Page 2 of 3

Posted: Thursday Oct 04, 2007 11:14 pm
by Chris
Um... to prevent the yeast from producing excessive amounts of invertase, hence adding strange flavours to the beer...

Posted: Friday Oct 05, 2007 6:41 am
by ryan
....and there we have a full circle :)

Posted: Friday Oct 05, 2007 7:51 am
by chris.
:shock: JFC :roll:

Let me get this right. We need to invert it (which doesn't actually fully invert it anyway) so we don't get funny flavours. Yeah that makes sense now.

:lol:

Trust me. 250g of any sugar, uninverted, will be fine in a belgain.

Posted: Friday Oct 05, 2007 11:16 am
by Chris
...or you could just use invert sugar to start with... or you can use a more efficient inversion process...

Posted: Friday Oct 05, 2007 11:20 am
by rwh
Or Dextrose. :P

Posted: Friday Oct 05, 2007 11:21 am
by Chris
The list goes on :)

Posted: Friday Oct 05, 2007 12:26 pm
by chris.
rwh wrote:Or Dextrose. :P
Or table sugar -

"A complaint in the early days of modern homebrewing was that using table sugar in beer-making resulted in a "cidery" beer. The symptoms were that a beer made with table sugar that was added to the boil produced a cidery flavor that faded after several weeks in the bottle. Therefore the rule of thumb became 'avoid all table sugar'. While this is still a good idea when using malt extract, this old-(ale)wives tale is misleading. That defect most likely came from poor yeast due to a too low pitch, insufficient free-available-nitrogen, or a lack of other necessary yeast building materials in the wort. Table sugar can be used in small amounts with no harm and it is certainly cheaper to use for priming."
http://www.realbeer.com/spencer/FAQ/sugar.html

Posted: Friday Oct 05, 2007 1:22 pm
by chris.
Hey gregb, you forgot the "<moderated>" bit when you deleted the part of my last post where I called Chris & rwh <moderated>.

Posted: Friday Oct 05, 2007 1:53 pm
by gregb
I was in a hurry, and was also hoping to not deflect from the point you make about table sugar.

Cheers,
Greg

Posted: Friday Oct 05, 2007 1:58 pm
by Kevnlis
gregb wrote:I was in a hurry, and was also hoping to not deflect from the point you make about table sugar.

Cheers,
Greg
He did that well enough himself ;)

Rather than just post that info 2 days ago...

Posted: Friday Oct 05, 2007 4:34 pm
by Chris
sucrose / table sugar / cane sugar
Sucrose is a disaccharide composed of one molecule of glucose and one of fructose. More precisely, it is dextrose plus dextrorotary fructose. It must be broken apart before the yeasts can use it. When heated in an acidic solution (such as wort) the sugar is inverted to make D-(+)-glucose and D-(-)-fructose. Yeasts will invert the sucrose if it is not already in that form before using by using invertase.
http://www.realbeer.com/spencer/FAQ/sugar.html

You forgot that bit. You know, the bit about inverting sugar. Oh that's right, it doesn't work...

It can get a bit difficult when you have to rely on a source of information that backs you up on one point, but gets you on the other.

Posted: Friday Oct 05, 2007 4:36 pm
by chris.
Kevnlis wrote:
gregb wrote:I was in a hurry, and was also hoping to not deflect from the point you make about table sugar.

Cheers,
Greg
He did that well enough himself ;)

Rather than just post that info 2 days ago...
The fact that many brewers, & even some commercial brewerys, use plain table sugar (in small quantities) in lieu of Dextrose, invert sugar, etc is not a secret.

I was merely putting a question out there for Chris to clarify, & perhaps put forward an argument on, why we shouldn't use normal sugar.

Posted: Friday Oct 05, 2007 4:53 pm
by chris.
Chris wrote:sucrose / table sugar / cane sugar
Sucrose is a disaccharide composed of one molecule of glucose and one of fructose. More precisely, it is dextrose plus dextrorotary fructose. It must be broken apart before the yeasts can use it. When heated in an acidic solution (such as wort) the sugar is inverted to make D-(+)-glucose and D-(-)-fructose. Yeasts will invert the sucrose if it is not already in that form before using by using invertase.
http://www.realbeer.com/spencer/FAQ/sugar.html

You forgot that bit. You know, the bit about inverting sugar. Oh that's right, it doesn't work...

It can get a bit difficult when you have to rely on a source of information that backs you up on one point, but gets you on the other.
How does that "get me back"? Do some more research & come back with the % that this process will invert.

The point still remains that table sugar, in the right %, will not cause strange flavours, & that there's no need to go to the trouble of trying to invert it.

Posted: Friday Oct 05, 2007 5:58 pm
by Chris
That really is the mentality you have. 'Getting you back?' How sad.

Let me point out that this was your reference. Not a great source if you don't agree with it yourself.

And I don't recall ever saying that you can't use sucrose. In fact if you look at previous post of mine- usually one of your favourite pasttimes, then you will notice that I've mentioned sucrose use up to 20%max.

And from memory I even recall an IPA recipe with brown sugar :o

Posted: Friday Oct 05, 2007 7:45 pm
by Danzar
I've said this only once before.

NO FIGHTING ON MY THREAD!

Anyhoo, thanks for the responses to my recipe, of which the actual responses to my question were around the same ratio as one can use sugar in a brew - no more than 20%.

BTW: She's just about ready to bottle. Personally, when I use brown sugar in a brew, even if it only represents about 5% of the fermentables, that distinctive brown sugar taste is always there.

I happen to like brown sugar (particularly on porridge) but I reckon that one day I will get a bit over it.

Must find a way to get the best of both worlds..... :wink:

Posted: Friday Oct 05, 2007 8:29 pm
by lethaldog
Im not arguing with anyone here, i use all sorts of grains and grains alone in my brews now and never feel the need to add any sort of processed sugar ( eg. sucrose, dextrose or ldme) but in saying that i have no problem at all using any of them to prime with which in itself is rare cos i keg just about everything these days....

Remember that awesome and almost forgotten word these days ppl...


OPINION
Everyone has one and just because someone elses differs from yours doesnt mean they are wrong or vice versa :roll: :wink: :lol:

Posted: Friday Oct 05, 2007 10:14 pm
by Tipsy
lethaldog wrote:OPINION
Everyone has one and just because someone elses differs from yours doesnt mean they are wrong or vice versa :roll: :wink: :lol:
Yes it does!

Posted: Friday Oct 05, 2007 10:24 pm
by lethaldog
:roll: :roll:

Posted: Saturday Oct 06, 2007 12:44 pm
by chris.
<gone>

Posted: Saturday Oct 06, 2007 3:01 pm
by KEG
you really are good at picking and choosing what you want to see.

mods/admins, can you please clean this up. i'm aware it's not your fault, but this bullshit is exactly what pushes people to other forums.