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Date: 18 Oct 2006 23:31:30
From: Bryant R. McCall
Subject: help sweeting a kit beer
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BACKGROUND
I am brewing my first bacth of home brew. I wanted a strong ginger beer,
sort of like a "reeds ginger beer" but with a kick. I started with a "True
Brew pillsner" kit and added a lot of ginger to the boiling step with the
pellet hops (bittering). Everything else was per the instructions. The
batch seems to have fermented well, and it has been two days the bubbling
has stopped. I am ready to bottle.
PROBLEM
There is a pack of some sort of sugar to mix in the wort before botteling
for carbination. I want to mix in extra sugar so the ginger beer is a bit
sweet. The question is how much of what kind of sugar to add to get the
ginger beer sweet. I dont want to blow up any bottles or use the wrong
sugar and mess up the whole batch.
Thanks in advance
B.R.
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Date: 19 Oct 2006 02:04:02
From: Adam Preble
Subject: Re: help sweeting a kit beer
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Bryant R. McCall wrote:
> There is a pack of some sort of sugar to mix in the wort before botteling
> for carbination. I want to mix in extra sugar so the ginger beer is a bit
> sweet. The question is how much of what kind of sugar to add to get the
> ginger beer sweet. I dont want to blow up any bottles or use the wrong
> sugar and mess up the whole batch.
You don't know what kind of sugar it is, but as far as sugars go, yeasts
will ferment out most of it. I think it's as high as 95% for table
sugar. If you don't have problems with it, Splenda (from the big bags,
not the little coffee packets), will sweeten it up without fermenting
out. I can't recommend anything but roughly a half a cup in the past
for this or that beer has brought out a lot of a flavor I was trying to
establish.
The best way to go it to draw a 1/2 cup sample, pop in an eighth of a
teaspoon of Splenda, and taste. If that's not enough, add another
eigth. Track your additions and ten extrapolate it to the full batch.
Google will calculate "cups in x gallons" for you so don't fret. The
sips shouldn't affect things too much unless you take a very generous
definition of "sip."
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Date: 19 Oct 2006 10:55:11
From: rb
Subject: Re: help sweeting a kit beer
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Bryant R. McCall wrote:
[snip]
> PROBLEM
>
> There is a pack of some sort of sugar to mix in the wort before botteling
> for carbination. I want to mix in extra sugar so the ginger beer is a bit
> sweet. The question is how much of what kind of sugar to add to get the
> ginger beer sweet. I dont want to blow up any bottles or use the wrong
> sugar and mess up the whole batch.
>
> Thanks in advance
>
> B.R.
>
>
You are not going to get much sweetness using sugar (it'll just ferment
out whilst there is yeast present), or even something unfermentable like
lactose.
Unless you plan on drinking the ginger beer within a few days of
bottling, don't go down the extra sugar path.
Your easiest option is to use some form of artificial sweetener.
Alternatively you could make a 'shandy' ie mix some of your (dry)
'ginger beer' with lemonade at time of pouring.
Least easiest option for a homebrewer is to filter the beer to remove
yeast - add sugar and artificially carbonate.
rb
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Date: 19 Oct 2006 14:59:20
From: John 'Shaggy' Kolesar
Subject: Re: help sweeting a kit beer
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On Wed, 18 2006 23:31:30 GMT, <1brmccall@iwon.com > wrote:
> There is a pack of some sort of sugar to mix in the wort before botteling
> for carbination. I want to mix in extra sugar so the ginger beer is a bit
> sweet. The question is how much of what kind of sugar to add to get the
> ginger beer sweet. I dont want to blow up any bottles or use the wrong
> sugar and mess up the whole batch.
What you've got is priming sugar, which is usually completely fermentable
by the yeast. It will give you carbonation but will not leave behind
any flavor or sweetness. What you need in order to boost the sweetness is
a sugar that the yeast will not ferment, aka a complex sugar. Things like
maltodextrin or lactose would work. They're not as sweet to the taste as
something like table sugar, but will still give the beer some extra body
and a bit of sweetness that the yeast will not consume.
How much to use depends on how sweeter you want to make it. I can't
really answer that part.
John.
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