What are the benefits of using brewing sugar over types of sugar?

Question

In many kits I've used, the instructions recommend using brewing sugar. Of course it's okay to use other sources of sugar, but I was wondering whether there are any benefits of using brewing sugar over these other types?

Answer 1

AFAIK, there are no benefits. They're all basically the same. Brewing sugar is corn sugar and while there may be chemical differences between it and other types of sugar, the end result in your beer will be indistinguishable. Sugars like piloncillo or demarara can add a bit of flavor, but the result of adding corn, cane, beet, or brown sugar are pretty much identical.

Answer 2

I agree with Denny, except that I can taste brown sugar, especially when used for priming. It is very subtle and mostly an aroma, but tastes slightly different from cane/beet/corn sugar. Same is true of honey; it mostly ferments out but leaves a subtle residual flavor. I like to use brown sugar on bottle or keg conditioned stouts (oatmeal, milk) and I like to use honey on hefeweizens and blondes.

Edit: Just finished an old ale and used store-bought molasses. It has a strong molasses flavor that carried through to the finished beer. It is much stronger than honey or other sugars I've used.

Answer 3

Sorry to revive an old thread but my experience of 15 years is this - controls of the same kit, same temperature, same time, same everything except sucrose in one and dextrose in the other. Result - no distinguishable difference when drinking one of each, same ABV, only difference was that sucrose took an extra day to finish primary.

Bottom line - drink and enjoy, regardless of the type of sugar

Answer 4

You can break down sucrose into fructose and glucose by boiling with a little water and citric acid. Sucrose is a disacchride that's made from the two monosaccharides fructose and glucose bonded together. Boiling with water and citric acid helps break the molecular bonds between these 2 simpler sugars, so sucrose brecomes a form of brewing sugar or invert sugar that's amber in colour. One question is, if you invert or break down sucrose or table sugar, will it have additional flavours or disadvantages in comparison to white brewing sugar or dextrose/glucose?

Answer 5

I noted that there are a few commenters above who appear to be confused about the question. Most brewers will know there is sugar at the brewing stage (eg during initial fermentation), and there is - sometimes, additional sugar added at the priming stage.

The original question was about the sugar used at PRIMARY fermentation. The addition of sugar or dextrose added for priming (making your beer or cider 'fizzy') will make no detectable difference.

I've read the debunking link mentioned in this post - and it pretty much sums it up (I'm reposting the link here: Home Brew Talk).

Personally - if you're just starting out with brewing, don't get stuck on what kind of sugar to use. Concentrate on good sanitation practices, steady temperature and being methodical with your process. Change only one thing at a time so that you can be scientific about your brew alterations over time. I've used normal table sugar for brewing Cider - and it came out very cidery (that's a joke sorry)... But I've also used normal sugar for brewing alcoholic ginger beer and it came out fine.

I'm about to do a whole bunch of beer using normal sugar rather than dextrose (which I've used for beer up until now). You'll see me post back here about the results in time. Thanks for reading.

Update 9 October 2014. As promised - I'm back. Over the past few months I've done 3 beer brews using stock standard home brew kits and... standard table sugar (sucrose), and at least three cider brews using table sugar. The ciders came out fine. The beers... well - lets just say they were 'ok'. Not great though. Certainly not up to the standard of some of the other beers I did last summer. Now, don't take this as conclusive evidence that Sucrose is 'no good' - as the results I had may be due to factors other than the type of sugar. For starters these brews of recent were done during winter using a heat pad at a higher temperature than the brews I did last summer with the dextrose. Another factor could be the yeast from the kit. If it's old, it will not give the same result. My last three beers have been on the flat side, (to spite using the same amount of priming) and ever so slightly sour. Clearly I've failed at my own earlier advice of only changing one thing at a time. For this I apologize. I'm about to embark on some further brewing, for which I'll go back to using Sucrose and I'll post back again with the results... might be a few months! :o

Answer 6

There is much more to this question than how much sugar and how much alcohol ! It is about the taste of the beer. My 15 years of brewing has strongly borne out what is stated in "The Art of Making Beer"; Anderson & Hull; 1971 : "...cane sugar is a disaccharide. Yeast cannot act directly on a disaccharide. ...What happens if you use cane sugar for beer ? The yeast will produce an enzyme called invertase, that eventually inverts the sugar and allows fermentation to proceed. But for various reasons this process leaves a slightly sour aftertaste that cannot be eliminated from the beer. This sourness is one of the most common faults in home-brewed beer. "

Having made my share of mistakes, if I am going to the trouble and expense of brewing, sanitation, bottling, and all the rest, why would I not give my yeast the best possible chance to produce the beer I am expecting to get ? Makes no sense to handicap the yeast by cutting corners on the sugar I use ! If I want bad-tasting beer I can always buy a bud or a coors :)

Cheers, Bob

Answer 7

Dextrose is 100% fermentable, but you need to slightly increase the amount of Dextrose to get the same result as Sugar, meaning for a ferment requiring 6kg of Sugar, you would use slightly more than 6 kilos of Dextrose. I cannot say how much extra because I'm not really sure myself. However in saying that, my first ferment with Dextrose produced a much cleaner ferment than the one with White Sugar. The wash with White Sugar produced a ring around the water level in the fermenter, but the wash with Dextrose did not, I used the same yeast, and the same process, so all I put it down too is from using White Sugar.

