Roasting Grain

[@BeardedBored]

Nice, I hadn't even thought about that!

[@stillworksandbrewing]

I have found that roasting Hard dent corn adds a fantastic flavor

[@TheGrainBench]

It sure does. Yours looked fantastic.

[@StingerBeeCo]

I am very interested in how you roast your malted corn. I malt and kiln all my own grains for brewing and corn is next on my list

[@TheGrainBench]

I can shoot you a temp guide that I use. Depending on what flavor profile I'm going for I use different temps and durations. Basically if you already do Munich, Caramel, Chocolate, or Crystal then use same ranges you would use on a wheat or barley for that process. Just keep in mind that corn does tend to darken faster than a typical grain. So your times are a bit shorter. White, yellow, and most lighter varieties are close to what you are used to. Darker like a blue, black, or butcher you want to watch the times real close as they can go real fast. You almost have to time those by smell. Look for that jalapeño corn bread or fresh corn muffin smell then back it down some because your getting close. Bloody Butcher and Ruby Red will smell like jalapeño corn bread when it's about done due to the heavy starches and some residual sugars that occur during the malting process. Blue and Black will be sweet smelling like Honey corn muffins due to a higher anthocyanin levels which give it that berry sweet note. Yellow and white tend to remind me of making fresh corn tortillas or corn chips when they are about done with their roasting process. Let them air over night and vacuum seal them if not using them right away.

[@StingerBeeCo]

@@TheGrainBench I am malting yellow field corn right now, our neighbor gave me 120 pounds of it :) I also grew a bunch of bloody butcher this summer and I will be malting all of that next (maybe 15#) I use a kiln schedule from an old book that kiln masters at breweries used around 1890 (American Handy Book of the Brewing, Malting, and Auxiliary Trades) I always go for the lighter kilns such as what would be used for a pilsner. I start with a food dehydrator at 100 F and work my way to the "hottest" kiln at 185 F (for wheat and barley malts). I would love to see the temp guide you use as i can not find any guides on kilning corn. The book i use is free from the library of congress in pdf format.

[@TheGrainBench]

I'll put a few temp guides up on here for you right after Thanksgiving. That BB you grew sounds awesome. I have actually seen the book you mentioned. It is a very good read. I got a lot of good info on how our forefathers used to do it. Really good. There is also a good reference blog by Brewing Beer the Hard way. Ton of info. You can find him on KZbin. He has a link to his blog there in his channel description. He doesn't do much with corn but the temps and times are all good. On your yellow field corn I'd do exactly what you are describing. Keep the kiln temps low to retain the Diastatic Power of the Amylase. Take a look at my vid on the large air kiln. Easy build with a large cardboard box, a small space heater, and small desk fan from Walmart. Just stack some window screens in there with blocks or something to give room for Airflow and keep your temps below 140. Easy peasy. Take it to a pale or pilsner and you should be good to help that corn convert itself and make mashing easier. For the BB you can go higher to a caramel or chocolate for the flavor. No need to worry about the DP on it as it is an adjunct. If you take malted BB to a crystal or almost caramel you will pick up an iodine or metalic note that is really awesome. It lends itself to what we think of when drinking a non peated Scottish whisky. Really cool thing to get from corn.