brewing sugar

[cheers]

Whats the difference between brewing sugar and normal sugar if any ?

 

[tazuk]

hope this wot your looking for m8 :thumb:

brewers sugar is glucose. The advantage of using it over house-hold sugar (sucrose) is that sucrose can impart a tang to the beer which brewers sugar doesn't do.

 

[Toastie]

i thought that was going to be the start of a joke

 

[cheers]

Sorry i wish it was

 

[artiums_enteri]

Taz hit it spot on; to continue his thought, sucrose can not be fully fermented by brewer's yeast leaving behind a lot of residual sweetness. That's where the "twang" comes from.

 

[Moley]

sucrose can not be fully fermented by brewer's yeast leaving behind a lot of residual sweetness. That's where the "twang" comes from.

Nonsense.

How come my wines ferment down to 0.990-ish then?

Sucrose is fully fermentable and leaves no "twang", yeasties have to split it into glucose + fructose before they can use it. Giving them glucose saves them a task but I fail to see why that should give a cleaner taste.

 

[Dunfie]

I am afraid this is one of brewings urban myths. Sucrose ferments out fully and does not leave a "twang". I use it regularly in my stronger brews without any detrimental effect.

The twang that kit brewers experience is more likely to be dow to old malt extract in the tins.

 

[jonnymorris]

I use it regularly in my stronger brews without any detrimental effect.

Why do you choose to use it over brewers sugar in your stronger brews?

 

[artiums_enteri]

I think you misunderstood what I was saying. My point is not that sucrose is not fermentable, for every sugar is fermentable given the proper yeast culture. My point was that sucrose in conjunction with sacchrmyces (brewer's yeast) is not fermentable without a lot of residuals. You mentioned wine yeast which can in fact ferment wild fruits and more complex sugars. Brewer's yeast has been bred and cultured over the years to not behave in this way. This is one of the many reasons we sometimes use Brett and lacto yeasts.

Modern brewer's yeast has been modified in labs as to not mate this creating more male cells. It has also been designed to consume those sugars which should be found in beer. This is why if I'm handed a very dry beer at a competition my first question is what yeast strain did you use? If its a brewer's strain I'm going to start looking for other indications of a wild yeast. Now with that being said I like to dry my beers out from 1.070 down to 1.010. One way I do that is inoculate the wort with a high dose of pure O2, add a very large active culture straight off the stir plate, strict temp control, and once the beer drops to 1.020 if I can't get it down further I may add a very controlled culture of Brett to finish off the remaining sugars.

 

[Wolverine]

I think you misunderstood what I was saying. My point is not that sucrose is not fermentable, for every sugar is fermentable given the proper yeast culture. My point was that sucrose in conjunction with sacchrmyces (brewer's yeast) is not fermentable without a lot of residuals. You mentioned wine yeast which can in fact ferment wild fruits and more complex sugars. Brewer's yeast has been bred and cultured over the years to not behave in this way. This is one of the many reasons we sometimes use Brett and lacto yeasts.

Modern brewer's yeast has been modified in labs as to not mate this creating more male cells. It has also been designed to consume those sugars which should be found in beer. This is why if I'm handed a very dry beer at a competition my first question is what yeast strain did you use? If its a brewer's strain I'm going to start looking for other indications of a wild yeast. Now with that being said I like to dry my beers out from 1.070 down to 1.010. One way I do that is inoculate the wort with a high dose of pure O2, add a very large active culture straight off the stir plate, strict temp control, and once the beer drops to 1.020 if I can't get it down further I may add a very controlled culture of Brett to finish off the remaining sugars.

really? do you ever get time to enjoy a beer ?
:

 

[anthonyUK]

Brewer's yeast has been bred and cultured over the years to not behave in this way.

I thought the opposite was true that yeast has been bred to ferment as efficiently as possible.

This is from Wyeast -

Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a species that has the capability of utilizing a wide range of sugars such as, glucose, fructose, mannose, galactose, sucrose, maltose, maltotriose, and raffinose (lager yeasts can also metabolize melibiose). The ability to metabolize a wide range of sugars allows Saccharomyces cerevisiae adapt to many environments.

The brewers sugar I have used has been pure Dextrose.

 

[calumscott]

Brewers sugar sold in the UK by Hambleton Bard and Ritchies is dextrose.

