brewing with corn and rice

I don't think they taste like crap. I simply think they don't taste much like much of anything, which is why I avoid them: I like beers that taste like something--preferably something nice like malt or hops.

Because they are a cheap source of starch which, if handled properly, are largely neutral with respect to flavor. Since they sell their product to people who want flavorless beer, and they want to make a maximum profit, corn/rice starch is the perfect solution for them.

There are no amylase enzymes in the corn and rice adjuncts. The enzymes present in whatever portion of barley malt they use are sufficient to convert the starch from the corn or rice into fermentable sugars.

Your question is complicated by wrong assumptions. First, I doubt the people who gripe about "the taste of rice in beer" are actually griping about the taste of rice in beer. They are either griping about the lack of any taste, or they are griping about some other off-flavor in the beer that has nothing to do with rice (for example, the "green apple" flavor alleged to be in Budweiser, which is a fermentation byproduct from the strain of yeast they use). Second, while saki *might* be technically considered beer (as it is the product of fermented grain), the process is very different, and the flavors produced are very different. Saki tastes nothing like Budweiser.

Both.

Actually, it's not. I've had beers with quite a bit of corn that's been very, very good. Look for brewpubs or craft breweries selling something under a style called pre-Prohibition lager, and you'll see what I'm talking about.

There used to be a reason that pretty much required it. Six-row barley was the common barley in N. America, and it was not a grain that lent itself to easy mashing. Corn was abundant, cheap, and helped provide a better chemical composition that made for more complete mashing so the resulting beer wasn't too heavy or cloying.

Corn and rice are simple starches. All sorts of sugar potential in there.

There's nothing magically good or bad about any ingredient. It's all in how you use it. Many British breweries use a bit of corn (or maize if you're actually British) in their beers. They don't suck. I mentioned American examples that don't suck. Miller once brewed an all-barley beer (Miller Reserve) that sucked. It's not the ingredients, it's the recipes. Many beer geeks have mistakenly concluded that adjunct grains are bad, because Bud, Miller and Coors use them.

Those beers are bad because of their lack of flavor and lowest-common-denominator approach. They're not bad because of the ingredients they choose.

-STeve

Cheap filler..........cost cutter.......

They can be, but they don't have to be. And just as basmati rice can be more than a starchy filler in delicious rice dishes, so can well-used rice add to a beer. I just don't think it's nice to talk about grains that way.

Fred

I have never been tempted to use corn or rice but have read about people who have taken good average abv recipes and jacked them up using honey. sounds like good clean fun to me.

I think my choice is made, time to look for a good pre-prohibition lager.

nothing at all wrong with them, inexpensive ingredients to up the alcohol, Miller and Bud have made $billions using little more than that

and if pissing in the vats upped the alcohol they'd do that too :-)