Question

[lindsay_adcock]

Hi new to brewing and just want a clear answer into why malt extract is used for yeast to ferment with and not other sugars? i know is something to do with the nutrients and sugar leaves a cidery taste but just would like a clear answer thanks

lindsay

 

[damoninja]

Beer is made from barley not sugar h34r:

 

[damoninja]

Contrary to my 1 liner not a silly question, I don't think anyway... the kits tell you to add sugar so can't blame a person for not knowing!

Fundamentally beer is made from barley (primarily) and other grains such as wheat, rye, millet, sorghum, so on so on.

Malt extract is the extract from these grains, the goodness and essence of what you need to make beer beer. Nutshell, it gives you sugars that are both fermentable and not fermentable, fermentable makes alcohol, not fermentable gives you flavour and body.

Table sugar or dextrose ('brewing' sugar) will only give you alcohol, no flavour nor body. So imagine using 100% sugar, you've got 0 flavour!!! If you use 50% sugar 50% malt extract, you get 50% as much flavour as if you use malt instead of sugar.

It's not just just this simple but a basic summary and hope it helps

 

[Bribie G]

Some styles such as Australian standard lagers (VB, XXX.. ) use up to 30% cane sugar because that's historically a part of the style. And I don't detect anything cidery in VB or CD. Can't detect much at all of course but not cidery.

Many mainstream American beers use sugar in a different form, namely rice or maize, often up to 40%. During mashing these are converted to fermentable sugars. Again, part of the style and has been for nearly 150 years.

Sugar and Maize are used as a proportion of the fermentables in many Euro beers outside the German Reinheitsgebot area and most Asian lagers use a lot of rice. An example, Stella Artois proudly lists Water, Malted Barley, Maize and Hops as its ingredients. Leo lager (Thai) from Aldi praises its rice on the label.

On the global scale only a small proportion of beers are all-malt. I think personally the "all malt" mantra is a bit snobbish, a bit like a fish restaurant saying you can have the fish but we can't give you any chips. On the other hand you wouldn't expect a Japanese Sashimi restaurant to serve chips but fish would be aplenty.

It all depends on the style. However as damoninja says you wouldn't want too much sugar in the mix or it will turn out thin and nasty.

PS welcome aboard Lindsay - if using a kit, then rather than a kilo of sugar, a good way to is to use a kilo of Brew Enhancer 2

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

Some styles such as Australian standard lagers (VB, XXX.. ) use up to 30% cane sugar because that's historically a part of the style. And I don't detect anything cidery in VB or CD.

CUB use glucose syrup (dextrose syrup) derived from wheat starch or at least they used to, probably because it was actually cheaper than sugar as it's a byproduct from gluten production for bread improvers. Substituting sucrose syrup increased the pH drop during ferment so the beer had to brought back to spec by adding potassium carbonate.

Historically, sugar was expensive, one way of producing a sweet liquid was to allow barley to germinate* and extract it. Someone left theirs too long but were so desperate that they drank it anyway: the rest is history.

Royal Navy ships carried malt on board and made a sweet broth by steeping it; it helps to stave off B vitamin deficiencies when there are no fresh vegetables.