Brew enhancers - making them & what suits styles of beers

[morgenmuffel]

Okay

I purchased bulk (well a few kilos of each I think)of LDME, Maltodextrin and dextrose.

And am wondering what mixes of the above are appropriate for what beers, I have heard you shouldn't use much LDME on pale beers as it overpowers the flavours etc.

And where the brewing tin says 1kg of sugar, does this mean 1 kg of all fermentable and non fermentable sugars, or 1kg of fermentable sugar alone and non-fermentables aren't counted.

I thought i had it all figured but the more i read the more contradictory it becomes.

I currently have 3 tins sitting ready to be brewed, and below are what I think would go well with them

1 Coopers Cerveza
250gm maltodextrin
500gm dextrose
250gm LDME


1 Coopers real Ale
250gm maltodextrin
750gm dextrose
500gm ldme


1 Brigalow ginger beer (missing the yeast sachet)
Not a sodding clue

[earle]

For simplicity you can count any of the ferment blue sugars as part of your kg but just because he tin says 1 kg you don't have to stick to that.

Don't count the maltdextrine as part of that as it is mostly not fermentable but you need to watch how much you put, apparently too much can add a soapy taste. For a cerveza I wouldn't use any as its not really supposed to be a full bodied brew, maybe 500g ldme and 500g dex.

The real ale will handle more malt so I would probably increase the malt and decrease the dex from what you've got. Maybe start with 100g maltdextrine and see how you like it.

I rarely use maltdextrine these days as a steep of some spec malts is a much better way to contribute body and flavour as well. It's pretty easy to do too.

For the ginger beer I mainly use just dextrose but some people like a bit of malt as well.

In my opinion premixed enhancers are good to move away from as you often don't know exactly the ingredients or proportions so it makes it hard to tweak a brew. Looks like that's what you're doing in any case.

[Oliver]

Earle is on the right track and his tip about steeping grain for your brews is a good one.

I haven't used maltodextrin in my beers for years, and in fact only on the weekend chucked out 500g of it that had been in my brewing cupboard for at least 10 years and through numerous moves.

Do the Cerveza and Real Ale as per his suggestion, i.e.

1 Coopers Cerveza
500gm dextrose
500gm LDME

1 Coopers real Ale
100gm (or a little more) maltodextrin
750gm dextrose
500gm ldme

I haven't made the Brigalow GB so can't really comment on how sweet it will turn out if you just use dex. However, assuming you need 1kg of fermentables, you might try something like:

1 Brigalow ginger beer
750g dextrose
250g malt extract
Ferment with US-05 American ale yeast, which will leave slightly more fermentables and a fairly clean flavour

Others may have suggestions about a suitable yeast. Perhaps a wine yeast?

Cheers,

Oliver

[morgenmuffel]

Thanks for that, I'll give those a try