Flaked Corn Shelf Life

[thatguy314]

I bought some flaked corn a while ago, and I'm not sure if it's good. It doesn't have a rancid smell, but I've heard that it spoils pretty quickly.

How long should I expect it to last, and are there any particular signs of it going off?

[speed]

i just used some last month that i had for a year, it didn't smell bad so i used it. so far the beer tasted good going in the keg, will try it in a month or so, its a lager.

[Cliff]

I do not follow the notion that freshness in toasted flaked or malted grains is a viable issue. If the grains are less than some god awful age I'll use 'em.
Flaked corn is not used for flavor but for sugar and to lighten the beer. So unless it's got bugs you can use it.
Hell, unless the grain has bugs I'll use it.

I could be mistaken, but I say that Freshness is about two things: Spoilage and volatiles. ya gotta use it before it rots starts to decompose from internal enzymes or is attacked by pests. And ya gotta use before all the wonderful flavors flash off and float away into the air - those are the volatiles.

Hops have freshness issues; Grains, not so much.


Think about the processing and shipment issues in any of these products. It's not like fruit. They are harvested stored communally till the harvest from all the area farms are in then shipped to a distributor who sells it off to different tertiary processors who hold it for unknowable periods and in our case they friggin wet it, sprout it (malt it) , and toast it. the toasting will knock a lot of the volatiles out of it. So by the time we get it it's not at all like the fresh grains from the farm.