sugar and water wash..

[Antaean]

I have been wondering after some of the reading I have done about using sweet feed, corn, barley etc..... I understand the process of cooking corn, then using barley to turn the corn starch into sugar....but I have read that if you cook corn, then add sugar and yeast you are just adding flavor with the corn.

So the question I have now is what happens if you just heat up the water, add sugar while easy to dissolve. Then pitch the yeast at the proper temp? Sounds simple enough, but will something be missing? Or will it work and just not have any flavor?