Homebrew Beer Blog

I got some corn syrup over here a little while ago and recently kegged up a batch. The deal with this syrup is it supposedly has a fermentability similar to wort. Unlike other adjuncts, it shouldn’t ferment out as far. Also, it shouldn’t affect flavor. So, it’s a way to lighten the color and flavor of a beer without hurting the body. And what makes this special from the grocery store stuff is it doesn’t have vanilla in it.

So, I made up a batch w/ 20% of the fermentable coming from the syrup for a 1.048 beer. That’s would seem to be a pretty good amount. The beer definitely was lighter in color, going from the typical light golden towards straw. It did ferment down a little more than if it was all-malt. I got about 82% efficiency where typically I’m around 75% w/ a 149 mash. So, not quite as expected, but I could probably raise the mash up a bit to compensate. 20% may or may not be a lot, but I’d think 10% might be a little more reasonable, which probably would get me in the ball park.

The beer is lighter in flavor and while the FG was lower, the body doesn’t really seem too watered down. I don’t think I can detect any flavor contribution from the syrup. I think this would make a nice yellow beer around the cream style. If I get to it, that would make a great summer ale come August.

Oh, and I picked the stuff up from Williams Homebrew at about $2/lb.