Sugar...

[Clint]

Hello all,
I've been looking through my brew books and the GW book has recipes that use quantities of white sugar.
Does anyone use sugar or dextrose in their ag recipes?
In amounts up to 500g what does sugar or dextrose do and can it alter the taste?

 

[PerthRod]

I sometimes add sugar to some higher gravity brews (Belgian style in particular) Doesn't add flavour but increases the alcohol content. Too much sugar, I think would dilute the body and flavour to a noticable degree, but at the quantities you describe I don't think it would make much difference. I tend not to use granulated sugar straight from the bag - I boil it in a little water and 1/2 teaspoon of citric acid for about 20 mins first (this breaks down the sucrose into more easily fermentable sugars)

 

[stevey]

I read somewhere that he meant just white table sugar as breweries tend to use the cheapest option, it's basically to add alcohol in a more cost effective way than grain. As PerthRod says, it won't add anything to the flavour, in larger quantities it will thin it out a little (think mouthfeel).
Also there's no need to put it in the mash (unless you like cleaning the bottom of the kettle with a scourer) just dissolve it with some wort at 10 mins.
p.s don't forget the sugar addition, like I did last week (even though I was only 0.01 off the target og). I didn't even realise I'd forgotten until I answered this post.

 

[Sadfield]

Same as above for Belgian Beers, imperative for the style to stop them being too sweet, thick and cloying. I'll also use Dextrose in double IPAs for the same reason. Darker sugars can add various flavours from rum to dried fruits.

 

[Horners]

Also leaves a drier finish. His Pendle's witch calls for sugar and I really enjoyed the finish on that and found it quite authentic of the style. I recently used Brown sugar to bolster my barley wine without leaving the FG too high to my taste.

 

[pms67]

James Morton also uses sugar in a lot of his brews, says something about alcohol being a flavour carrier?
Could be absolutely wrong mind you

 

[airymary]

I have to disagree with the 'just adds more alcohol' comments above. I wanted to brew beers that had the characteristics of my favourite commercial brews. Many of them have that 'burnt caramel' undertone. (I know the breweries insist they only use the finest Maris Otter malt, but hey!). Experimenting with different proportions of crystal malt never quite hit the spot. I finished up adding 300 to 400g of household sugar to my boiler for the last 30 mins. Produced the desired undertone, and added more alcohol - win-win!

 

[strange-steve]

I'm brewing a tripel soon with 1kg of white sugar in it.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Hello all,
I've been looking through my brew books and the GW book has recipes that use quantities of white sugar.
Does anyone use sugar or dextrose in their ag recipes?
In amounts up to 500g what does sugar or dextrose do and can it alter the taste?

I occasionally use sugar (dextrose) to raise the ABV, anything up to 1Kg in a 23 litre batch. I don’t find it changes the flavour at all and I can’t say I’ve found it makes a noticeable difference to mouthfeel - maybe it would if I had the two brews side-by-side to compare?

I add it, already dissolved in a little boiling water, for the last couple of minutes of the boil.

 

[Rodcx500z]

i use it up to 500g same as above last 5 mins or you run the risk of scorching your kettle

 

[airymary]

I never had probs with a scorched kettle when I boiled sugar for 30 mins. Can burn onto the elements, tho', but then, so can malt sugars

 

[Drunkula]

Was listening to Stan Hieronymus on a BeerSmith podcast talking about Brew Like a Monk saying that the breweries were mostly just using normal sugar.

In my not a kit and a kilo experiment the comparisons were this:
Real beer: 4.3kg maris otter, 300g biscuit, 150g crystal 60, 100g wheat malt
Sugar version: 1.6kg maris otter, 1kg sugar, 300g biscuit, 150g crystal 60, 100g wheat malt

This was to get the to the same strength of 4.8%. The sugar beer we liked more. It was really like any random bitter on cask. I was really surprised and still feel it's wrong with near 32% of it being sugar.

 

[Cwrw666]

I frequently use table sugar in my AG brews up to 500g. Main reason is so that I can get 8 brews (4 gallon ones) out of a 25kg sack of malt instead of 6 or at most seven. Basically I reduce the amount of pale malt but leave the rest as per the recipe. Body and flavour seems unaffected.

 

[MyQul]

I always use golden syrup for any of GW's recipes with sugar in them. It's partially inverted. It's also fun and easy to make (loads of vids on youtube)

 

[Honk]

I've also been using golden syrup and also molasses in my most recent beers in place of sugar.

I've tended to avoid the recipes using sugar in the past but decided to give it a try as it was used a lot in historic recipes and I'm wanting to stretch my current stock of grain that much further.

 

[pms67]

Good thread and something I’ve always wondered about also, Young’s American IPA and a few of the Festival kits supply up to 700g of dextrose to add in

 

[Drunkula]

It's partially inverted.

A brewer, can't remember who, was saying on the BeerSmith podcast that they have to add extra hops to balance invert sugar because it has a definite taste and extra sweetness. I thought rah, there's another experiment to do. And somebody made me think about whether the sugar I'd used in beers before had been inverted in the boil.

 

[MyQul]

A brewer, can't remember who, was saying on the BeerSmith podcast that they have to add extra hops to balance invert sugar because it has a definite taste and extra sweetness. I thought rah, there's another experiment to do. And somebody made me think about whether the sugar I'd used in beers before had been inverted in the boil.

I normally add it to a bitter. So if it does add extra sweetness and a particular taste it's something I'd want, I think

 

[Clint]

Hmm...it seems adding sugar isn't as "bad" as I thought...I have a few kilo of dextrose but might get a few kilo of Silver spoon in too..
I like the points made about subbing out some malt for sugar to get a bit extra from your supplies.

 

[chthon]

Sugar is cheap nowadays, but sugar used to be more expensive.

Somewhere deep down in Shut Up About Barclay-Perkins, Ronald Pattinson has an analysis on the price of sugar vs. the price of malt (I think between the wars), and came to the conclusion that there was a very good reason to use sugar in brewing, because almost all British brewers used it, even though using malt would have been cheaper.