Brewing with sugar.Taken from all about beer magazine.Vol 32 Jan 2012

I found these articles of great interest.:hmm:Taken from Understanding Brewing Sugars - Cascadia Importers
www.cascadiabrew.com/understanding_brewing_sugars


Understanding Brewing Sugars

If there is a "Rodney Dangerfield” of amateur beermaking it would have to be non-barley-based sugar. According to the orthodoxy, there is no place in "real” beermaking for using sugars based on cane, corn, rice, honey or maple trees. The prevailing attitude came about as a result of abuse, rather than appropriate use of other sugars in the brewing process along with some very entrenched beer snobbery.

Conventional Wisdom is not without some small merit. Any recipe which calls for adding two pounds (1 kg) of white granulated table sugar with 3-4 lbs. (1.5-1.8 kg) of malt extract is sacrificing quality for ease, speed and price considerations. That being said, sugar also does not deserve to be the pariah of brewing either. When used in addition to quality malts and malt concentrates (as opposed to "instead of”) different sugars can impart complex flavors to beer. It also allows a brewer to increase the strength of a beer without substantially increasing the body or changing the flavor profile. Inverted cane sugar is useful when trying to brew a barleywine, dopplebock or trippel from an extract base. Lesser refined sugars such as molasses, treacle or turbanado cane sugar have been used by British breweries in strong ales, porters, and stouts for years with successful results. Belgian Candi sugar is considered indispensable for brewing a Trippel. The key to successful brewing with refined sugars is to understand when, where and how much is appropriate.

The most common refined sugar used in homebrewing is corn sugar, also referred to as Brewing Sugar. Corn sugar tends to be more fermentable and leave less aftertaste than cane or beet sugar. A good rule of thumb is that the amount of corn sugar you can use without effecting the flavor of the beer is 10-15% of the total gravity of the beer. Corn sugar will contribute approximately 1.0085 degrees of gravity per pound per 5 gallons of beer being made. As an example, if you are making a porter with an original gravity (gravity pre-fermentation) of 1.060, and wish to "beef it up” some, then you could add up to 1 lb. (1/2 kg) of corn sugar. 1.060 x 15% = 1.009 which is about one pound.

Most homebrewing kits, including Coopers Beer Kits, provide you with the option of adding either 1 kg of brewing sugar, or 1.5 kg (3.3 lbs.) of unhopped malt concentrate. When made with sugar, beer kits will make a beer that is characterized as being light in body and mouthfeel, much like a Light American Lager style beer. They tend to ferment very quickly, and will reach a state of maturity with a couple of weeks. If 1.5 kg of unhopped malt concentrate is used, the beer will have more body, more mouthfeel and more "beer” flavor. It will also take a bit longer to ferment and mature. This type of production is mostly favored by microbrew and imported beer fans.

Is it possible to make a Light American Lager style beer without the use of rice and/or corn? No. It is also not possible to make many Belgian-style ales without the use of corn or beet-based sugars. And who can deny the pleasure of some of the fine summer-oriented fruit beers that make liberal use of honey? Experimentation is an intricate part of amateur beermaking. So, go ahead, try some Real Vermont maple syrup in that stout beer recipe next time! If you have any questions about making beer with other types of sugars, please contact me at [email protected].

BREWING WITH SUGAR
All About Beer Magazine - Volume 32, Issue 6
January 1, 2012
K. Florian Klemp


Those first few months of craft beer epiphany are heady indeed, filled with moment after moment of wide-eyed revelation. These palate-popping new brews had little in common with the mainstream stuff that you seemingly couldn’t live without. Craft beer had flavor, dark beer was actually delicious, hops in excess were heavenly, and most importantly, it was proudly all-malt. Then you discovered that some of the most respected breweries in the world used sugar and adjuncts to actually enhance their beer. Those ingredients were horrible no more (I’ve never had such reservations). The number brewed with unmalted grains and sugars is huge. Sugars of one sort or another have been used for centuries to stretch or replace malt, boost the gravity for storage or effect, or simply to modify the flavor and drinkability. It is the last point that is of most interest to us. Those that can be used in homebrewing are quite diverse, from pure, light dextrose to rugged, cloying molasses, there are plenty to choose from, and many great homebrews that yearn for them.

The many shades and flavors of sugars are dependent upon their botanical origin, method of production, and degree of refinement. Sugarcane and beets are the source for most granulated and syrup sugars, but honey, agave and sorghum also provide delicious raw materials, as do maple, date and palm trees. There are dozens of different varietal honeys. Maple syrup and agave nectar are unique enough to give lighter brews a special touch. Plain dextrose (corn sugar) is invaluable in some recipe applications. Belgian candi sugar, be it blonde, amber, dark, rock, granulated, or syrup, is a homebrew shop staple. Molasses, a malt substitute, coloring and flavoring agent in American Colonial times, offers some potent flavors and comes in at least three shades. Golden syrup (light treacle) and dark treacle are quite similar to light and dark molasses. Rice syrup (brown or white) and rice syrup solids and can be purchased in homebrew shops or elsewhere. Lactose, used mostly in milk stout for residual sweetness, is yet another specialized homebrewing product. The humble brown sugar (white sugar mixed with a bit of molasses) is also a useful brewing ingredient.

