Hi i love my home brew .
But CIDERY BEER i dont like.
I do extract.
John bull or coppers.
5 gal in a conical.
Any one know why this happens. thanks john.
That happened with my first ever home brew. I used 1 kg of regular sugar with a beer kit. Tasted like cider! Don't use regular sugar, and try not to go past 21C/70F if you can, or more of that green apple/cider taste will come out. And most important, sterilize everything and you'll be fine.
If you're looking for a cheap lite beer, use dextrose (corn sugar), max 3 cups (1/2 kg); any more and it will start to do the same thing and taste like cider/green apples. You'll get about 3 - 3.5% alcohol.
What I do to make a nice summer beer is use 1 cup dextrose and 500g lite malt extract. About $20 or so for a pretty good lite summer beer with a basic kit. I like Coopers kits for a budget brew.
That's my 2 cents worth.
__________________ FERMENTING: Mexican Cerveza
SECONDARY:
TAP-A-DRAFT: Coopers Stout, Honey Ale
Last edited by brewNdrink; 04-01-2008 at 03:35 AM.
Belgian beers use table sugar, and they do not taste cidery.
Cidery flavors happen when there is not enough nutrients from the malt to help the yeast eat the sugar. The general rule of thumb is you can have up to 30% sugar base without any off flavors.
The problem with the kits is they often require 40-50% sugar base, and often contain glucose in the extract itself. To offset the thinning, they tend to contain more dextrins as well.
You also get cidery flavors from a green beer. If they were good in the past, then maybe a difference in temp has effect the fermentation rates, and it is aging slower then usual?
Belgian beers use table sugar, and they do not taste cidery.
You are right about the level of nutrients for the yeast, but Belgian sugars are also usually candied and/or inverted, by my understanding. This modifies the sucrose molecule in such a way as to make the fructose part of the molecule more easily fermented and leaves less of the fruity/cidery taste behind.
__________________
"Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence." - Napoleon Bonaparte
“An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.” - Ernest Hemingway
Thanks to all for the input.
My next brew of stout i will try corn suger and less of it.
And try to control the temp.
I thing i over do the sugar in trying to bring up the alchol content.
thanks john.
In my beers, I don't use any sugar at all. Like it was mentioned earlier, Belgian beers may be an exception. The are "bigger" beers and need to be made a little thinner and drier, and sugar can help with that.
I would suggest that in your next beer, you use NO sugar (corn or otherwise) and if you need to boost the ABV, either follow a recipe from here at HBT (we can help with that very easily) or add a little more malt extract. This will make a huge difference in the flavor and texture of your beer. Sometimes a beer with a slightly lower ABV will actually taste much better than one that has the ABV boosted with corn sugar. Corn sugar tends to make the beers thinner and drier, and not appropriate at all in a stout especially.
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I would also add barleywines to that list. But yeah, very few beers need sugar.
Hmmm... with the Coppers kits, on the Coppers website it says to use a minimum of 1 cup dextrose, as it's a simple sugar for the dry yeast to eat and grow quickly. I guess they want it to be near fullproof.
This is what I do now; 1 cup dextrose and the rest malt extract, keep the temp under control and it makes all the difference.
__________________ FERMENTING: Mexican Cerveza
SECONDARY:
TAP-A-DRAFT: Coopers Stout, Honey Ale
Last edited by brewNdrink; 04-05-2008 at 01:30 AM.
If you would like to use table sugar, I would recommend you to add a little yeast nutrients and this may get rid of the ciddery taste. But yes, getting rid of the sugar and using malt extract is the best way and it will in fact make your beer taste better.
Belgian beers use table sugar, and they do not taste cidery.
Cidery flavors happen when there is not enough nutrients from the malt to help the yeast eat the sugar. The general rule of thumb is you can have up to 30% sugar base without any off flavors.
The problem with the kits is they often require 40-50% sugar base, and often contain glucose in the extract itself. To offset the thinning, they tend to contain more dextrins as well.
You also get cidery flavors from a green beer. If they were good in the past, then maybe a difference in temp has effect the fermentation rates, and it is aging slower then usual?
I agree and you raise some good points with the possiblity of acetaldehyde/green beer.
The fear when it comes to using sugars and off-flavors is a bit misplaced IMHO. Of course many of us started out brewing kits w/ lots of corn sugar, fermenting w/ those packs of dry yeast on the top of the can plenty warm and then pointed to the corn sugar as the source of the less than stellar results. When used properly, there is nothing wrong with including sugars in a recipe... It's an ingredient with a predictable influence on the end result.
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