granulated sugar UK

[miguelito]

Sugar Warning: To beer and lager brewers. Major UK supermarkets are selling granulated sugar produced in UK - this is beet sugar. It is not suitable for homebrew, as I now realise to my cost. Make sure you purchase cane sugar, usually Tate & Lyle.

 

[RobWalker]

Unsuitable? I'm sure it's fine and widely used...what went wrong with your brew?

edit: found this, it's definitely fine. i'm sure it's a listed ingredient on beersmith too.

http://beer.about.com/od/allgrainhomebr ... brewer.htm

Cane, beet and corn sugars all work about the same in homebrew. Adding them will increase the alcohol content of the final beer but they will do nothing to improve the flavor or character of the beer.

 

[Aethelstan]

Beet and cane are both sucrose and refined. I guess it would make a difference if you were making rum, but that's a whole different ball game. Ideally you would use dextrose or maltose if you needed to add sugar, as far as I know.

 

[Slid]

I have wondered about the differnce between cane and beet sourced sugar.
Is there any difference chemically?
In the sense that there are some chemicals present in beets that find their way past the refining process into your finished beer?
Is it the same with homebrew wine?
I am interested in whether this is science or superstition.

 

[LeeH]

You really want to be looking at using dried malt. Yes its more expensive but it can makes for a better beer in most cases.

Just use it as you would sugar.

Dark for stouts, medium for IPA/Bitter, light for Lager, extra light for fruit beers. That's a general rule of thumb I use. :

 

[rpt]

Sugar Warning: To beer and lager brewers. Major UK supermarkets are selling granulated sugar produced in UK - this is beet sugar. It is not suitable for homebrew, as I now realise to my cost. Make sure you purchase cane sugar, usually Tate & Lyle.

What's your source for this? As far as I'm concerned it's nonsense. They are both sucrose.

 

[oldbloke]

Agree. Sucrose is sucrose. There'll be small traces of other stuff that differs if the source is beet instead of cane, but minuscule.
As a point of interest though, nobody thought of extracting the sugar from beet until after people started importing cane sugar.
Up to then, it was honey or nowt, really.

 

[Moley]

It is not suitable for homebrew, as I now realise to my cost.

So what has made you leap to this rather dramatic conclusion? Looking at your previous posts it seems you might be brewing a Geordie Lager - I would suggest that's a pretty poor basis for such a radical statement.

I don't use sugar in any of my beers, but I do use rather a lot of it in wine making and couldn't give a damn whether it's cane or beet, I buy from wherever is cheapest at the time.

 

[kentmark]

I've used granulated sugar both tate & lyle and supermarket own brands with both wine and beer kits (including geordie) and have not noticed and differences. Differences have occurred when I used different types of sugar (eg: muscavado in my stout).

I'm taking a guess here but have you experienced a poor brew with the geordie kit? My experience of them is they can produce a not bad session pint but need lots of time at all stages, much more than the kit instructions suggest.

 

[miguelito]

After all the flack from my sugar beet warning (!) I stand by my theory - I have indeed been brewing Geordie lager for many years (some of you obviously think I'm easy pleased) but I like it, and I've never had a problem until recently after using Silver Spoon. The trouble was that the lager was flat, lifeless, and ended up down the drain. Since then, I am back with T&L cane sugar and normal service is resumed. The proof of the pudding is in the eating; but what do I know? :-D

 

[chastuck]

Can't speak for modern sugar processing and refining methods, but 40 years ago when I worked for a major London brewery we would never use sugar derived from beet. Although only small quantities of sugar were ever used it had to be cane sugar derived. The brewers were convinced that beet led to off flavours. This was also pretty much the opinion of all major breweries at the time.

 

[clibit]

Some of the highest rated Belgian beers contain beet sugar.

 

[Redcar]

Sugar Warning: To beer and lager brewers. Major UK supermarkets are selling granulated sugar produced in UK - this is beet sugar. It is not suitable for homebrew, as I now realise to my cost. Make sure you purchase cane sugar, usually Tate & Lyle.

Nope, I've had no problem but then I always boil my sugar into a syrup.