Sugar Limits In Primary Fermentation
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brettprevans
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well most saf yeats can apparently survive up to about 12%. so use a brew calculator if your dead keen on it. I recon about 5kg total of adjunct would be the limit in a 22L brew
think about 1 tin of goo, and 3.5kg of dex or 1 tin of goo and 5kg of dried malt extract.
keep in mind unless you have a lot of buitterness to balance out the alcohol/malt its going to taste revolting.
think about 1 tin of goo, and 3.5kg of dex or 1 tin of goo and 5kg of dried malt extract.
keep in mind unless you have a lot of buitterness to balance out the alcohol/malt its going to taste revolting.
braufrau
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And lots of sugar tastes revolting. I know there are people who disagree with me but one brewer I know insists that
1kg of sugar is all you need with a kit and his brews taste like ... well ... taste like home brew! That's how HWMBO put it.
HWMBO used to do kit brews and he admitted to using a kg of sugar in his brews too and got the same taste. Its kinda like licorice.
Whistlingjack
Dipl. Braumeister VLB, Berlin
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Why not get a still..
Put as much sugar as you like into the brew, then distill it.
Lets face it, a question like this means you are not serious about brewing beer.
WJ
Put as much sugar as you like into the brew, then distill it.
Lets face it, a question like this means you are not serious about brewing beer.
WJ
Whistlingjack
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Adamt
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Yes I think the idea behind the question was "Kit and kilo? How about kit and 10 kilos?"
Screw it. Put 10 kg of sugar in it. When the yeast carks it from the alcohol you'll have plenty of sweetness left over which will stop you from tasting it until the morning.
Ferment it at 18C and it will be fine. <_<
Screw it. Put 10 kg of sugar in it. When the yeast carks it from the alcohol you'll have plenty of sweetness left over which will stop you from tasting it until the morning.
Ferment it at 18C and it will be fine. <_<
brettprevans
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gotta agree with WJ you dont use 4kg of sugar in a belgian. at least i hope not. f*ckn awful
chris.taylor.98
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I go up to 20% for some of the stronger Belgians
I find that the whole "sugar" subject is much misunderstood and unfairly maligned.
You should not be afraid to use straight sucrose if you know what you are trying to achieve.
If you do you use it, you fill find it really dries the beer out due to its high fermentability, and does not leave much of the way of body behind.
The sugar bogeyman was created by the K&K manufacturing cretins that just want people to make oddles of crap beer no matter what it contains. ie they assume that because you drink homebrew you must me a bit of a moronic over consumer, so it doesn't really matter too much how it comes out.
Because you have made your way to this forum I'm going to assume otherwise.
1kg of sugar with a can kit is usually a bad idea, but if you threw in a Belgian yeast strain instead of the generic ale it may not be nearly as bad.
I like to use it in some of the english ales to get a lot of dextrins and body, and still finish up quite dry. (Ever wondered why some of those styles are supposed to have lots of body by still finish dry?). And there is nothing wrong with throwing a bit more in if you want a bit more alcohol in your beer (as long as you remember the lower body and drier beer part).
That being said if you start going over 10% for anything but the Belgians you are going to start to notice it.
Anyway don't be too scared off using sugar, just understand what you are trying to do with it.
And to all you high alcohol bigots out there why is it that most of the BOS beers have OG above 1.070?
Whats wrong with a good old:
Russian Imperial Stout,
Strong Belgian Ale (light or dark),
Tripel,
Barelywine,
Doppelbock,
Weizenbock,
Eisbock,
Imperial IPA
Baltic Porter or
Scotch Ale,
every now or then?
I find that the whole "sugar" subject is much misunderstood and unfairly maligned.
You should not be afraid to use straight sucrose if you know what you are trying to achieve.
If you do you use it, you fill find it really dries the beer out due to its high fermentability, and does not leave much of the way of body behind.
The sugar bogeyman was created by the K&K manufacturing cretins that just want people to make oddles of crap beer no matter what it contains. ie they assume that because you drink homebrew you must me a bit of a moronic over consumer, so it doesn't really matter too much how it comes out.
Because you have made your way to this forum I'm going to assume otherwise.
1kg of sugar with a can kit is usually a bad idea, but if you threw in a Belgian yeast strain instead of the generic ale it may not be nearly as bad.
I like to use it in some of the english ales to get a lot of dextrins and body, and still finish up quite dry. (Ever wondered why some of those styles are supposed to have lots of body by still finish dry?). And there is nothing wrong with throwing a bit more in if you want a bit more alcohol in your beer (as long as you remember the lower body and drier beer part).
That being said if you start going over 10% for anything but the Belgians you are going to start to notice it.
Anyway don't be too scared off using sugar, just understand what you are trying to do with it.