The real fun starts with the peculiar raw sugars found in ethnic and natural groceries. Granulated types like turbinado, demerara, and muscovado (Barbados) are only partially refined, leaving the impurities intact within the granular matrix. These impurities contain “molasses” flavor normally removed via centrifugation. Turbinado and demerara are blonde-brown, and muscovado is dark brown. Other, more exotic sugars include jaggery (southeast Asia), date syrup or sugar (mostly Mediterranean), and piloncillo (Mexico, Central and South America). Jaggery and piloncillo are marginally refined and pressed into solid, molded shapes. They also contain the natural impurities of the other raw sugars mentioned above. Jaggery is made from palm tree saps or sugar cane, while piloncillo is exclusively made from cane sugar. Date syrup is either processed, macerated whole dates or extracted sugars made to the consistency of honey. Its flavor is similar to those dried dark fruit, vanilla and rummy notes that come from dark malts. Date sugar is a refined, crystallized version, with a lighter flavor than date syrup.

Now that the brewing gears are churning in your head, we’ll have to figure out how to use them. As a rule of thumb, don’t exceed 20 percent of the fermentables (classic Belgian ales rarely do, so I will gladly defer to them). Ten to 20 percent seems to be about the right amount to get some lightening effect and/or discernible flavor. Of course, the lightest of them will contribute little to no flavor. Savvy use of specialty malts can counter undesirable thinning if you are looking to add a lot of flavor from the sugar without compromising the mouthfeel.

As always, because brewing is a measure of one’s ability to volley the ingredients off one another, here are a few other considerations. For extra kettle influence of caramelization and melanoidin formation, add your sugar to the first runnings and boil for 10 minutes before continuing the runoff. If using expensive items, such as agave nectar or maple syrup, think about splitting a batch and fermenting 1 to 3 gallons separately to maximize their contribution without breaking the bank. Those, as well as honey, are best added in the primary or secondary to maintain delicate aromatics. A pound of any sugar will contribute between 1.036 and 1.046 gravity points per gallon of liquid, or 1.007 to 1.009 per 5 gallons. The difference of 0.002 between the two is negligible. Most sugar syrups have an OG of about 1.400 to 1.500, so 1 cup will equal approximately 12 oz.

It is difficult to make sweeping recommend

Corn sugar (dextrose): Derived from corn. Used primarily for bottle priming but also for increasing gravity of beer without changing color or flavor.

Rice syrup or solids: Same uses as corn. Also used as an adjunct in many American-style lagers.

Table sugar (cane sugar): Highly processed, refined (as are corn sugar and rice syrup). Not used all that often in brewing, except as an emergency substitute for corn sugar. Occasionally used for priming. The stuff of “Grandad’s” legends.

Brown sugar (cane sugar): Processed white table sugar with a little molasses added back in. Some use in British (bitters, particularly in the Yorkshire area) and Scottish brewing. Useful for priming where a richer butterscotch flavor is desired.

Molasses (cane sugar): Strong, dark byproduct of the refining process. Often found in porters, occasionally in old ales, brown ales, and so forth. Easy to overdo.

Treacle (cane sugar): Special dark molasses, even richer and darker. Best used in strong black ales, such as old ales and stouts.

Malt sugars (malted grains such as barley, wheat): The malting process (partial sprouting and then drying of the grain, which is part of the process for corn and rice sugars as well, incidentally) creates enzymes that later convert starches to sugars. Several types of sugar compounds are created, depending on temperature and moisture conditions and other factors. These are the goodies. The vast majority of beers (and other stronger alcoholic beverages) from around the world are dependent on these sugars.

Candi sugar: Made almost exclusively in Belgium. It is merely crystallized beet sugar, ranging from light to dark in color (depending on the degree of caramelization). It is one of the secrets of the Belgian brewing industry.

Maple syrup and sugar: Production is concentrated in the Northeastern United States and Southeastern Canada (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Quebec). Derived from the sap of the sugar maple tree, boiled to concentrate. It takes 35 to 40 gallons of sap to produce one gallon of syrup. A recent rediscovery in brewing circles (old-timers in Vermont and elsewhere have always made sap beer, but they won’t usually admit it or give you the recipe) now being found in porters, wheat beers, blond ales, and so forth.

Honey: Bees do the work of converting starches in flower pollen to a type of sugar, then store it as a food source for their offspring. Honey ferments slowly compared with malt and other sugars but can be used in almost any type of beer. Or use it exclusively and make mead.

Golden syrup (invert sugar, cane sugar): a syrup made by processing cane sugar so as to break the bond between sugar molecules, allowing a cleaner fermentation. It is useful for strong ales because it adds fermentables without influencing color or flavor (much).

There are other sugars available, such as coconut sugar, fruit sugars, and date sugar, but their use is not yet widespread in brewing, at least in the English-speaking part of the world. If you should find something that intrigues you, try it!

The most important rule of thumb is to use a light hand. Don’t brew with too much of the wrong sugar. It’s true that excessive amounts of highly and quickly fermentable sugars (such as rice or corn) can lead to off-flavors. It’s also true that strong-flavored sugars such as molasses and treacle can overwhelm any other flavors in your brew. Honey and maple may take so long to ferment that you get cloyingly sweet beer or way overcarbonated bottles. So be cautious but not rigid.:hmm: