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Lawn Darts...an in experiment sugars. how very scientific.
greetings and salutations, brew community. the purpose of this thread is to brew a very simple, straight forward extract beer with the most basic of ingredients and variable sugar types to determine the effect of the different types of sugar on the final flavor of the beer.
before we begin with a recipe, i think it would behoove us to determine how many people are interested in participating in this experiment for the purpose of determining what ingredients to use. i have a great selection of hops and yeast strains at my local HBSs; however i am aware that this may not be so for all.
that being said, if there is going to be just three of us monkeying with this recipe, we can get as wild as we're willing. let us begin the recipe formulation:
1) Malt: 4-lbs light DME.
if we all can get our hands on the so-called extra-light DME, great, let's use it. let me know if it is readily availble to youse and we will go from there.
2) Sugar: 3-lbs of your addition sugar.
we can discuss this, and depending on how many are interested in participating, we can narrow it down to the three or four main ones we are really interested in experimenting with. for example, if there is only three of us maybe we stay away from maple syrup and confectionary sugar this time around and do straight corn sugar, candi sugar, and honey.
3) Hops: 1.5 oz boiling hop
i had originally proposed something lighter, like a saaz or liberty, but upon reconsideration i am willing to go just about anywhere with this. i would say nothing with more than 8-10 alpha acid units, as we are trying to really determine how the sugar affects the taste, but heck, let's discuss this and see where everyone lands.
4) Yeast: something with lower fruit etsers, medium to high flocculation, high alcohol tolerance.
this component will be our limiting factor, i think. we will have to discuss what is available to all. i have a great selection of WYeast smack packs available, just about any one we choose. so i will let others drive the availability and convenience discussion here. the London Ale Yest (#1028) is kind of what i have in mind.
5) Priming: whatever we determine, i think it should be the same for all, so the only variable is the actual type of sugar in the wort.
alright, let's see where this goes.
I am in. I have done two honey ales as of now and would like to try something else. Perhaps brown sugar or molasses.
I am in. I will take whatever sugar variety is left over when more people chime in.
To answer or comment on your points:
ex light DME: I can get it no problem
sugar: 3 pounds sounds fine.
Hops: I would urge something middle of the road too, just enought to hopefully balance against the malt.
Yeast: I was going to suggest Safale-04 the blue package. Then there is no issue with starters or yeast count... But I would also vote for WY1028 or WLP002. All three of these yeasts are about the same. I like them because they floculate well.
Priming: I vote for standard cornsugar.
I do all my ordering through Midwest so I'll check and see what they have.
OK, I can get my hands on Munton & Fisson X-lite DME no problem. I was reading up on the yeast and was thinking maybe of suggesting Wyeast #1056, American Ale Yeast. Because of it's very neutral flavors after fermentation. The #1028 is pretty nutty. I am sure it would taste great but I kinda thought, in the spirit of objective science, that maybe we should keep the amount of flavor variables to a minimum and rely on the malt, sugar and hops. As for hops I like Saaz in both the boil and as a finishing (but I am stone cold crazy too) but Tettnang and Liberty hops are quite nice as well.
Ok, now for the retarded questions. This will be a simple 60 minute boil right??? Boil hops in as the wort just starts to bubble, finishing hops the last 5 minutes and so on??? Are we to add our sugars at the very end to save as much of their flavor as possible?? I mean, especially with honey, boiling drives off a lot of the honeys aromatic qualities and a lot of it's more subtle flavors. I am certain it would be the same with any kind of sugar. I guess what I am getting after is, especially for us new brewers, we need a set standard brewing guideline. Every body does their own little things and those little things can make a big difference in flavor. Just maybe an exact procedure to eliminate those "personal" variables to give us a true result based on the sugars and not the fact that I screwed up and tossed in the finishing hops at 45 minutes vs the last 5.
Brewskinewski makes some good points on the time of sugar addition, we'll have to standardize that too.
I like the idea of the late addition, last ten minutes of boil sounds good.
To tell the truth. On my last ale it was suggested to add the honey the last 15 minutes. But after reading up on some mead homework I decided to hell with the instructions and added the honey right at flame out. There was a world of difference between the two light honey ales I made. Same kit, same ingredients but just a little difference in time made a good ale IMO into a great honey ale IMO. The fact that I love all things honey might be a big factor though.
alright, i think brewskinewbski will not be brewing using honey? any objections? his dangerous love for the life product of hymonoptera could endanger this experiment.
since it is sugar, all we have to do is get it to dissolve. i have never used maple syrup, so i do not know how much affect prolonged boiling has on flavor characteristics. i know that with honey if you boil any longer than 10 to 15 minutes you can kill the honey flavors. but in this experiment we are aiming for the affect on flavor each sugar has. so if we use honey, and just barely pasteurize it, we are going to lend honey flavors to the beer...thereby flavoring the beer with the sugar we add. which i think we want to avoid. ergo brewskinewbski will ntobe using honey...we can not have biased scientists in our experiments!
that being said, splitting batches is completely legal and permissable.
i had in mind a simple 60 minute boil. three gallon water to dissolve malt extract, addition of boiling hops at onset of "full boil" (212 F by your thermometer), finishing hops at 10 min left, irish moss at 5 min left. we can discuss when we want to add the additional sugar.
type of hops is still up in the air. brewchez, any thoughts? maybe we throw in some magnum at 5 minutes and see what jesus makes us?
as long as the ingredients are the same and the only variable is our additional sugar, i am up for the downstroke.
as to the yeast, the american ale yeast would work fine for this project as well. i would suggest avoiding lonon ale yeast II (#1335, i think), i am experiencing an onslaught of banana esters like you woudln't believe.
Saaz and Magnum????? Adding "sugar" in the last 10 minutes??? I wanna go with molasses so my honey bias will be a mute point.
I don't normally use Saaz much so I at least vote to use that as one of our hops. Maybe we should just use a single hop??? I don't know how saaz holds up as a flavor/aroma, if its a bad Idea we can certainly do one of the others mentioned. Isn'tmagnum a little harsh when paired with saaz? I genuinly am just guess as I have no experience with magnum and little with saaz. If someone has a good reason to use it, I am in.
I am predominantly an Enlgish Ale brewer so I use a lot of EKG for hops. I would enjoy using something different for a change. I have access to just about anything, so what ever the board chooses will be fine with me. I am in for whatever. You want me to be the sugar control group and add three pounds of salt to my beer, I'll do it. Anything for science!!!!
(side note: krausenator, thanks for the info regarding 1335, I haven't used that one yet and maybe I'll skip it)
We need to recruit some more people to this experiment. I don't mind splitting batches to do a couple of our sugars if we can't get some more support. Or it will be the three of us doing this twice to cover the whole list...which would be fine by me.
Magnum is a bit stiff. Liberty hops are nice. One hop sounds fine to me as well since we are in this to see what the sugars impart not the hops.