To say that it is glucose is kind of right... it's exactly the same molecule just constructed in mirror image. There was a theory I read somewhere that this inverted or "left-handed" version was actually better for fermentation, less random byproducts or something, and we all know that random byproducts aren't necesarily good in beer...


...I'll see if I can find it.

 

[jonnymorris]

really? do you ever get time to enjoy a beer ?
:

I suspect Arti enjoys it A LOT having done a degree in micro brewery (or summit) and subsequently spending most of his time brewing (or so it would seem). I wonder if he has time for anything other than beer?

This has turned out to be an interesting thread. Not sure I understand much of it and will no doubt forget most but interesting all the same.

 

[Hollow Legs]

I use good old Tate and Lyle (other sugars are available) in my beer kits now and have not noticed any difference, apart from price of course. :

 

[artiums_enteri]

While it seems beer consumes a good portion of my life, I do find time to enjoy many other hobbies. Hunting, fishing, reading, pipe smoking and collecting just to name a few. Beer has interested me to the point to focus my studies around the process, and read every bit of literature I can find about the topic. This includes being able to learn from others who enjoy the hobby as well.

My wife makes the same critique saying I enjoy learning and making beer more than drinking it. While I enjoy a pint, it's the analyzing of the style, the flavor profile, and what it took to make it that way that fascinates me more. My wife of course loves making beer, but for the sole purpose to keeps the kegs from running dry. She's Irish so it goes without saying.

Back to the yeast and sugar discussion, Chris white from white labs gave a really informative seminar which is where most of my knowledge on this topic comes from. That and jamil's talks based around fermentation. Both basically said while brewer's yeast can convert more complex sugars more by-products are going to be produced. It's also very stressful for the yeast to put them in such an environment. The yeast may consume a portion or percentage of the available complex sugars, but they will soon drop out and begin to die surrounded by their own by-products thus leading to off flavors and residual sweetness, "twang.". It was described to me as having a population of fish in a 20 gallon tank with no filtration system or ever cleaning the water. Eventually the fish die due to lack of O2 and swimming around in their own by-product.

Brewer's yeast has been cultured to be extremely resilient and handle more compounds and environments than they could in the wild, but at the same time they have been bred to accomplish the best results with maltose.

 

[anthonyUK]

Back to the yeast and sugar discussion, Chris white from white labs gave a really informative seminar which is where most of my knowledge on this topic comes from. That and jamil's talks based around fermentation. Both basically said while brewer's yeast can convert more complex sugars more by-products are going to be produced. It's also very stressful for the yeast to put them in such an environment. The yeast may consume a portion or percentage of the available complex sugars, but they will soon drop out and begin to die surrounded by their own by-products thus leading to off flavors and residual sweetness, "twang.". It was described to me as having a population of fish in a 20 gallon tank with no filtration system or ever cleaning the water. Eventually the fish die due to lack of O2 and swimming around in their own by-product.

Brewer's yeast has been cultured to be extremely resilient and handle more compounds and environments than they could in the wild, but at the same time they have been bred to accomplish the best results with maltose.

Whilst some of this may be true, if you stick to recommended guidelines such as ensuring complex sugars make up no more than 10% of fermentables then 'off flavours' will not be detectable.
The theory is great but a few real world scenarios would help ensure these facts are not taken out of context.

 

[calumscott]

My wife of course loves making beer, but for the sole purpose to keeps the kegs from running dry. She's Irish so it goes without saying.

this. :rofl:

brilliant!

 

[artiums_enteri]

I agree 100 percent anthony. You are completely right that complex sugars should equal no more than 10% in solution. I think the most common practical application we use this in during real world brewing would be the addition of Belgian candy sugar. While the candy sugar will be fermented at a small percentage and raise the ABV, it adds a sweetness to the beer that is desired in a triple or double. Because that sweet sugar does not ferment out, the beer is left with a nice full body, and a very high residual sweetness.

Another example is variations on mash temps. If I want a beer with a higher ABV but less body and mouthfeel I mash low, typically 147-149. If I want greater mouthfeel and less alcohol from the beer I take the temp up to 155-157. Both temps will make the enzymes in the grains convert the starches in either a more complex chain giving more body and sweetness and less alcohol or a more simple chain allowing the yeast to convert those sugars to alcohol. By mashing at 152 we can find a good balance between complex and simple starch breakdowns giving a nice body and mouthfeel, and still end up hitting our intended gravity.