Book of the Brewing, Malting and Auxiliary Trades (1908.)

 

[Yooper]

My feeling is more of a "why not?" type of thing. I mean, if I'm cooking my polenta (grits) and rice for an hour, why not do a cereal mash at the same time since it only adds about 20 minutes to it, and then reduces the gumminess of the mash and makes the lauter easier.

It's not necessary, but I've noticed easier lautering and sparging, with a slightly (2% or so) higher efficiency from doing the cereal mash instead of just cooking the grains separately.