corn sugar

I'm wondering if anyone can share recipe formulation tips for using corn sugar as a significant part of a recipe (by that I mean to add at boiling time, not as bottling time food for the yeast to produce carbonation).

My motivation is a) I do like some of the commercial beers that use corn as an adjunct (Stella Artois, Yeungling Lager, Shiner Bock, etc) so I thought I might try doing something along those lines, and b) I've switched to kegging, and so no longer use the 5oz packets of corn sugar that come with the Midwest kits I've been buying. So I thought I might try brewing something using some of that sugar.

So far about all I've found talking about it was a comment that "too much" leads to a dry winey effect - Papazian also says this can happen if you exceed 20% in a recipe.

Any comments about experiences using corn sugar are welcome.

I'd like to help, but I only use corn sugar in my Apfelwein, and that's to boost the alcohol content.

All my beers are brewed in accordance to the Reinheitsgebot (German Beer Purity Law from 1516). Only water, malt & hops go in my beers.

Apfelwein would make good use of those sugar packets and I'd bet you would enjoy it.

EdWort said:

All my beers are brewed in accordance to the Reinheitsgebot (German Beer Purity Law from 1516). Only water, malt & hops go in my beers.

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What about yeast?

There are some high gravity beers (IIPAs, etc.) that call for about a pound of corn sugar.
An example:
http://beerdujour.com/Recipes/Jamil/Mike_McDole_-_Pliny_The_Elder_NB_Kicker.html

dcunitedfan said:

My motivation is a) I do like some of the commercial beers that use corn as an adjunct (Stella Artois, Yeungling Lager, Shiner Bock, etc) so I thought I might try doing something along those lines

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Using corn sugar will not give you what you are looking for as it doesn't have the same flavor influences as brewing with corn itself.

Corn sugar is purely to add alcohol content or to prime the bottles. it really has no other purpose. it ferments out completely and would taste like crap if it didn't IMO.

Beerrific said:

What about yeast?

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Yeast? What's yeast? Apparently it was not important back in 1516. Actually it was know known back then to be an intregarl part of beer making. We can thank Louie Pasteur and his work for our fantastic obsession.

Oh well.... if the end result is a diluted flavor beer, what's the point. I take it you use flaked Maize grain instead? Is there an extract version of this, or am I SOL until I go to all grain?

I guess I may end up trading/giving away the sugar. My Mom likes hard cider and I got her into homebrewing that (not too bad by the 3rd batch) so maybe she'll want to try Apfelwein.

Thanks for the answers!

Do a small partial mash so you can use flaked maize. Here's a real easy way without any extra equipment, if you like it you could get/make some specialized equipment or just keep doing it that way until you go all grain. Give this a try.

Heat 3.75 qts of water to ~168/169F in a pot.
Heat a gallon of water to ~170 in another pot.
Add 2lb. of 2-Row and 1lb. of Flaked Maize to a grain bag, add the grain bag to the 168/169F water and stir very throughly.
Put lid on that pot, placed in oven at 150F.
Let it sit for an hour.
Pour the water (now wort) into your brew pot.

Pour the 170F water into the empty pot where your grain bag is, stir throughly, let sit for 10 mins. Pour that wort into your brew pot.

You'll get 50-60% efficiency with that partial mash method.

Add additional water, extract, and hops to the brew pot and proceed like usual.

dcunitedfan said:

Oh well.... if the end result is a diluted flavor beer, what's the point. I take it you use flaked Maize grain instead? Is there an extract version of this, or am I SOL until I go to all grain?

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In some beers adding a pound of corn sugar won't dilute the beer if it is built to have this sugar there (adding specialty grains etc.).

Were you talking about the recipe I linked to? You can easily convert that and most recipes to extract.

No, I didn't have a specific target beer in mind as of yet, I just have had this vague idea for some time that I wanted to try a corn lager, and the accumulation of corn sugar seemed like a means to an end.

I might try the mini-mash step with a recipe using flaked maize instead, and trade/give away the corn sugar. Or just use it. Anyway, thanks all for the suggestions!

(Off topic but I just kegged my first Irish Stout, a fairly stock recipe kit (from Midwest) and it turned out pretty well. I'm a lot happier with my results now that I finally learned from my competion scoresheets and strain the hops out pouring into the primary - the days of "too astringent and too hoppy" seem to be a thing of the past!)

I think I recall the limit for using CS is 20% of the grain bill.

Any more than that will produce a cidery beer.