And to all you high alcohol bigots out there why is it that most of the BOS beers have OG above 1.070?
Whats wrong with a good old:
Russian Imperial Stout,
Strong Belgian Ale (light or dark),
Tripel,
Barelywine,
Doppelbock,
Weizenbock,
Eisbock,
Imperial IPA
Baltic Porter or
Scotch Ale,
every now or then?
braufrau
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Actually the brew I was referring to was made with wyeast 3787 i.e. westmalle yeast!
I'm about to make a stout with 700g of sugar and that's about how much I put in tripels.
I invert the sugar because that makes me feel better.
I haven't done 2 brews with and without inverting so I don't know if it makes a difference.
I'm not trying to brew a beer with a ridiculously high alcohol content - that was not the question. So thank you citymorgue2 and Chris Taylor for actually contributing.
Chris Taylor - So you say a beer with more sugar (sucrose) will have less body and taste drier ? And will adding malt increase body ? How does the effect of dextrose compare with sucrose ?
Cheers.
Chris Taylor - So you say a beer with more sugar (sucrose) will have less body and taste drier ? And will adding malt increase body ? How does the effect of dextrose compare with sucrose ?
Cheers.
brettprevans
HB so good, it will raise the dead
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malt isnt fully fermentable so it leaves some residual body in the beer. dex is completely fermentable and will tend to make the beer watery in large amounts. sucrose/fructose/sugar are also not fully fermentable (but quite fermentable) but they often leave a weird taste, unless its used in a specific way for certain styles. eg a belgian.
if you want body use maltodex (yanks call it corn syrup) or better still 100-200g of carapils and crystal in a brew. generaly malt will give you enough body. it depends on your brewing experiance and what your wanting to make as to what you use to create body.
sugar has a place in brewing but its a specific place and its not a prime ingredient. its used to compliment add flavbour, not be the main ingredient.
and as chris said theres nothing wrong with high alc beers if there is style ie RIS and Scottish (which I love to death)..actually I like all the ones chris listed except I havent tried an Eisbock yet.
Chris - I loved your baltic porter by the way. i was so dissappointed that it was a stubby of it rather than a keg.
if you want body use maltodex (yanks call it corn syrup) or better still 100-200g of carapils and crystal in a brew. generaly malt will give you enough body. it depends on your brewing experiance and what your wanting to make as to what you use to create body.
sugar has a place in brewing but its a specific place and its not a prime ingredient. its used to compliment add flavbour, not be the main ingredient.
and as chris said theres nothing wrong with high alc beers if there is style ie RIS and Scottish (which I love to death)..actually I like all the ones chris listed except I havent tried an Eisbock yet.
Chris - I loved your baltic porter by the way. i was so dissappointed that it was a stubby of it rather than a keg.
my latest brew (ESB) i used near enough to 10% good old table sugar in it.
recipe was something along the lines of:
3kg light dried malt
200g 120ebc crystal
100g 60ebc crystal
300g white sugar
25g POR @ 60min
35g EKG @ 20min
35g EKG whirlpool
23L
safale s-04
if i had some dextrose on hand i probably would have used that, but all i had besides sugar was more malt, and i didnt want to make it too malty, especially with a decent amount of crystal
recipe was something along the lines of:
3kg light dried malt
200g 120ebc crystal
100g 60ebc crystal
300g white sugar
25g POR @ 60min
35g EKG @ 20min
35g EKG whirlpool
23L
safale s-04
if i had some dextrose on hand i probably would have used that, but all i had besides sugar was more malt, and i didnt want to make it too malty, especially with a decent amount of crystal
hmm okay interesting. Because malt isn't fermentable does this mean I shouldn't decrease the amount of sugar by the same amount of malt added ? (e.g. 500g malt and 500g sugar doesn't equate to 1KG of sugar in terms of alcohol content).
So if sugar (sucrose) isn't to be used as a primary ingredient, what should I be using with the aim of a nice middle of the road ale ? (In your opinion). One of my previous brews was Toohey's Real Ale kit w/ simply 1.2KG of raw sugar - that wasn't bad. With another (which isn't ready yet) I have tried a can of Toohey's Dark Ale with 750g raw sugar and 500g Cooper's brew enhancer No. 1 (contains maltodextrin and dextrose).
So if sugar (sucrose) isn't to be used as a primary ingredient, what should I be using with the aim of a nice middle of the road ale ? (In your opinion). One of my previous brews was Toohey's Real Ale kit w/ simply 1.2KG of raw sugar - that wasn't bad. With another (which isn't ready yet) I have tried a can of Toohey's Dark Ale with 750g raw sugar and 500g Cooper's brew enhancer No. 1 (contains maltodextrin and dextrose).
