Since 1870 we’ve lived and breathed malting. With this passion and expertise, and by combining traditional and modern techniques, we create an impressive range of malted and non-malted products, including several unique and exclusive barley malts.
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Corn has been a brewhouse staple for centuries. Here’s why modern craft brewers are reaching for it again.
Maize has a long history in the brewhouse. American brewers working with high-protein six-row barley long relied on corn to dilute proteins, lighten color, and improve drinkability. These practical solutions have shaped some of the most widely consumed lager styles worldwide. This tradition continues with Crisp’s Flaked Torrefied Maize.
The maize begins as degermed grits, sourced primarily from France, with additional supply drawn from South America. Degerming, the process that removes the germ and bran from the kernel, is a critical first step.
“The processing is extremely important to keep that oil level down,” says Andrew Shentall, Managing Director at MFP. “Increased oil levels are not what brewers are looking for.”
By reducing oil content to less than 1%, degerming protects head retention in the finished beer while producing clean, consistent grits typically 2–3mm in diameter. Along with low oil content, Crisp’s product is non-GMO, sourced from regions where non-GM maize is the norm, a meaningful differentiator for brewers who prioritize clean-label ingredients.
Once the degermed grits arrive at the facility, they move through a rapid two-stage process that transforms raw cereal into a brewery-ready adjunct. The grits travel along a heated steel conveyor beneath gas-fired infrared burners, cooking from both above and below for roughly 60–80 seconds. They then fall directly into a pair of heavy flaking rolls, each weighing approximately 1.5 tonnes, which flatten them to about 0.2mm thick.
“You’ve got three tonnes of steel coming together, driven by 55 kilowatts of power,” says Shentall. “All that energy is pushed into that little tiny grit.”
The combination of heat and mechanical force breaks down the cell walls, gelatinizes the starches, and makes the maize’s nutrients fully available for brewing. It effectively replaces what would otherwise require a dedicated cereal cooker and 60 minutes of boiling. The team has been refining this process since the late 1960s, a depth of experience reflected in the consistency of the finished product.
The result is a thin, pre-gelatinized flake ready to go straight into the mash without milling or additional cooking. Typical extract runs 328 L°/kg (IoB) or 86.5% on both EBC and ASBC scales, with moisture capped at 8.5%. The product carries no enzyme activity of its own. Still, its contributions to the grist are considerable: lightened color, diluted protein, improved clarity, and a smooth, coating mouthfeel that enhances drinkability.
It’s also naturally gluten-free, a quality that opens the door to applications well beyond conventional lager brewing. Distillers can put it to work as well. Unlike raw maize, pre-cooking is unnecessary, making it also a practical ingredient for bourbon-style whisky production.
For brewers new to the product, a few practical points are worth knowing from the outset. First, bypass the mill. The flakes are higher in moisture than standard malt and will stick to the rollers.
“You can just throw it straight into the vessel, and it’ll work,” says Mike Benson, Brewing Sales Team Manager at Crisp Malt. “It’s a nice, easy product to use.”
Usage rates up to 25% are typical without significant issues. Because the product carries no diastatic power and will dilute free amino nitrogen (FAN) in the grist, brewers should ensure sufficient enzymatic activity from the rest of their grain bill. Pairing high percentages of maize with low-enzyme base malts like Munich or Vienna is asking for trouble.
At elevated rates, the huskless flakes can also compact the filter bed. Rice hulls help considerably, as does the addition of exogenous enzymes for breweries running high proportions of non-malted adjuncts.
The product also pairs well alongside Flaked Torrefied Rice, with the rice contributing a clean, crisp finish and the maize adding smoothness and roundness. Learn more about brewing with Flaked Torrefied Rice in our companion guide.
At modest usage rates, Flaked Torrefied Maize contributes relatively little detectable flavor, which is precisely the point for many brewers. It lightens the body and color while adding what Mike Benson describes as a “cornic smoothness” that coats the palate and rounds out the finish.
“The feedback we always get back is smoothness and drinkability,” he says. “It just helps improve both.”
At higher rates, a corn flake-like sweetness becomes more pronounced, an entirely appropriate character in styles like Mexican lagers where that note is part of the profile. The key, as Stephanie Brindley, Technical Sales Manager at Crisp Malt, explains, is knowing what you’re aiming for.
“For something like a Mexican lager, you want that corn character to shine through,” she says. “But you can also use it purely to dial back color and add mouthfeel, and the corn flavor won’t dominate.”
Flaked Torrefied Maize is ideal in lager styles, including continental lagers, Mexican lagers, pre-Prohibition lagers, cold IPAs, and hoppy lagers. However, its versatility extends beyond these. American cream ales, low-alcohol beers, traditional British ales, and gluten-free recipes all benefit from what it brings to the grist. Crisp offers two recipe starting points on their website: a Pre-Prohibition Lager and a Low Gluten Pale Ale.
The feedback from brewers who use Flaked Torrefied Maize tells a consistent story: versatile, reliable, and genuinely useful across a wide range of contexts.
At Fierce Beer, Production Coordinator Liam McRobb reaches for it in their Mexican lager. “It lightens body and color while adding a subtle corn-like sweetness and helps keep our beer light and crushable,” he says.
Miranda Hudson at Duration Brewery found it through necessity, a cost-effective adjunct for their American Light Lager that turned out to deliver on quality, too. “We found it to be very consistent and great to work with. Unlike oats or richer grains, it doesn’t gum up the lauter,” she says. The beer it anchors now accounts for 25% of Duration’s annual production.
At St. Austell Brewery, Head Brewer Barnaby Skerrett has relied on it for years in Korev Lager, a Gold medal winner at the International Small Pack Awards and a multiple-time medalist at both the Beer Bottlers’ Institute and the World Beer Awards. “We come back to this product again and again because of its dependable characteristics,” he says. “It delights our brewers and our customers.”
For Keith Robertson at Bellfield Brewery, founded specifically to brew gluten-free beer, Flaked Torrefied Maize is foundational. “Flaked maize, along with rice, oats, and buckwheat, has been essential in achieving our goal of using the highest possible proportion of naturally gluten-free raw materials,” Robertson says. Bellfield compensates for the huskless grist with rice hulls and exogenous enzymes, a process adaptation that Robertson now considers routine. “By learning to work with ingredients like flaked maize, I’ve learned new skills I may never have developed otherwise.”
Whether you are brewing a light lager, building a gluten-free recipe, or just looking for a reliable tool to improve smoothness and drinkability, Flaked Torrefied Maize provides the flexibility you need without adding complexity to the brewing process.
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