Sugar Measurement help

[simonkidder]

I've got my hand on quite a few brew buddy kits. I'm thinking to trying out different things with each kit. Now I'm thinking different sugars, White, brown, glucose, brewing sugar. I'm just wondering if I was going to let's say use a 1kg White sugar would you use the same amount of brown sugar or glucose? I don't know much about these things

If anyone has any other suggestions as to how I can make each kit different I'd be happy to hear about it.

Would honey work or would it take ages to clear?

 

[PhatFil]

afaik Basically yes a kilo of dry sugar is a kilo of dried sugar be that sugar dextrose spray malt or tate n lyle..
some may take the yeast a little longer to consume. so if you want you can mix n match as long as your dry weight is a kilo..
you may loose some micro gravity points the more the complex a sugar is, but nothing to worry about.

 

[simonkidder]

does this include honey?

any ideas on how i could vary the brews in different ways, im thinking adding vanilla or cinnamon ??? no idea really

simon

 

[PhatFil]

does this include honey?

any ideas on how i could vary the brews in different ways, im thinking adding vanilla or cinnamon ??? no idea really

simon

I dont know about honey, a guess would be to treat it like liquid malt extract so 1.5kg may equate to 1kg dry?? but thats a guess...
if you look at mead recipes (honey beer) that may give you an indication..

as for what flavours to add?? what do you like, follow your own taste buds, i believe most fruit infusions are added after the first bout of fermentation, but i have no experience with this myself.
tho first i would work on getting the best from the kits, then try embellishing them..

I would not use any off the shop shelf sugars, stick to brew enhancer spray malt(DME) or LME for the best beer results. tate n lyle imho tends to add that hangover quality to beer.

 

[simonkidder]

what is tate n lyle imho??

ill look into the mead recipes and see what they suggest.

what would happen if i put 2 lager kit cans in one 40pint batch?

also is there a cheaper alternative to spraymalt it was around £6 a KG at wilkinsons

cheers for the help

 

[PhatFil]

what is tate n lyle imho??

Tate and lyle = major sugar manufacturer
imho= in my humble opinion

what would happen if i put 2 lager kit cans in one 40pint batch?

also is there a cheaper alternative to spraymalt it was around £6 a KG at wilkinsons

cheers for the help

the kit tins have had hops infussed in them so using 2 tins may make a very dry ale? but ifu like dry ale may be gr8?
six quid for a kilo of spray malt isnt a bad deal..I have paid over 4 quid for 500g ...im popping down wilko tomorow now :)

i think the brewing enhancer product is a mix of dextrose n spray malt n should be cheaper than spray malt on its own (i have seen this in wilko for about a fiver)..

at the end of the day tho tate n lyle will brew beer.

one other thing.. dont go on the "ready to drink in ?? days..." promise on the kit, your beer will only improve with conditioning in the bottle or keg. by all means sample whileu wait but give em a good month once bottled 3 if you can manage it, the difference between matured beer n green beer is staggering.

most important thing enjoy the beer

 

[shearclass]

Basically yes a kilo of dry sugar is a kilo of dried sugar be that sugar dextrose spray malt or tate n lyle

Ithink 1kh spray malt ahs less fermentabel stuffi nthe 1kg sugar. To hit the same abv you need to use a little mroe spray malt, but I can;t rememebr the ratio.

does this include honey?

I dont know about honey, a guess would be to treat it like liquid malt extract so 1.5kg may equate to 1kg dry?? but thats a guess...

Look at the label, it will say how much sugar is in there. Obviously 1kg honey is not 1kg sugar, but the label should say how much sugar is in there.

also is there a cheaper alternative to spraymalt it was around £6 a KG at wilkinsons

£6 isn't a bad price for 1KG! You will definitely notice the difference between using 1kg sugar and 1kg spray malt though. Normally just use 500g spray malt 500g dextrose/household sugar

 

[calumscott]

FWIW Tate 'n' Lyle is sucrose, a very short chain (disaccharide - "two sugars") sugar comprising one glucose molecule and one fructose molecule.

Tate 'n' Lyle is refined from sugar cane where most (all?) of the others come from sugarbeet - not that that will ever make a difference to anything apart from the shape and opacity of the granule.

Dextrose (Brewing sugar) is a stereoisomer of glucose - exactly the same chemical composition just with the atoms stuck together in a mirror image. Not sure what the rationale for this being better for beer is but I'm sure someone can enlighten us?

Spray malt is probably mostly Maltose, a disaccharide of two glucose molecules...

Honey as far as I can tell is a mixture of glucose and fructose in amongst whatever else makes it in to honey.

 

[PhatFil]

Basically yes a kilo of dry sugar is a kilo of dried sugar be that sugar dextrose spray malt or tate n lyle

Ithink 1kh spray malt ahs less fermentabel stuffi nthe 1kg sugar. To hit the same abv you need to use a little mroe spray malt, but I can;t rememebr the ratio.

i stand corrected,
But in terms of brewing a kit, a kilo of any dried sugar(bar lactose) is going to be ample to brew a beer granted some sugars will give a slightly higher abv than others but all would be sufficient to brew.
But if your aiming at a target abv then yes you need to look at the ratios and measure accordingly..

 

[graysalchemy]

In stead of using sugar you should perhaps try using Spraymalt in your kits or try using one of the better two can kits.

Sugar is a body and flavour dilutant. It will produce sugar but no body of flavour. You will greatly improve your kits by doing this :thumb: :thumb: