fermentables?!?!

[chrispurvis]

Hi all.
its recently struck me(couple of rubbish brews) that i know very little about fermentables. If any of you are kind enough i need some help.
so ive done 2 single can kits using 1kg of dextrose. A lager and a dark ale. Both are horrid. Ive used brew enhancer in the past but now the lhbs doesnt stock it and assured me dextrose will have the same effect. It hasnt.
so basically if someone could give me a quick whats what. Ie the differences between sugar,dextrose,brew suger, brew enhancer,lme, light,medium and dark dme.
I would be eternaly gratefull.

Chris

 

[JAK]

Hi all.
its recently struck me(couple of rubbish brews) that i know very little about fermentables. If any of you are kind enough i need some help.
so ive done 2 single can kits using 1kg of dextrose. A lager and a dark ale. Both are horrid. Ive used brew enhancer in the past but now the lhbs doesnt stock it and assured me dextrose will have the same effect. It hasnt.
so basically if someone could give me a quick whats what. Ie the differences between sugar,dextrose,brew suger, brew enhancer,lme, light,medium and dark dme.
I would be eternaly gratefull.

Chris

Hey,

Firstly;

Sugar - Usually referring glucose, this is the most common of sugars and is the type of sugar your going to be putting in your tea or coffee. This sugar will ferment readily and add very little flavour to your brew. This is a simple sugar
Dextrose - Another type of sugar, this is corn sugar. Brewing sugar is typically dextrose or a dextrose glucose mix. This sugar will ferment readily and add more flavour than glucose, but not too much. This is a simple sugar
Brew sugar - See dextrose.
Brew enhancer - Will contain dextrose and probably glucose, this will also include malt extract. Malt extract will contain more complex sugars which are much harder for yeast to ferment but will add a lot of flavour to your beer. Essentially a mixture of simple and complex sugars.
Light, medium and dark ME - Types of malt extract, this wont be spiked with simple sugars and will just be the complex sugars from mashed grain. This is fermentable but not as readily as the simple sugars. This will however give you the malty flavour to your beer. Light produces a light colour beer with less malty flavour (IPA, PA) Medium produces a medium coloured beer with a little more malty character (Bitter, darker IPA) and dark will give you something like a stout with the most intense malty characters, this is typically from roasted grains.

Malt extract and mashing AG will also produce some unfermentable sugars, this will give your beer a sweet taste. This can be encouraged or nearly eliminated to your desire.

Adding extract brewing sugar to your wort will give you a higher ABV but add nothing or very little to the taste of your beer. Its a careful balance between the two that you need to find to produce a good beer.

 

[chrispurvis]

Thx JAK. Really appreciate the help.
Regards
chris

 

[cheshirehomebrew]

great reply, I have a tendancy to use brew enhancer and LME together in my beers as i love the hoppy IPA styles

 

[Fil]

fwiw if using significant quantities of malt extract you may want to consider boiling it to achieve a hot break,(proteins break out as a cloudy precipitation after a boiling period resulting in a wort/beer which will clear better

i boiled some dme for about 30 mins (very light simmer preparing a starter) and managed to take a snap of the hot break forming..

 

[chrispurvis]

fwiw if using significant quantities of malt extract you may want to consider boiling it to achieve a hot break,(proteins break out as a cloudy precipitation after a boiling period resulting in a wort/beer which will clear better

Is this the liquid malt extract in a tin. Or the dry powderd stuff with added water?
If you were using 1kg in a brew would that be considerd a significant amount?

Cheers

 

[Fil]

that was dme, and anything over 100-200g i would consider significant, so a kilo i would consider worth boiling up in 5-6 liters of water for 20-30 mins.
the more concentrated the longer it will take, and the more fierce the boil the more effective (less time) , in an opaque pot i dont think it will be as clear to see as in the glass beaker on the stiovetop.

LME?? i dont know? if doubling up with kit tins i would think perhaps not as the kit destructions these days dont tend to recommend a boil as they did back in the days of boots kits being the mainstay so perhaps the kit tins of lme are treated to a hot break when flavoured with hops??

It wont hurt thats for sure :)

 

[chrispurvis]

Thx Fil. Im thinking my next brew im gonna add 500g dextrose and 500g DME. Ill try boiling it up in maybe 2-3 litres first.
Also what do any of you guys know about adding honey to your brews. Im not gonna try straight away. But i like the idea!
How much too add? How much stronger does it make the beer? And does it make much difference to the body, clearness and flavour?

Thx again.
Chris

 

[Fil]

grab one of the Puter brewing tools they all have the ?fermentability? of different sugars loaded in (afaik tho ive only looked at a few beersmith-pay brewmate-free) So u use 3kg of honey in the mix with 1kg of dme and it will calculate the expected OG, FG, and eventual abv for you, you can look up the tables and do the math yourself but why bother

 

[JimJiminy]

Jumping in kinda late here, but for the record...

Sugar - Usually referring glucose, this is the most common of sugars and is the type of sugar your going to be putting in your tea or coffee. .

The type of sugar you put in your tea/coffee is sucrose, not glucose. Sucrose molecules are made up of a glucose and a fructose molecule bonded together.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucrose

Invert sugar (eg golden syrup) is glucose and fructose - made by splitting up sucrose using heat/acid.

Dextrose - Another type of sugar, this is corn sugar. Brewing sugar is typically dextrose or a dextrose glucose mix.
Brew enhancer - Will contain dextrose and probably glucose, this will also include malt extract. Malt extract will contain more complex sugars which are much harder for yeast to ferment but will add a lot of flavour to your beer. Essentially a mixture of simple and complex sugars.

Dextrose and glucose are the same thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucose

Brewing sugar is glucose. I think beer/brew enhancer generally glucose and some combination of malt extract and maltodextrin.

Eg see ingredients listed on:
http://www.tesco.com/direct/coopers-beer-brew-enhancer-1/213-6375.prd
http://www.tesco.com/direct/coopers-beer-brew-enhancer-2/213-3413.prd

 

[clibit]

I think a good way to learn about fermentables is to look at all grain recipes on tinternet.

Malt extract is just barley malt that has been mashed and then had the water content reduced or removed. Malt sugars make up most or all of the fermentables in the vast majority of beers. Some beers contain other sugar, dextrose, invert sugar, honey, molasses, cane sugar etc but rarely more than 10% of the total. They thin the body and boost the ABV, which can be a good thing.

Some commercial beers like American Budweiser use a lot of dextrose. It's cheap and tasteless. But real and craft ales don't.

DME is malt extract, as is LME.

Dextrose is corn sugar. Brewing sugar is dextrose.

Brew enhancer is a mix of dextrose and DME.


You can mash malted grains by soaking them in water between 63 and 69C for 45-60 mins and create your own fresh, malt extract. The cheapest and best tasting way to boost a kit.

 

[MyQul]

You can mash malted grains by soaking them in water between 63 and 69C for 45-60 mins and create your own fresh, malt extract. The cheapest and best tasting way to boost a kit.

I only mash for 30mins. I came across a rather heretical/revolutionary post on another forum stating you can mash in 10 mins as it only takes 10 mins for conversions. I'm not brave enough to try 10 mins but took my mash time down from 90mins to thirty and haven't noticed any difference

I've noticed your a rather knowledgeable chap so I think you may find the following link of interest

Warning: it's 10 pages long

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f244/10-minute-mash-mind-blown-492255/