Three Crops Experiment

6 weeks ago did this light beer experiment. 3 BIAB batches

1) 6lb Maris Otter
2) 4lb Maris Otter, 28oz box minute rice
3) 4lb Maris Otter, 2lb corn

All 3 mashed at 151 for 1hr in 2.5 gals of RO + CaCl for mash ph of 5.3
Dunk sparged
All 3 60 min boils, with 1oz Willamette @30 mins remaining
All 3 S-05

After boil, the corn and rice collected 4 gals @ 1.040. The "MO only" had to water down slightly to get it to 1.040 so about 4.5 gals.

3 weeks undisturbed in primary side by side in the low/mid 60's
FG was 1.005 on the MO only. 1.004 on the other two. Bottled with table sugar solution to prime.

3 weeks later:
Corn is left, MO in middle, Rice on right

They are all a pleasant dry light beer very similar, no noticeable off smells or flavors. Mild aroma, lacking flavor but quite refreshing. I would grab one of these over a BMC any day.

The differences between the three to my amateur palette:

Corn has a creamy head that lasts till the beer is gone, rice none whatsoever, MO about what you get from a budweiser.

Blind aroma test, Not much...whats there is lightly bready and bit floral. I can not differentiate between the MO only, and the corn. The rice one had slightly less aroma.

The other two tasted a bit watered down compared to MO only. But the taste are basically identical. No other flavors I can detect from the corn or rice outside of the malt/hops.

Mouthfeel rice I think being just a bit drier than the others, maybe just very slightly higher carbonation giving that effect though.

 

Interesting experiment.

Im wondering what kind of corn you used and how you prepared it? Flaked?

I just did a low OG batch with 1.5 lbs of corn and .5 lbs of rice. The corn was cracked corn, not flaked. Instead of a true 'cereal mash' with 2 row, I just cooked it for about an hour until it was all big gelatinous mess. My numbers came in right where anticipated.

 

Yeah flaked corn from the LHBS.

All in all, not very exciting results, the thing I conclude is I don't think Miller/Bud using corn vs rice is causing much flavor differences. I think most likely the major flavor differences coming from somewhere else like different malt, yeast strain, water, ferment temps, etc.