Cracked Corn?

[iskiebaedistillery]

Hello all, most of the brewing supply sources sell corn meal or flaked corn along with a premium price tag. Does anyone have a good source for cracked corn or whole corn? Thanks!

[Silk City Distillers]

For corn? The answer is almost always going to be "locally", as having to ship corn LTL is going to push the price up quite a bit. Just pick up the phone and start calling around. It might take you a dozen calls to find a good source, but it'll be worth it. In a pinch you can always try the local feed suppliers, generally they'll stock cracked, cleaned, and bagged. You'll pay a bit more than a bulk price, but if you only need a bit, the convenience might be worth it for you.

Isn't southern Minnesota in the heart of corn country?

[ebstauffer]

I cant fathom why you would using anything but corn for, well, corn. Here in Indiana we get it milled, bagged, and delivered for about 15 cents a pound.

[iskiebaedistillery]

Thanks for the replies.

James, I have called around a to some local farms, I will def be calling around more come time to buy. The small farm with the corn strain I was interested, said a distillery already purchased all of theirs. I guess im surprised that there is no "standard" as there is in barley because there are many varieties of corn which im guessing give off different flavors. Is using animal feed grade corn common? Are there varieties commonly used in whiskey grain profiles? There is a lot of corn being farmed in Minnesota, its seems many have contracts already sorted out with fuel producers or to sell as animal feed.

Ebstauffer, im not sure what you mean? All I am looking for is corn in sacks available in the cracked "grind" for lautering purposes. What kind of farm to you buy from at 15 cents a pound? Is the corn intended for animal feed?

[ebstauffer]

>> All I am looking for is corn in sacks available in the cracked "grind" for lautering purposes.

Unfortunately, that's never going to be possible. Once corn is gelled to make starch accessible, it's a pudding-like mess. Traditional / beer lautering methods simply won't work. As for corn, you need to know Indiana produces something like a billion bushels (seriously) of corn annually. Is it intended for animal feed? Well, yes, as is all corn that used in distilling. It's most likely #2 yellow dent corn some of which goes to the cows, some of which goes to making ethanol.

[Lenny]

You could lauter a mash with corn if it were a smaller percentage of a mostly malt grainbill with the addition of rice hulls and maybe some sort of liquefaction enzyeme. If you want to go majority corn, then as mentioned above, you might want to reconsider lautering.

Might be worth your while to reach out to James Beck at Cereal Byproducts (847-818-1550). He has a solid understanding of grains used in distilling and could help you source quantities of local corn or whatever else you might be after.

[iskiebaedistillery]

Hello ebstauffer and Lenny, thanks for the replies. I have been brewing beer for awhile now, and have used my home brew equipment with "bourbon" mashes to attempt to test mashing efficiencies and possible filter set ups. I will be using direct immersion electrical elements in the still, so I it will not be possible to distill on the grain and is why I will be lautering. I have yet to have trouble lautering the bourbon grain profiles. Granted, this is a much smaller scale and this is not a 100% corn whiskey, so the hulls in the mash do provide some structure for a grain bed. I would like to somewhat have a game plan for my mash tuns, as I am using converted dairy equipment, hence why I asked this question on sourcing cracked corn. The corn I used in this video is just from a farm supply store.

http://www.iskiebaedistillery.com/2015/12/28/iskie-bae-distillery-grain-filtersparge-arm-concept/

Thanks for the number Lenny, I will give him a call.

[bluestar]

There are two different broad varieties of yellow hard dent field corn: feed corn, which is higher in protein, and food-grade meal corn, which is higher in starch. The latter is preferable for distilling, just for the higher yields.

[iskiebaedistillery]

Thanks for the info! It seems like the food-grade farmers tend to be smaller farms and harder to find, have you found this to be true?

[bluestar]

Thanks for the info! It seems like the food-grade farmers tend to be smaller farms and harder to find, have you found this to be true?

We get ours from major mill that specializes in food grade corn. They are a major provider to food industry nationally. Proportion of corn varieties tends to vary by state.

[iskiebaedistillery]

Ok, sounds good, thanks for the info bluestar!