Terminology

[steveb]

Im familiar with wine making terms,but all this talk of bke/dsm sugars
spray malts and brewers sugars leaves me all confuddled :? :?
Any links to a idiots guide to all this stuff(not for me of course just for other idiots on here) :lol: :lol:
Cheers

 

[tubby_shaw]

Click on the Glossary link in the banner steve :thumb:

 

[Wez]

Check out our GLOSSARY

There are a few comedy ones in there too :thumb:

edit - TS is too quick for me

 

[Moley]

Sorry Tubby & Wez, but Steve is asking about things which might not be listed in the glossary, at least not under the words or abbreviations he's looking for.

Regular granulated sugar is sucrose, which consists of glucose and fructose molecularly bonded together. Yeasts need to break these bonds before they can ferment the sugars, which they do with an enzyme called invertase. Brewer's sugar or invert sugar already has these bonds broken in their manufacturing process, so the yeasties can get straight on with their most important job of making alcohol.

Spraymalt starts out as a malt extract liquid but is spray dried into a convenient powder form which is easier to measure, weigh and store.

DME is Dried Malt Extract, or Spraymalt.
Spraymalt comes in Light and Dark varieties, so DSM could be Dark SprayMalt.
BKE is probably Brewing Kit Enhancer, which is mostly brewing sugar with a bit of spraymalt mixed in.

See, I did my homework before I crossed over to the dark side :lol:

 

[Moley]

Going on a stage from that, when I'm making wine or have brewed from kits I always make a sugar syrup first.

When you mix a kilo of granulated sugar in a pint of water (you may have noticed I regularly mix Imperial and Metric) and boil it, as it comes to the boil there is a period where it froths like crazy and you have to keep stirring constantly and reducing temperature if it looks like frothing over the top of the pan. After a while it settles down to a safe rolling boil. It's exactly the same if you're making jam, a frothing boil, then the froth subsides to a rolling boil.

As I understand it, that frothing period is when the molecular bonds are breaking and your sugar is inverting ?

If that's the case and you don't mind stirring a boiling pan for a few minutes, what's the point in paying over the odds for brewing or preserving sugars?

 

[Aleman]

Again a confusion with terms . . . Brewers sugar might not be inverted at all, but is likely to be plain old Glucose . . . which still needs to be modified for yeast to use.

And in fact the invertase in yeast is actually tied into the cell wall transferase complex . . as the sucrose molecule is transferred across the cell wall it is inverted automatically so is instantly available to the yeast cell when it enters.

I'm with moley . . . there is little point in using brewing sugar . . . you can buy glucose cheaply enough elsewhere . . . and I'm afraid to admit it but plain old granulated works in my brewery . . . you might want to consider using invert (golden syrup is ~ 20% inverted) for flavour purposes . . . but in 'sensible' quantities you are not likely to tell the difference.

 

[Vossy1]

When you've all stopped speaking Russian tell me, and the rest of us mortals, what you're saying :rofl:

 

[Moley]

When you've all stopped speaking Russian tell me, and the rest of us mortals, what you're saying :rofl:

All you need to know is C6H12O6 = (it won't let me insert an arrow) 2C2H5OH + 2CO2 :party:

 

[Vossy1]

I understand that but a lot of forum users won't :lol:

 

[Bribie]

I use white sugar in many recipes, for example Graham Wheeler's, and I invert it by boiling in water to the constituency of a light 'syrup' with a quarter teaspoonful of citric acid until it goes light gold in colour. Moley might be able to tell me whether I'm wasting my time or whether it will ferment more easily.

 

[Moley]

Moley might be able to tell me whether I'm wasting my time or whether it will ferment more easily.

Ok, I've found what I was looking for, it's in CJJB's "First Steps" and he says to boil 8 lbs sugar in 2 pints of water with 1/2 tsp citric or tartaric acid, bring to the boil and stir for half an hour, make that up to 1 gallon and there will be 1 lb sugar in every pint of syrup.

Obviously, scale that down accordingly, but yes, it will ferment more easily.

 

[Aleman]

Moley might be able to tell me whether I'm wasting my time or whether it will ferment more easily.

Ok, I've found what I was looking for, it's in CJJB's "First Steps" and he says to boil 8 lbs sugar in 2 pints of water with 1/2 tsp citric or tartaric acid, bring to the boil and stir for half an hour, make that up to 1 gallon and there will be 1 lb sugar in every pint of syrup.

Obviously, scale that down accordingly, but yes, it will ferment more easily.

The snag is that you only end up with about 2% 'inverted' . . . which makes it of very little use . . . As I said earlier Golden syrup is about 20% inverted so is probably better to use if you believe that it is 'easier' to ferment.

[English Mode On]In order to be used by the yeast the sucrose needs to be split into Glucose and fructose . . . this is done by an enzyme which is bonded to the yeast cell wall, so that as the sucrose is transported across the it is split into glucose and fructose and is ready for use by the yeast cell. . . . There are some home brewing authors that have picked up on the fact that the sucrose has to be 'inverted' before use to perpetuate the myth that inverting the sugar before adding it to the boil will result in a faster ferment . . . this is just not the case . . . but may be of more benefit to winemakers . . . beer makers of course are much more concerned with the fermentation of Maltose which is two glucose molecules.

 

[Moley]

Thanks Aleman, but don't blame me, blame CJJ Berry.

I will continue to boil mine, but only because it's easier to top up with syrup rather than having sugar settling at the bottom of the jar, and it makes SG readings easier.

 

[ano]

blame CJJ Berry.

Many do, for many things. :lol:

 

[Moley]

The snag is that you only end up with about 2% 'inverted' . . . which makes it of very little use . . . As I said earlier Golden syrup is about 20% inverted so is probably better to use if you believe that it is 'easier' to ferment.

Sorry Aleman, I have to dig this up again as another Sugar thread has started. I realise that Wiki isn't necessarily the ultimate authority on anything but this says that Berry's right about boiling with a bit of citric, and that Golden Syrup is approx. 56% inverted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_sugar_syrup

I'm confused :wha: