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View Full Version : The difference in sugar


brewmonkey
08-13-2004, 11:34
Funny thing about brewing beer is that it is basically someone creating sugar and then allowing it to be metabolised by yeast that will in turn produce alcohol & co2. Basic nuts and bolts of brewing, however it all matters what kind of sugars are involved in the process. Different sugars can produce a different flavor even though they may have come from the exact same source.

I carried this over to my house and started watching the sugar that I buy. I, like many of you, had a house full of little sweet white sugar crystals. Processed and refined and then sent to the store. Most of this sugar comes from cane(sugar) but there are so many ways that they process it.

There are also items out there like nutra-sweet and now they have Splenda, which is a sugar based product with 0 calories. I am not into the "fake" sugars and find they have an astringent component to them.

I found this interesting article on one of the sites I frequent and thought I would share it with all of you. I have been using turbinado sugar at home for some time and enjoy it. It is usually packaged in brown boxes and says either Raw Sugar or Turbinado Sugar on it and is about $3 for 2#'s. Interesting enough, this is a sugar used widely by many English brewers to add alcohol to the beer without adding any body (usually about 10% of the fermentables.)

Enjoy!

http://realbeer.com/spencer/FAQ/sugar.html