Sugar to use

[blackdouglas]

What sugar can you use on the 2nd fermentation?

I have been advised that using normal sugar is bad and you must brewers sugar. On my 1st brew which was also a partial disaster I used demerara and it seemed to give the beer a really nice toffee flavour. That was Norfolk wherry. This time I am suing Cooper's and brewers sugar and ok it's not ready yet but I'm just sampling it now and I don't feel that the brewers sugar is adding anything to it. tastes alright though, a bit too tangy for my palette though, maybe it just needs more time

Advice please again.

 

[brizleciderarmy]

I'm guessing the person advising you that sugar is bad was the bloke behind the counter? If so hes spinning you one.

If your brewing a lager/bitter/ale Then DME is a good shout, keeps a nice body to your beer. If brewers sugar is what i think it is ( beer kit enhancer ) then it is half DME and half Glucose. Normal sugar is fine to use. Not quite as good as DME but 95% of the way there.

If you want to use sugar, go for it :thumb:

 

[charlie_mead_face]

+1

 

[calumscott]

Brewer's Sugar isn't Beer Enhancer.

Brewer's Sugar is dextrose, otherwise known as inverted glucose. It is a "proper" glucose molecule but in mirror image. It is a "monosaccharide" - it comprises only one simple sugar chain.

Table sugar is sucrose. It is a "disaccharide" - it has two simple sugars - comprising one glucose and one fructose.

The idea behind the use of dextrose is that there is practically no work for the yeast to do, just sit down at the table and munch, so there should be very few non-ethanol by-products. The yeast simply metabolises the invert glucose (I think I read somewhere that it gets on better with the "left handed" structure than the proper structure too). I would imagine that the use of table sugar, given that it is first broken down to one glucose and one fructose molecule is more likely to give "winey" flavours to drink as you would expect similar by-products to the fermentation of fruit.

Maltose, the primary sugar in wort, is a disaccharide which comprises two glucose molecules. So that breaks down to pretty much the same stuff in your bag of brewer's sugar.

Trouble with both brewers and table sugar is that they will impart nothing but alcohol to your beer - no flavour (except potential off-flavours), no body, no mouthfeel. In fact, the alcohol actually takes away these attributes.

Malt extracts on the other hand, either dried ("DME" or "spraymalt") or liquid ("LME") have firstly lots of maltose for the alcohol and secondly lots of things that the yeast won't even touch (e.g. maltodextrin) which remain in your beer and give it flavour, body and feel.

Basically you can use sugars with this in mind and exotics such as demerara, treacle, candi (a belgian favourite), muscovado etc will have more complex sugars in them which may not be utilised so well by the yeast and leave flavour notes behind. However, to get the bet out of a kit, always use the significant proportion of additional fermentibles as malt extract and use exotic sugars to give additional ABV and flavour notes that you wouldn't be able to get from the malt.

Treacle and stout is a winner... :thumb: