What The Hex Is Dex?

[bartleyBE]

Hey Aussie brewers! As you can tell from my accent, Im American. Ive spent a lot of time in Melb and got addicted to Crown Lager. Unfortunately, its not found here very often. Now that Ive been home brewing for a while I thought Id try to make my own. I found this recipe.

Ingredients:

1 x can Morgans blue mountain lager.(refered to as BML in method)
500 g x Coopers powered light malt. (refered to as MALT in method)
250 g x caster sugar or dex. (refered to as DEX in method)
250 g x powered corn syrup. (referred to as CORN in method)
5 g x brewing yeast
1 x teabag Morgan'sP of R finishing hopsMethod:
Dissolve BML, MALT, DEX, CORN in 4 litres of hot water in a 25L fermenter. when dissolved add more water to make up to 22.5 leaters. place teabag finishing hops in a mug of hot water and soak for 15 min, tip mixture into fermenter. stir and float teabag in it. sprinkle yeast on top and leave to ferment for 5 - 7 days. bottle and leave for approx 2 months. (although can be tried after 10 days, full taste doesn't mature untill the 2 month period is up. WARNING - Do not bottle until fermentation is complete ( SG 1005 or below) adding only the correct amount of sugar to bottles otherwise, over gassed bottles could explode.


But Im not sure what is caster sugar or dex. Is dex short for dextrose or is it short for dextrine? Can you tell me what would be the American equivalent of caster sugar? Or it's purpose in the beer?


Cheers,

 

[bconnery]

Hey Aussie brewers! As you can tell from my accent, I'm American.

Funny, you don't look American

dex is dextrose.
Caster sugar is just a fine table sugar.
It's there to dry out the beer basically.
You could use dextrose or any plain white sugar.

 

[rclemmett]

500 g x Coopers powered light malt.

I need to get some of that for my next brew.

 

[wabster]

From Answers.com

Dextrose : Alternative name for glucose. Commercially the term glucose is often used to mean corn syrup (a mixture of glucose with other sugars and dextrins) and pure glucose is called dextrose.

Caster sugar is superfine sugar in the USA.

Good luck with your brew.

Cheerz Wabster.

 

[rclemmett]

From Answers.com

Dextrose : Alternative name for glucose. Commercially the term 'glucose' is often used to mean corn syrup (a mixture of glucose with other sugars and dextrins) and pure glucose is called dextrose.

Caster sugar is superfine sugar in the USA.

Good luck with your brew.

Cheerz Wabster.

I don't know if I'd believe everything you read on the internet.

Isn't corn syrup maltodextrin.... Which is a whole lot less fermentable than glucose you'd buy from the supermarket.

Corn sugar is Dextrose, and corn syrup is Maltodextrin. US to OZ.

 

[Bribie G]

Plain white table sugar is sucrose, and each molecule of sucrose consists of two joined molecules of dextrose and fructose. So it's called a disaccharide. Yeast can only ferment single sugars or monosaccharides, but has a cunning enzyme called invertase which it uses to 'crack' the sucrose into dex and fructose and then ferment them. Yeast prefers dex slightly but at the end of the day will ferment out both sugars.

You can save the yeast a job by cracking the sucrose yourself by boiling for 20 mins with a small amount of citric acid. This is 'inverted' sugar and is quarter of the cost of using dex. It's widely used in UK breweries but I'm not sure if Aus breweries such as Fosters invert their sugars syrup. Thirsty Boy would know. The reason that dextrose is called dextrose is that glucose can exist in two forms, a 'right facing' molecule D-glucose or dextrose and a mirror image 'left facing' molecule L-glucose. The dex in dextrose means 'right' as in latin Dexter. L-glucose doesn't exist naturally and is a laboratory curiosity although it apparently makes a good laxative.

I think D-glucose is described as dextrose to avoid confusing it with glucose syrup which can mean different things in different parts of the world

Wikipedia: Technically, glucose syrup is any liquid starch hydrolysate of mono-, di-, and higher-saccharides and can be made from any sources of starch; wheat, rice and potatoes are the most common sources.[5]

Nowadays if I'm adding sugar I just use plain ol white, does the job.

 

[Jonez]

Hey Aussie brewers! As you can tell from my accent, I'm American.

funny, I can't tell at all..

 

[bartleyBE]

Thanks guys. I'll use plain ol white or look for a finer grind at the grocer.

So, is the "powdered corn syrup" Malto Dextrin? or is it the same as powdered corn sugar used for priming?

I'm gonna do this K&K version first but does anyone have an AG recipe for a Crownie (didn't see it in the Recipe section)?

Cheers,

 

[bconnery]

Thanks guys. I'll use plain ol white or look for a finer grind at the grocer.

So, is the "powdered corn syrup" Malto Dextrin? or is it the same as powdered corn sugar used for priming?

I'm gonna do this K&K version first but does anyone have an AG recipe for a Crownie (didn't see it in the Recipe section)?

Cheers,

Yeah it will refer to MaltoDextrin. We generally get it in powdered form here. Not sure if it's available another way or not...

I'd suggest posting a separate thread asking for a Crown Lager recipe in the AG section perhaps? Many people here aren't that big on Crown Lager so be prepared for some negative responses but you'll usually get some who are prepared to give some decent suggestions regardless...

 

[Ivan Other One]

Thanks guys. I'll use plain ol white or look for a finer grind at the grocer.

So, is the "powdered corn syrup" Malto Dextrin? or is it the same as powdered corn sugar used for priming?

I'm gonna do this K&K version first but does anyone have an AG recipe for a Crownie (didn't see it in the Recipe section)?

Cheers,

Hey Bartley,
Skip the plain ol whit and grab a bag o dextrose from ya grocer, this stuff is fully fermentable, but the sugar, so i have learnt produces some bad flavours/ bad alcohol. :icon_vomit:
parhaps there is thread in here some place that will explain this better.




Happy brewing, Ivan

 

[PostModern]

So, is the "powdered corn syrup" Malto Dextrin? or is it the same as powdered corn sugar used for priming?

Corn sugar, as you know it, is dextrose/dex. If you have that, use it.

In Aus dextrose is mainly derived from wheat, as that's our biggest cereal crop, but in the US, you use corn ever since Big Corn made their cornstarch cracking enzymes in the 70's. The main reason for American obesity, imho, is the use of corn sugar in every-*******-thing. Not a prob in beer, of course.

 

[Bribie G]

Corn sugar, as you know it, is dextrose/dex. If you have that, use it.

In Aus dextrose is mainly derived from wheat, as that's our biggest cereal crop, but in the US, you use corn ever since Big Corn made their cornstarch cracking enzymes in the 70's. The main reason for American obesity, imho, is the use of corn sugar in every-*******-thing. Not a prob in beer, of course.

Yes apparently in the US even Coca Cola is sweetened with high fructose corn syrup rather than cane sugar as ours is. Personally I'd ditch the corn syrup / glucose syrup etc and if looking for a few more unfermentables and more body and mouthfeel I'd just steep 300g of carapils and boil the runnings with a few hops and add to the wort.