Brew Enhancer Vs Normal sugar

sispurs

Inactive User
Joined
Jan 18, 2013
Messages
88
Reaction score
16
Location
London Calling
Hi Guys,

I'm fairly new to home brewing and have a couple of questions in relation to a beer kit I'm doing

1/ Is it worth investing in brew enhancer or does normal sugar provide a good result?

2/ If I increase the amount of sugar and reduce the amount of water, will this noticeably increase the alcohol strength?

Any advice welcome
 
Some people reckon that they can tell the difference between normal sugar and "inverted" brewing sugar. The yeast can use either but the former may take longer. Some say that in wine thay can't tell the difference.

You might end up with something really too sweet just dumping sugar into it. The yeast will usually stop working at a certain alcohol volume.
 
Cheers Spectre brew enhancer seems really expensive, so I think I'll stick to normal sugar and I take your point about adding too much sugar in terms of taste. I was thinking of increasing the sugar from 1kg to 1.2kg and reducing the quantity of water from 23 litres to 20 litres.

I guess its really trial and error :licka:
 
I guess its really trial and error :licka:

You spot on, it really is trial and error, extra sugar can increase the alcoholic strength but only to a certain level before it just becomes a sweetener. Different brews and ingrediants all react slightly different, something I used to find made a difference to taste was water softener particularly as I live in a hard water area.
 
ok guys n gals, here is my 2 pence worth.. with the coopers kits you can use 1.5kg normal granulated sugar to put the abv up to around 8% depending on kit. and to be honest i havent noticed anything different with taste and im saving £1.20 on sugars. i have a mexican cerveza and a ginger beer in fermenters just now, will let you know how they taste when finished..

coopers draught ale, sparkling ale, european lager, canadian blonde, stout, real ale, all work well with granulated sugar. stout also works with a sugar/molasses mix and tastes great.

the extra half kilo of sugar converts to alcohol easily, only adding 3 or 4 days to the ferment. i have read that the yeast supplied with their kits works upto 12% abv but thats a lot of sugar and a waste of a good beer.

ps tesco sell 5 kilo bags of sugar just under £4.

i only use coopers beer kits as others dont seem to play well when playing with their sugars.

and geordie kits are only good for shandies in my opinion.

anyhoo back to my home made rum at £1.54 a litre.

long live yeast
 
I usually use just normal or caster sugar (Icing sugar will not work!) - I can never find any difference in just using normal sugar and it's a lot cheaper!
 
I have never used brew enahancers

experiment with different sugars, even with honey. you will get different results and taste (some bad some better lol), if it is your first kit, just follow the instructions and use what they ask you to use. Later you can experiment

also check you tube many good videos tutorials and recommendations.
 
Back
Top