noobish recipe questions

im about to bottle my first brew, a kit brew, and now i want to start making my own recipes. I have a few questions for the master brewers out there

1.) exactly what kind of sugars can the yeast ferment? eg. what sweetener can i add that wont turn to alchohol, and conversely what sugar can i add to increase the fermentable sugars.

2.) what ratio can i substitute grain for extract, both dry and liquid extract?

2.a) if doing partail mash, do i have to steep the grain?

3.) i know potassium sorbate and nitrates are bad for yeast, anything else that i may run across that i should avoid?

4.) is there a scale for what hops are best for what?
thanx in advance guys

i'm no master but i think i can help with a few of the questions.

1) i believe lactose is largely unfermentable. if you need to boost ABV you can add dextrose (corn sugar) or sucrose (table sugar), but the only style i know of that makes use of that is the belgian strong ale. if you want to increase fermentables, add more malt or extract.

2) 1 lb grain = .75 lb LME = .6 lb DME

2a) i guess you don't HAVE to, but you should. also, a partial mash is where you are actually using a base malt to convert starch to sugar, so if you're just steeping, technically that's not a partial mash.

3) i think those only apply to wine making, i doubt you'll see much that will harm yeast making beer.

4) not sure i understand the question, but there are many sources on the internet, especially online brewer supply stores that have good info on what hops are used for what kinds of beers.

hope this helps.

questions 1 and 3 im mainly asking because i want ot make my wife a strawberries and cream ale. I want it to be a standard, maybee a little lighter bodied cream ale with fresh strawberries in it, i wanted to konw how to sweeten the beer a little without it just getting fermented. i also wanted to know how much corn sugar to add to substitue for some of the liquid extract

and as for the partail mash, so the extract has amylase in it still? then that makes more sense to me about partial mash brewing, and if you dont let the amylase break it down you just add flavor of malt but no sugars?

To learn the best hops for different styles, I prowled around the recipe area here and on other sites and books and looked at what was being used often in different styles. Helped me learn what was traditional and also what other options people were using to make things more interting.

Gildog said:

and as for the partail mash, so the extract has amylase in it still? then that makes more sense to me about partial mash brewing, and if you dont let the amylase break it down you just add flavor of malt but no sugars?

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I would heartily suggest reading How To Brew's sections on partial mash brewing because I think you're missing a few steps. The grains in a partial mash aren't mixed with the extract. You mix the grains with water and the enzymes in the base malt do the conversion. Then you take your wort from that and boil it, along with the extract and hops to get your finished product.

im a little illiterate to this forum can i get a link?

*edit* DUH stickey right there in front of my face im a little retarded today dont mind me

wow thanks cheshire, that was almost everything i needed to know about partial mash

Not exactly what you were asking for but could help