Cheapest adjunct

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After a number of reports objecting to some aspects in this thread, I've sanitised it with some minor editing, although LRG was quite happy to leave it as it was.

Let's keep the thread on topic on adjuncts, whether cheap arse or not.

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I think the whole point of this thread is not necessarily make the cheapest beer with adjuncts but to reduce the cost of a beer with adjuncts without going stupid.In other words, using adjuncts to lower the cost without lowering a decent beer outcome and possibly even using adjuncts to explore new styles.

Sugar would be the cheapest but does thin out the beer a fair bit, However, most commercial Australian beer has sugar used in the recipe. I like rice but then I go out of my way to buy the best Thai Jasmine rice which imparts its own special flavour in light lagers
 
$12 for a 500mL bottle aint cheap? How much of it do you use in a single brew?

When I use it, I usually use close to 2 bottles, fed gradually to 20L of Belgian quad. Might use 1 in a dubbel. I don't consider $24 for the rough liquid equivalent of 1 kg sugar cheap but as mentioned, the cheapness or lack thereof is not really considered either. If it was a must ingredient in every single beer as opposed to a special annual brew that gets aged for 1-2 years, I might approach it differently.

Or not.
 
Sugar would be the cheapest but does thin out the beer a fair bit, However, most commercial Australian beer has sugar used in the recipe. I like rice but then I go out of my way to buy the best Thai Jasmine rice which imparts its own special flavour in light lagers

I had a Tooheys New glass that my daughter broke the other day. Poured a good beer too, was most upset.

It said as the ingredients for their beer "malt, yeast, water, hops and cane sugar". Not saying Tooheys New is a great beer, but they think it adds enough to make it worth printing on a glass with some etched pic of can sugar.
 
I've been researching resistant starch .

Eating more resistant starch feeds healthy gut bacteria helping with weight loss, improved insulin resistance, colonic health, firmer erections, greater likelihood of winning Powerball etc.
Raw potato starch is apparently the magic bullet in supplying resistant starch, together with other methods like eating sushi rice and more legumes.
So I bought a pack of potato starch from a health food shop.
potato starch.jpg

But on calling the company they said that the particular product isn't resistant as they use heat in the processing, making it just plain old starch.
I was going to bin it, but instead I'll use it tomorrow as an adjunct in an Irish Stout with a high diastatic base malt (BB). Irish and potato, can't go wrong.

My stronger dry stouts tend to end up a bit FES -ish so hopefully the 'taters will dry it out nicely.

Luck of the Irish
Dry Stout

Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L): 22.0
Total Grain (kg): 4.800
Total Hops (g): 25.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.050 (°P): 12.4
Final Gravity (FG): 1.013 (°P): 3.3
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 4.91 %
Colour (SRM): 34.6 (EBC): 68.2
Bitterness (IBU): 38.8 (Average)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 74
Boil Time (Minutes): 60

Grain Bill
----------------
3.500 kg Base Barrett Burston Pilsener (72.92%)
0.500 kg Black Roasted Barley (10.42%)
0.400 kg Potato starch (8.33%)
0.400 kg Weyermann Vienna (8.33%)

Hop Bill
----------------
25.0 g Dr Rudi Pellet (12% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (1.1 g/L)

Single step Infusion at 66°C for 60 Minutes.
Fermented at 21°C with WLP090 - San Diego Super Yeast


Recipe Generated with BrewMate
 
You will get excommunicated! That potato starch is like $9/kg, twice the price of the best malt on the market.
Hardly the "Cheapest adjunct"...
Mark
 
Was going to bin it anyway, so for a one off...
Hey it just struck me that the middle footballer in my icon is the spitting image of Daniel Craig
 
Mardoo- you can still get Bundaberg Golden syrup at IGA. I'm with you in that it has a far superior flavour to the CSR stuff.

Adjuncts I've used in my brewing (and love for both the taste and science of it):
- Cane sugar by far the cheapest at approx 75c/kg. I used to use when I was a K&K brewer for the cheapness, but now use 10-15% in aussie lagers.
- Quick oats. When on sale, you can get these for $1.32/kg. You can't make an oatmeal stout without them.
- Rice. We buy the 5kg bags of Basmati rice when they're 1/2 price for cooking, so that works out to $1.60/kg. I love this in asian rice lagers, as do my non brewing friends that i've given it to.
- Polenta. Unfortunately I don't have access to a cheap supply and had to get it from a health food shop (thereby paying more than I did per kg for the malt.......). Mine worked out to be about $5.50/Kg, and I like the flavour in a Classic American Pilsner.

None of these beers were brewed for cheapness, but if I was asked to bring a keg of something to a party for people that just wanted "beer", i'd make a rice pilsner- 1kg Rice ($1.60), 4kg Pils ($12), 33g Saaz ($2.33), recycled yeast. 1x keg of beer, $16.
 
Used icing sugar once to bump up OG a couple points when nothing else was in the cupboard - the beer turned out great.
 
My Luck of the Irish potato stout is in the mash right now. Will report.

I noticed the local health shop was selling flaked barley so I bought a kilo, took it home, opened my spec malts bin and there was another kilo from CB. Boy am I going to be sick of stouts by Xmas.
 
Have used the flaked barley in milk stouts with great success. Stouts? I went mad and have near on 200 odd longnecks stored away, aged 3 to 5 years. ( milk stouts, chocolate, Guinness style, RIS, oatmeal, dark roasted Irish, oak barrel stout milk stout, and some others. Mostly BIAB) I've been
" decanting" in to my 4l mini keg, just great.
 

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