If you just want to make better beer than a kit & kilo of table sugar, simply substitute dried malt extract for the same weight of sugar. It'll taste more "beery" and less "cidery". If you want a little more alcohol add a little more DME or dextrose, but remember dextrose will ferment 100% as Chris has described so succinctly, leaving a more "watery" and drier beer.
dr K
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Back when home brew was a baby the sugar bogeyman was born. There were many reasons and some are still applicable. To cut a long story short many of those off tastes, generally bucketed as "home brew" were put down to a single culprit..sugar. These early brewers were on the whole, extract brewers..I figure that even today there is more beer made in kits in Australia than mashed. The real problem was a witches cauldron of bad shirts..old extract, yeast past its best, cheesy hops....
Malt extract has low levels of FAN..free amino nitrogen, an essential beer yeast nutrient, old extract starts to oxidise and the FAN levels may drop as well so we start off with not the most viable yeast in a smaller than ideal pitch rate into a poor medium that at least has a fair whack of sucrose, the yeast lags too long, does not reproduce enough of its already paltry numbers, we get lots of fermentation problems and the off flavours from acetaldehyde to diacetyl and thats without an infection, sugar is called white death and things move on, the extract is fresh, the yeast viable, fermentation is done at lower temperatures the sun sets and rises etc but no-one forgets the scapegoat..sugar.
The "accepted" knowledge seems to be that the use of sucrose at the level that kit manufactures say to use will impart a cidery (?) taste to your beer. You can certainly get acetaldehyde (green apple) from a number of sources, mainly to do with fermentation but I have yet, over the last 6 or 7 years to be convinced that there is something specific about sucrose as opposed to maltose, dextrose, fructose and so on that will produce this "cidery taste"...the cidery taste is not a product of sucrose, it is a result of process.
K
Malt extract has low levels of FAN..free amino nitrogen, an essential beer yeast nutrient, old extract starts to oxidise and the FAN levels may drop as well so we start off with not the most viable yeast in a smaller than ideal pitch rate into a poor medium that at least has a fair whack of sucrose, the yeast lags too long, does not reproduce enough of its already paltry numbers, we get lots of fermentation problems and the off flavours from acetaldehyde to diacetyl and thats without an infection, sugar is called white death and things move on, the extract is fresh, the yeast viable, fermentation is done at lower temperatures the sun sets and rises etc but no-one forgets the scapegoat..sugar.
The "accepted" knowledge seems to be that the use of sucrose at the level that kit manufactures say to use will impart a cidery (?) taste to your beer. You can certainly get acetaldehyde (green apple) from a number of sources, mainly to do with fermentation but I have yet, over the last 6 or 7 years to be convinced that there is something specific about sucrose as opposed to maltose, dextrose, fructose and so on that will produce this "cidery taste"...the cidery taste is not a product of sucrose, it is a result of process.
K
brettprevans
HB so good, it will raise the dead
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you should have a look at a good alc calculator and play around with it to see what a change of ingredients does.
beersmith - software
promash - software
liquorcraft - (about the only decent thing they have on the website)
there are few others listed on the site somewhere. do a search for 'alcohol calculator' or 'calculator'
beersmith - software
promash - software
liquorcraft - (about the only decent thing they have on the website)
there are few others listed on the site somewhere. do a search for 'alcohol calculator' or 'calculator'
boingk
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Hi there sepul - I think I know what you're talking about in terms of 'can I do X?' Well, I started out by using simple brewing sugars and wasnt impressed with the result personally. I moved onto light dried malt extract [LDME] and hop additions, and BAM! Thats when I started to think I was onto something. I generally don't add more than 300g of dextrose in a beer, and never use sugar because of the weird cidery, vegemitey taste it leaves behind. Heres an easy recipe I run up all the time, I find it to go down well with mates and is a generally good session beer: [skip the hop additions if you want, but they do benefit the final beer quite a lot]
'Country Skuller:'
1.7kg tin of 'lager kit',
650g LDME,
300g dextrose,
12g Pride of Ringwood @ 15 min.*
*[Put hops in cup, pour boiling water over them. At end of 15 min give a swirl and throw the lot into the fermenter]
You can modify that towards a German style lager by adding 1kg of LDME to the lager kit and leaving out the dextrose, and substituting Hallertau hops for the PoR.
Cheers - boingk
'Country Skuller:'
1.7kg tin of 'lager kit',
650g LDME,
300g dextrose,
12g Pride of Ringwood @ 15 min.*
*[Put hops in cup, pour boiling water over them. At end of 15 min give a swirl and throw the lot into the fermenter]
You can modify that towards a German style lager by adding 1kg of LDME to the lager kit and leaving out the dextrose, and substituting Hallertau hops for the PoR.
Cheers - boingk
