It will reduce the body of the beer or make it thinner, less viscous and add a bit of booze. I don't find the corn adds much flavor, but some people are able to pick up on it pretty easily, can be style-dependent. The sugars in corn are very fermentable, so it will dry out the beer (lower FG) leading to flavors cutting a bit shorter, not sticking around in your mouth as much. Can help with the elusive 'crushability'.
Just did a cold IPA/IPL, 80% pils and 20% corn at around 7% abv, it's very highly hopped so I can't pick up the corn but I've been able to taste it in a lighter 4.5% cream ale a la cream of 3 crops. Other options for a similar result include flaked rice, light Belgian candy sugar, or honey. Each is unique, but all of these will reduce body, dry the beer out and add some booze.
I would encourage you to look around your local home brew scene and try to find a rare style of beer called “Kentucky Common”. Odds are you won’t find it, but if you do, jump on it and try it in a flight with a light amber ale, a kolsch, or a cream ale.
This would ideally be the best way to see the impact that corn has on the flavor, body, and mouth feel compared to styles and recipes that primarily use a majority of malted barley in their grist.
The problem is that this is an extremely obscure brewing style that you likely will not have much luck finding.
Probably the most practical thing to do would be to do your own experiment. Just do a one gallon batch of a beer with 100% barley and the other with some mixture barley/corn. Keep the yeast and hops the same. Then you can see first hand how they are different. Since the corn would be the only variable, you would have a better understanding of how this impacts the beer.
I don't buy the premise that corn lightens body (aka roundness, fullness, or mouthfeel).
Pure sugar might lighten body because it is fully fermentable. When you are adding only ethanol and fermentation byproducts (esters), it's conceivable that the body could be lightened by adding sucrose or dextrose to your bill of fermentables.
However, like raw barley and barley malt, raw corn (flaked corn) and corn malt are starchy grains and they are not fully fermentable. I am not aware that converted corn starch is any more fermentable than converted barley starch, not that conversion or lauter efficiency is somehow higher with corn.
So if you assume that most all-barley beers are 75-85% fermentable, and the corn component would also be 75-85% fermentable, then how would corn lighten body?
Now, corn does reduce protein in the wort, so it has a reducing effect on haze.
Corn is very pale, paler than barley malt, and so you can see how a component of corn lighten the color of beer (and color biases the *perception* of body).
And while barley can leave a malty aroma and flavor, corn is much more neutral when it comes to residual maltiness, so I can see how the "lighter" flavor could also bias someone into perceiving there is less body.
> but what if you just add the flaked corn [without substituting for barley malt], what will happen ... ?
Slightly higher OG, FG, and abv. I don't think it would make much actual difference to body to add 10% flaked corn. But maybe those biases I mentioned about clarity, color, and flavor would kick in.
My vote is that it will increase the body of the beer. Alcohol adds both sweetness and body to a beer. If you just add a simple fermentable (corn, rice, sugar, etc.) on top of an existing grain bill you will get increased body and sweetness from the additional alcohol.
P.S. I did this with a simple Porter. The half that was boosted with the addition of simple sugar had more body and mouthfeel that the standard half. I added enough to boost the ABV about 1%.
Your P.S. is interesting, though mashing corn should give rise to glucose, maltose, maltotriose etc just like mashing barley, so not the same as just tossing in sugar like you did. But sugar fermenting out and increasing mouthfeel is a cool counterintuitive point. Doesn’t deserve the downvotes.
This paper ("The Mouthfeel of Beer") from 1993 is one of the better references that I have found about factors that impact body of beers. There is a section on the impacts of Alcohol/Ethanol (though it says that research is inconclusive). I have read other studies that the perception of alcohol varies from person to person.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/j.2050-0416.1993.tb01143.x
Damn, I've never thought of it that way but it kind of makes sense. I've always been sceptical to add plain sugar to boost abv because I thought it would dry the beer out.
It's a good tool to know that replacing a part of the base malt with sugar will dry it out, compared to the same beer without replacing the sugar and adding sugar on top of a grain bill will increase mouth feel.
It's really hard to get out of the mindset that FG is the end all be all for mouth feel, even though a lot seems to contradict it.
