Beer Term ‘O the Day: Cereal mash. Rice and oatmeal don’t go through the first step of malting, so what you do is cook them first… When you touch or bite uncooked rice, you can feel it’s hard to bite through the outer shell… when you cook it, however, it becomes really soft…. well just like you, the enzymes will have a hard time getting through the shell of uncooked rice, but once you cook it, the starches inside become accessible… the same goes for oatmeal, corn, flaked corn, and other similar adjuncts…
When you first cook an adjunct to make its starches more accessible and then add it to the main mash, you call that a cereal mash… also known as adjunct mash…
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James Visger lives in Clarksville, TN, he’s a BJCP beer judge, has a lovely wife named Jami, and is president of The Clarksville Carboys. Rumors that he rides wild boars through the streets of Clarksville at 3 in the morning are untrue… mostly.