I did a CAP this last weekend which has 20% corn meal in the grist. Of course to do that one needs to do a ceral mash which as anybody who had done one knows makes for a longer brew day. To speed things up I wonder if it would be possible to do the ceral mash in a crock pot the night before? It would heat up slowly and probably boil for maybe 5-6 hours. After that just mash the rest of the grains as normal then dump the ceral mash in the main mash tun, let sit a while and away you go. Also, I would likely put a bit of that 5.2 stuff in there just to force the pH down to avoid extracting bad stuff. I usually boil the ceral mash for 45 minutes so it would boil alot longer but I don't necessarily see a problem with that other than getting maybe a little better extraction. Do any of you savants see any problem doing this?
Oh and brewing tip of the day; always have at least 1/2 a pound of rice hulls on hand just in case you get a stuck mash. Turns out, 20% corn meal is enough to cause problems and I would have been screwed had I not had a small supply on hand. As always, YMMV.
Well to follow up on this post I gave this a shot this weekend. I made an ESB and the recipe calls for about 1lb of flaked corn; so rather than do that I slow cooked ground corn instead. What I did was kick it off about 10PM the night before and actually got around to brewing about 9AM the next morning. When I got up, I could smell the stuff cooking and as you would expect it had darkened up a bit. Because I was making an ESB I don't see that as a problem and in fact might be really good however if I was doing a lighter beer that might not be so desirable. Next time I try this (and I will for sure do it again) I'll put the slow cooker on a timer and maybe go for 3 hours.
I can definately see applications for this technique beyond just adding corn to beer. I know some some of you guys add all kinds of wierd shit (yeah, I talking to you Barrett) to beer and if it needs to be cooked first this might be a real big time saver. Pumpkin comes immediately to mind but I'm sure there are many other starchy adjuncts that would benefit from this treatment and save a ton of time and effort on brewday. The other obvious application would be doing mini decoctions. I could see adding a pound or so of milled grain to brewing water then letting it go for awhile while you sleep. Anyhow, I will continue to mess with this as adjunct additions are common in retro American styles (like Ballentines XXX pale ale, Ballentines IPA and pre-prohibition Cream Ales) and I sometimes like to screw around with beers like that. Also worth noting; the new styles guidelines will allow for some new styles with fairly heavy adjunct additions and I personally plan to try and make a few of these beers. As usual with anything I come up with, YMMV.
Actually cooking pumpkin in the oven at 350F for an hour is good. I believe it gives a slight caramelization to the edges of the pumpkin halves on the cookie sheet. I am sure cooking in a slow cooker would work but not sure you would get the same flavor.
I like the thought of cooking the corn in the slow cooker.
