Thursday, January 22, 2009

Homebrew Digest #5489 (January 22, 2009)

HOMEBREW Digest #5489 Thu 22 January 2009


FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
RE: candi / protein rest debate (Josh Knarr)


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Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2009 09:01:31 -0500
From: Josh Knarr <josh.knarr at gmail.com>
Subject: RE: candi / protein rest debate

> Josh, I wonder if you would have gotten the same cidery
> flavor in an unhopped 100% DME beer with NO refined sugar.
> I suspect you would, since I have with that kind of wort
> when I make it for yeast propagation, experiments, etc.
> Maybe the pure sugar is not the (sole) culprit. Great
> Belgian beers such as Westmalle Tripel use 20% pure sugar--
> but they have a lot of fresh grain to back it up, in a
> way that would be tougher for the DME I am accustomed to.

Well, this is why I like HBD better than BA. BA's homebrew forum was
fairly insistent on "table sugar = sucrose". A quick look at Domino's
site shows that it's got adjuncts in it for all it's products EXCEPT
for "100% pure cane sugar". Since I buy cheapo ACME brand, lord only
knows whats in there. It's entirely possible that there's something
else lurking, intentionally or not. I doubt it's bacteria (I boiled
the sugar water for 10 minutes - I did NOT want to cook it) but I do
think it's entirely possible some cane material or whatever was mixed
in.

> Steve would like to see "a dark caramelized glucose syrup
> w/o much molasses or beet residue as an adjunct." There
> are now such dark syrups available in homebrew shops,
> labelled D1 or D2. I have not used them but they are
> apparently the "same stuff" used by many Belgian brewers
> to make dubbels, etc. The idea of using caramel malt
> instead is one that Ron Jeffries of Jolly Pumpkin talks
> about when quoted in "Brew Like a Monk," by the way.
> He apparently uses dark English caramel malts.

There's instructions online for making your own belgian candi sugar
(from cane). When I was in Germany, I did notice the table sugar
tasted different (earthy, I wouldn't say "like a beet" though), so I
suspect the belgian candi sugar taste should be whatever sugar tastes
neutral to you if you're looking for "sugar without adjuncts". Sort of
like the water debate, water is only a medium unless you start
treating it. Some people will care that their sugars are beet sugars
and some won't really care so long as it carries the other flavors
after modification. But, if you're going for completely authentic, you
would have to track down beet sugar. Mosher suggests corn syrup, I
wouldn't touch the stuff personally.

But, "glucose" and what's in your homebrew shop aren't quite the same
thing. Fructose + glucose makes sucrose. The stuff in the shop is just
various levels of darkened up invert sugar. Invert sugar is sugar
which has the fructose + glucose bond broken. Radical Brewing and
Designing Great Beers both have HOWTOs on it, but it's pretty simple
stuff:
http://www.franklinbrew.org/brewinfo/candi_sugar.html


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End of HOMEBREW Digest #5489, 01/22/09
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