Using different kinds of sugars

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Brew2Be

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Hi! I've been making wine (apple wine in particular) for quite a while now using white sugar to bump up the O.G. I recently watched a cider making videos on youtube and it used brown sugar as primary sugar (except for the natural sugar in the apple juice). Now, my question is, has anyone tried using e.g brown sugar for apple wine? or any wine? or maybe a mix of white and brown sugar? If so how did it affect the taste of the final product. I'm thinking of trying a batch of apple wine with brown sugar.
 
I made a strawberry wine recipe of Jack Keller's that used light brown sugar to bump up the SG. It's not even in bottles yet, but I've tasted at various rackings and it's good. I can't pinpoint any brown sugar flavors specifically, but I would definitely suspect that there are some flavors left over that are supporting the strawberry flavor.
 
My recent hard cider used a combo of lt. Brown sugar and cane suger. It's great and I feel the slight caramel/molasass (sp?) Taste mellows the tartness of the apples and adds some complexity to the brew.

I would reccomend giving it a try to see if the flavor appeals to you.
 
I don't like fermented out brown sugar or molasses, but some people do. To me, when the "sweet" is gone it leaves behind a weird non-sweet molasses flavor. Molasses is bad enough (hate the stuff!) but a not-sweet molasses is really odd to me.

You can use any type of sugar in wine- white sugar, honey, maple syrup, turbinado sugar, piloncillo, molasses, fruit, etc.

Most delicate fruit wines wouldn't taste very good with deeper flavors, but honey is nice because it leaves behind a faint note of honey after fermentation. I use honey in my crabapple wine near the end of fermentation to "smooth" it out. (Recipe posted in my recipe pull-down under my avatar).
 
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