Sugar in recipes

[zgoda]

I found white sugar in many recipes in GW book. Anyone tried replacing with light invert sugar/golden syrup? To what effect?

 

[pittsy]

ive read that golden syrup isn't all sugar so you need to add more gramme for gramme than white sugar, you may get a little flavour difference but i think not a great deal but ive never tried it

 

[Shrek]

I normally use brewing sugar whuch is fructose I believe. Good results so far if I remember to add to the brew. I normally forget to add it as in the book it is at the top with the grain bill not lower down with the rest of the hops that go into the copper.

 

[PintofPride]

Which sugar to use depends really on what it's for, but light DME (dried malt extract) is generally the best one to use. It is more expensive but you get what you pay for. It actually enriches the flavour and head retention to a certain extent and never makes it taste cidery. You do also need to add 25-50% more than you would with corn sugar/dextrose etc. Brewer's sugar is just a mixture of dextrose and DME, I think 50/50. There is quite a lot of info about all this online, www.howtobrew.com is a good place to start and it says quite a bit about different sugars.

Good Brewing

PoP

 

[RobWalker]

Which sugar to use depends really on what it's for, but light DME (dried malt extract) is generally the best one to use. It is more expensive but you get what you pay for. It actually enriches the flavour and head retention to a certain extent and never makes it taste cidery. You do also need to add 25-50% more than you would with corn sugar/dextrose etc. Brewer's sugar is just a mixture of dextrose and DME, I think 50/50. There is quite a lot of info about all this online, http://www.howtobrew.com is a good place to start and it says quite a bit about different sugars.

Good Brewing

PoP

More malt extract will need more hops as residual sweetness counteracts the hop flavour, and will affect the FG. It increases the body too so if you're after a light lager or what have you, better to stick with beer kit enhancer which is a 50/50 mix of DME and Glucose, sometimes with maltodextrin for mouth feel.

Brewers sugar is just glucose which is a cheaper purer sugar, so won't impart any off flavours onto your beer.

Golden Syrup is invert sugar and regular sugar. It's basically fermentable, most sugars just add an aftertaste - brown sugar down to treacle will add a molasses type flavour (the darker the more intense, naturally) and golden syrup and honey tend to add a strange sweet syrupy aftertaste. Golden Syrup is especially good for mexican and spanish style beers, honey is usually used for golden ales, british and belgian both use it quite a bit. By all means go for it, just pour boiling water over it to get rid of any possible nasties (not particularly likely but worth noting,) and don't boil it or you'll lose the aroma.

 

[PintofPride]

There we go, that's a man who knows his stuff. Apologies for misinforming, luckily someone with right knowledge corrected me.

 

[RobWalker]

No loss pintofpride - as the old saying goes, " itll still make beer." :-D

 

[PintofPride]

Here Here!

 

[zgoda]

I'm seriously into invert sugars, i make no.2 and no.3 regularly for historic recipes. Just wanted to know if substituting 200g of plain table sugar with light invert (no.1) will change anything flavor-wise.

 

[RobWalker]

as said earlier you want a bit more invert sugar than white because it's less sugar to the gram, to give you an idea Golden Syrup has a potential SG of 1.036 whereas table sugar reads at 1.046, so you need 127% of the amount...a quarter more, so for every 100g sugar, use 100g golden syrup + 25g.

Also as said, it sorta adds an aroma and aftertaste as well as a little more golden colour, but not much else. it's widely used so feel free to experiment with it!