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Brewing suger how is it different
Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2012 4:34 pm
by Paul_C
for the first 4 batches of homebrew i just used normal granulated suger but this time i am experimenting with a half n half granulated and brewing sugar.
but for the liufe of me i cant work out what the differance will be as both are simply a form of energy for the yeast to nom on.
can anyone tell me what if anything the differance is?
Re: Brewing suger how is it different
Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2012 4:43 pm
by Carltonian Man
As far as I know it's glucose as opposed to sucrose so is supposed to give a better flavour. No doubt someone more knowledgeable will be along shortly with more detail.
Re: Brewing suger how is it different
Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2012 4:53 pm
by Maykal
What Carltonian Man said. It's also supposed to improve the body of your beer slightly. I generally use the brown candy sugar for dark beers (especially some of the Belgian darks) to give a nicer colour and a slight caramel-like flavour. Other than that, I don't think it's really going to make a lot of difference. Try a recipe with both, see if you can taste the difference, if you can't (or if any difference is negligable) then just go with whatever is easier for you to get or cheaper to buy.
Re: Brewing suger how is it different
Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2012 9:18 pm
by phil55494
As has been said it should be pure glucose rather than sucrose. Easier for the yeast to work on, powdered so you should be able to work it into the solution better.
What are you brewing? Beer or wine? Sometimes it doesn't matter what the sugars are for the yeast, other times it might. Other sugar sources for brewing are the darker sugars, golden syrup, treacle and honey. Each will change the flavour and mouthfeel of your brew.
Re: Brewing suger how is it different
Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2012 11:19 pm
by Paul_C
this is a stout kit. i was considering dropping a blob of mollasses into it but decided that caution the first time round would be a better idea.
Re: Brewing suger how is it different
Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2012 11:38 pm
by MKG
Granulated sugar is sucrose. Brewing sugar is glucose. The yeast doesn't give a damn which one you use, and there is no way of telling from the final product what the starting sugar was. If you use glucose, the first thing the yeast does is invert it (split it into a mixture of glucose and fructose). You can do this yourself (if you really want to) by adding a squeeze of lemon juice to a glucose solution and boiling it for 20 minutes. As the yeast is going to do that anyway, why bother?
Using brewing sugar will save a little time (very little!!) in the fermentation process. It isn't worth the extra cost.
Mike