Brewing Sugar VS Brew Enhancer

[NewbieBrewer]

Hi

Im looking for some opinions/experience/advice.

I have recently brewed my first kit brew a young's brew buddy lager, as advised by my lhbs I purchased brew enhancer instead of brewing sugar at a significant price difference - its been in the bottles for 2 weeks in the warm,transferred somewhere cooler a few days ago in my impatience and excitement I fridged one and tried it.

I was a little disappointed as it was more ale flavoured than lager flavoured, now I know I brewed with an ale yeast and this will go somewhere towards that flavour, but I have read that brew enhancer can have an effect on the ale taste would this be the same for the coopers enhancer one? or should I just stick with brewing sugar if I want lager flavoured lager

cheers

Carl

 

[anthonyUK]

Hi,
Brew enhancer usually contains a mix of fermentables and non-fermentables in varying ratios.
Generally the fermentables will add alcohol content and the non-fermentables flavour.
For lager, Coopers BE1 is recommended whereas for ales and stouts etc BE2 would be better.
Which one did you use?

Sorry but you post made me think of this

 

[NewbieBrewer]

Ha Ha Loving the picture

I didn't use either I used better brew beer enhancer from lhbs, muntons do one too

Regardscarl

 

[Pearlfisher]

I'm certain the world be be a far better place without lager. :whistle:

 

[Aleman]

To get a reasonable 'lager like' beer from a kit you need to use a very clean yeast, rather than the generic yeast supplied with the kit . . .Try something like Nottingham or US05.

Ideally you should ferment at a constant temperature, ideally around 18C for the yeasts mentioned.

I tend to avoid beer enhancer preferring to use extra light malt extract, although I have found that this does lead to a much 'maltier' flavour and a beer with too much body than you would expect for a lager . .very much ale like. for this reason I tend to use a 75:25 mix of sugar : DME . . . .



although the real answer is to use a more expensive 3Kg kit :whistle: :whistle:

 

[Andyhull]

although the real answer is to use a more expensive 3Kg kit :whistle: :whistle:

Who does 3kg lager kits?

 

[Aleman]

Muntons
Barons
Tom Caxton
Design a Brew
Heart Of England

There are a lot out there

 

[Andyhull]

Right, i've not noticed them before :

 

[NewbieBrewer]

bump

 

[fbsf]

I think the problem you are describing is more attributable to the yeast rather than the sugar. Using brewers sugar will result in a thinner, less malty flavour, but it'll still have that aley taste if it's been brewed with ale yeast.

The reason the suppliers bundle ale yeast is that it's able to work under normal temperatures (18-25 degrees) whereas "proper" lager yeast works best at around 12 degrees, meaning you need some way of keeping all 5 gallons cool when fermenting.

As this is out of the reach of most kit brewers, there has to be a compromise - hence going for an ale-type yeast. Don't also discount conditioning time - 2 weeks in the bottle is nowhere near enough, you'll need at least 4 or preferably 6 for the brew to get the best flavour.

As an aside, I brewed a Coopers Australian Pale Ale kit with the brew enhancer, and served chilled it was remarkably like a lager - might be worth trying one of those instead? The Young's brewbuddy kits don't have the greatest reputation in the world.

 

[NewbieBrewer]

thanks for your response fbsf I would like to get a fermentation fridge but space and convincing swmbo are a couple of hurdles I need to leap ha ha