Whats the difference ????

Ok, so it's from a mead recipe, but I'd just like to know if anyone can explain the difference between "corn" sugar and "normal" sugar (normal, here in the UK, would be either cane sugar or beet sugar, depending on whether it was produced by "Tate and Lyle" or "British Sugar" - T&L being cane and BS being beet)
???

TVM in advance.

regards

fatbloke

Corn sugar is dextrose is glucose.

Normal sugar sucrose, a disaccharide consisting of one molecule of glucose, and one of fructose. It takes longer to ferment than dextrose, and some people say that it gives a cidery taste if used in excess.

-a.

I can vouch for the cidary taste from my hooch experiment.

I also asked this at the "winesathome" forums, that resulted in a link that explained the possible "cidery" element, but also explained that I should have used the "normal" sugar at a 3 to 4 ratio i.e. if it requires 1lb of corn sugar then I should have used three quarters of a lb of the "normal" sugar.

Plus that the corn sugar can impart a little "malty" type of flavour.

Oh well, we live and learn eh! Not too worry, because it was in a go at the "Barshack Ginger Mead" recipe that I got courtesy of homebrewer_99. It apparently comes from "Papazian's" (??? who he ??) book.

So I'm guessing that it'll be a little sweeter, but that might be counteracted by my use of the maximum 6oz of ginger (fresh ginger..... Love the stuff!).

regards

fatbloke