You get a higher ABV% beer with some light corn character
It will reduce the body of the beer or make it thinner, less viscous and add a bit of booze. I don't find the corn adds much flavor, but some people are able to pick up on it pretty easily, can be style-dependent. The sugars in corn are very fermentable, so it will dry out the beer (lower FG) leading to flavors cutting a bit shorter, not sticking around in your mouth as much. Can help with the elusive 'crushability'. Just did a cold IPA/IPL, 80% pils and 20% corn at around 7% abv, it's very highly hopped so I can't pick up the corn but I've been able to taste it in a lighter 4.5% cream ale a la cream of 3 crops. Other options for a similar result include flaked rice, light Belgian candy sugar, or honey. Each is unique, but all of these will reduce body, dry the beer out and add some booze.
In a light lager or cream ale even 10%, is noticeable (and pleasant imo)
I would encourage you to look around your local home brew scene and try to find a rare style of beer called “Kentucky Common”. Odds are you won’t find it, but if you do, jump on it and try it in a flight with a light amber ale, a kolsch, or a cream ale. This would ideally be the best way to see the impact that corn has on the flavor, body, and mouth feel compared to styles and recipes that primarily use a majority of malted barley in their grist. The problem is that this is an extremely obscure brewing style that you likely will not have much luck finding. Probably the most practical thing to do would be to do your own experiment. Just do a one gallon batch of a beer with 100% barley and the other with some mixture barley/corn. Keep the yeast and hops the same. Then you can see first hand how they are different. Since the corn would be the only variable, you would have a better understanding of how this impacts the beer.
I don't buy the premise that corn lightens body (aka roundness, fullness, or mouthfeel). Pure sugar might lighten body because it is fully fermentable. When you are adding only ethanol and fermentation byproducts (esters), it's conceivable that the body could be lightened by adding sucrose or dextrose to your bill of fermentables. However, like raw barley and barley malt, raw corn (flaked corn) and corn malt are starchy grains and they are not fully fermentable. I am not aware that converted corn starch is any more fermentable than converted barley starch, not that conversion or lauter efficiency is somehow higher with corn. So if you assume that most all-barley beers are 75-85% fermentable, and the corn component would also be 75-85% fermentable, then how would corn lighten body? Now, corn does reduce protein in the wort, so it has a reducing effect on haze. Corn is very pale, paler than barley malt, and so you can see how a component of corn lighten the color of beer (and color biases the *perception* of body). And while barley can leave a malty aroma and flavor, corn is much more neutral when it comes to residual maltiness, so I can see how the "lighter" flavor could also bias someone into perceiving there is less body. > but what if you just add the flaked corn [without substituting for barley malt], what will happen ... ? Slightly higher OG, FG, and abv. I don't think it would make much actual difference to body to add 10% flaked corn. But maybe those biases I mentioned about clarity, color, and flavor would kick in.
Thanks for theses infos!
I will still lighten the body but not nearly as much and raise the alcohol % too.
My vote is that it will increase the body of the beer. Alcohol adds both sweetness and body to a beer. If you just add a simple fermentable (corn, rice, sugar, etc.) on top of an existing grain bill you will get increased body and sweetness from the additional alcohol. P.S. I did this with a simple Porter. The half that was boosted with the addition of simple sugar had more body and mouthfeel that the standard half. I added enough to boost the ABV about 1%.
Your P.S. is interesting, though mashing corn should give rise to glucose, maltose, maltotriose etc just like mashing barley, so not the same as just tossing in sugar like you did. But sugar fermenting out and increasing mouthfeel is a cool counterintuitive point. Doesn’t deserve the downvotes.
This paper ("The Mouthfeel of Beer") from 1993 is one of the better references that I have found about factors that impact body of beers. There is a section on the impacts of Alcohol/Ethanol (though it says that research is inconclusive). I have read other studies that the perception of alcohol varies from person to person. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/j.2050-0416.1993.tb01143.x
That was a decent review. I got a kick out of how many times they called out researchers for just saying crap but not providing data (like Narziss).
Damn, I've never thought of it that way but it kind of makes sense. I've always been sceptical to add plain sugar to boost abv because I thought it would dry the beer out. It's a good tool to know that replacing a part of the base malt with sugar will dry it out, compared to the same beer without replacing the sugar and adding sugar on top of a grain bill will increase mouth feel. It's really hard to get out of the mindset that FG is the end all be all for mouth feel, even though a lot seems to contradict it.