what is brewers sugar and is it better?

[steve thailand]

hi again

i've been poking around the web for info on home brewing and i notice the kits can use either normal white sugar or brewers sugar which i think is glucose right?

what, if any, is the advantage to using brewers sugar?

BTW, i'm making bitter

thanks, steve

[OldSpeckledBadger]

Yes brewers sugar is glucose. The advantage of using it over house-hold sugar (sucrose) is that sucrose can impart a tang to the beer which brewers sugar doesn't do.

[steve thailand]

would glucose come under another name? i can't buy brewers sugar here but maybe glucose is available under another name? we can get liquid sugar cane juice, is that glucose?

[steve thailand]

i can probably find corn sugar. is that usually a liquid or granules?

[boingy]

You used to be able to get glucose in both liquid and dry form at chemists. I've no idea whether you still can, or whether this was ever the case in Thailand.

[Mogwyth]

You used to be able to get glucose in both liquid and dry form at chemists. I've no idea whether you still can, or whether this was ever the case in Thailand.

You still can get glucose syrup from the chemist, but in the UK anyway its blooming expensive a kilo will set you back about about a £10, clear corn syrup is a good substitute and much cheaper.

[mickhew]

Steve, even better to user SPRAYMALT as a direct replacment for the sugar, will taste much better. Although I realise you're not in the U.K, so getting hold of some might be a problem.

[nickliv]

By direct repacement do you mean 1 KG spraymalt = 1 KG sugar, and treat it the same as sugar?

Cheers

Nick

[OldSpeckledBadger]

By direct repacement do you mean 1 KG spraymalt = 1 KG sugar, and treat it the same as sugar?

Yes.

[Ditch]

Just to add; Ye won't get the same 'strength' of beer, using SM ~ it doesn't break down so completely as sugar, in fermentation. But it's a trade off. Flavour, body etc Vs Loopy Juice effect.

Don't worry though. It's not a completely and simply inverse relationship. Beer made with just sugar is more likely to taste like bile ~ but get ye smashed ~ than beer made with just SM is to taste fantastic, but Not get ye smashed. Does that make sense?

Put simply; I'd rather drink five pints of Great (SM based) beer, then start burbling. Alternative, perhaps, being to down three pints of mediocre (sugar based) stuff, then start burbling.

Round about way of twisting ye own question then; 'Which is better? Getting wrecked? Or taking a bit more time / beer to get wrecked ~ but enjoying the path more?




Sod it. I'm wrecked! You decide!

[GabrielKnight]

Re: what is brewers sugar and is it better?

New postby OldSpeckledBadger on Sun Apr 05, 2009 10:10 pm

nickliv wrote:By direct repacement do you mean 1 KG spraymalt = 1 KG sugar, and treat it the same as sugar?

Reply:

Yes.




I'm trying out 'Munton's Beerkit Enhancer' which is spraymalt with dextrose. What exactly is spraymalt please? At over £4 a kilo, its almost 3 times the price.

[mattfuzzy]

spraymalt (someone please correct me if im wrong) is spray dried malt extract, in which (id guess) the brewers semi boiled the grains to extract the malt/sugars, then evaporated the water off, and finnished drying the powder by spraying it through the air in a controlled room/tank/area.

as i said someone please correct me if im wrong, as i know this is the drying process with alot of protein powders (bodybuilding)

also 1kg spraydried malt extract (Dry Malt Extract - DME) is the same as 1.5kg of liquid malt extract (LME) as stated in the extract button at the top of the page, though id guess gram for gram you can use sugar/malt extract powders in the same way.

to add, i personaly would never use sugar over malt extracts unless i were to do a lager (and even on the one i just did, i didnt use it) mabe something to do with the 20% sugar water (dextrose) i made in an attempt for cheap alcohol years ago, never again, id prefer crap absinthe at 90% to do shots with over 20% sugar water.