Answer 8

I am not sure how much this will help, but in my limited experience with sugars, plain table sugar (sucrose) just made my fermenting time a bit longer as compared to corn sugar (dextrose). As far as taste changes, very minimal in my experience with the more refined sugars. Now less refined sugars (light/dark brown sugars, honey, molasses, etc.) will definitely impart slightly more of a taste. However fermentation temperature variation, yeast variation (including yeast mutation), did factor significantly in flavor profile. I have always used what sugar was most easily available and did not worry - I do agree 100% with the other comments that the most noticeable effect is how quickly different types of sugars dissolve in solution.

Answer 9

My understanding is that is has to do with the "fermentability" of the sugar, and the flavors left behind. Dextrose (corn sugar) is popular because it has a small influence on the flavor of the beer and the yeast can process it easily and completely. I do not know how many others can say the same, but I expect most of the simple carbohydrates are similar.

Answer 10

One point to keep in mind is that different yeasts handle different sugars differently.

For example, wine yeasts are better with fruit sugars but deal less well with malt sugars, while beer yeasts may struggle with fruit sugars but just love malt sugars.

In the context of "brewing sugars", we generally look at sucrose (a.k.a table sugar, which is a di-saccharide) vs. dextrose (a.k.a. corn sugar) or glucose. The latter are both mono-saccharides or simple sugars which the yeast absorbs and metabolizes directly. Most beer yeasts, by and large, handle dextrose better than most wine yeasts do, while both just love glucose.

Yeast cannot directly absorb an metabolize di-saccharides such as sucrose. Before yeast can ferment sucrose it has to break down that sucrose into a mixture of glucose and fructose. This mixture is known as invert sugar, and you can invert sucrose yourself prior to fermentation by boiling it in water with a little citric acid. See Google for details.

Most wine yeasts handle sucrose well without producing any off flavors. Most beer yeasts, on the other hand, don't really like sucrose and may produce a cider-like flavor and an aroma reminiscent of green apple or freshly stripped tree bark (due to a substance called acetaldehyde being produced in fermentation) in the presence of high levels of sucrose.

But there are exceptions. Belgian ale yeasts, for example, handle sucrose a lot better than other beer yeasts do, due to the fact that Belgian strains often have a certain amount of wine yeast in their ancestry. Belgian strong ales are traditionally brewed with a certain amount of sucrose in order to improve wort fermentability. Note that clear Belgian candi sugar is plain old sucrose, while the brown candi has been (partially, mostly or entirely) inverted and somewhat caramelized.

Answer 11

I must admit , firstly I am not a scientist, in fact have little qualification. However I can attest to the following after many years of brewing both beer and spirits

Plain sugar and dextrose add little to the flavour test

Constant recommended fermented temperature is crucial to the consistant quality of your wort.

When temperatures vary above and below the recommended brewing range it causes some and in some cases all of the the yeast to die.

We all know when something dies or part there of dies it begins to decompose , this has a tendency to create odours and undesirable flavours.

For example - eat a fresh piece of meat or one that has started to decompose, trust me you will taste and smell the difference

So for me sugar is sugar there is little discernible difference between brews, if you " ensure the recommended fermenting temperature range is maintained

cheers , drink up , and buy a bloody thermostat and put it in a old chest freezer to ferment and prove your beer

cheers g

Answer 12

I made a beer kit with dextrose and it was delicious. Like, so delicious, I could hardly leave it in the bottle to wait to see how much more delicious it would get.

So, I kept everything the same for the next batch, from the kit, to temps, to sanitation, carbonation, etc etc to a tee. Except I used table sugar. I didn't expect much of a difference.

The fermentation time was the same, everything was the same. Just that sucrose.

The second batch was.. Well let's say that I'm having no problems whatsoever leaving that one to see if it improves. Its... Well it's just not nice.

I find the same with spirits wash. The only wash I made with sucrose, I had to run through the distiller twice to get anything even remotely drinkable.

Sucrose for me, all the way.

Answer 13

Well yes I hear the facts all round, all I can say is I have used sugar for years to brew with mostly good results.... However I decided to change to fermenting with dextrose but conditioning still with sugar and I must say the brews are crisper and sharper tasting... Not a definitive comment as I only brew lagers but the decision is ultimately the finished product for which a very happy bunny!..... just try it Ps fishing around you can get dextrose on line at £30 appr; for a 25 k bag delivered so not that much more compared to sugar.

Answer 14

Lots of conflicting info in there. But the fact of the matter is you can brew with white table sugar and turbo yeast. I am opening a distillery and can attest to the fact that white sugar works just as well as dextrose. But the taste of the product before distillation is night and day different. Can anyone out there tell us why fermented sucrose tastes like apple cider and dextrose is delightful, even like white wine.

Answer 15

My understanding is that different kinds of sugar have different levels of "sweetness", thus the type of sugar you use affects how much sugar you need to achieve the same effects.

Brewing sugar is Dextrose, while table sure is sucrose. Sucrose is actually a much larger molecule, being about twice the size of dextrose. So I believe you need more of it to achieve the same effects (as I understand it).

EDIT:

Actually, a little more research proves that it's the reverse. Sucrose is sweeter than Dextrose, but... by mass sucrose and dextrose will be equally as sweet. By volume, however there is a difference as Sucrose is a larger molecule, thus taking up more space. 1lb of Sucrose should be the same as 1lb of dextrose, but they will occupy different volumes.

Answer 16

many incorrect statements here. Here are the simple facts. You need a 5 carbon molecule sugar to brew beer. For ex, Maltose is the sugar in malt syrup. lighter beers have other 5 carbon sugars added to the wort such as fructose or dextrose. Table sugar (Sucrose) WILL NOT WORK!!!. It is a SIX carbon molecule sugar and consequently the molecule is literally TOO LARGE for the yeast to break down. This is not an opinion, it is a basic fact of brewing.