Steeping/adjunct grains, fermentable?

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Riastradh

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Hey folks

I'm about to start my first extract brew but a question has been haunting me from starting. I have made the recipe shown below but I'm not sure if that can be right. Surely steeping grains are not fermentables, they just add colour and flavour over your DME or LME?

62% - Light DME - 4 lb
31% - White sugar - 2 lb
3% - Roasted barley - 3 oz
2% - Chocolate malt (UK) - 2 oz
2% - Crystal malt - 2 oz

Irish ale yeast (liquid)

Fuggles - 2 oz 10 min
Super Styrians - 0.750 oz 30 mins
Super Styrians - 0.250 oz 10 mins

This according to Brew Target has the following numbers:

OG - 1.053
SG - 1.046
FG - 1.014
ABV - 5.0%
IBU - 20.7
SRM - 13.1

Is this looking suspicious as it reaches 5%? Also can any one guess at how this might taste? I've no diea what I was doing with those hops but it is meant to taste like a slight malty beer above balanced.

Thank you for your help!
 
the thing you have to remember about using software to calculate your FG is that they don't take the fermentability of your wort into consideration. they just multiply the calculated OG by the attenuation rating of the yeast selected.

i know the Crystal and probably the Chocolate malts are not fermentable. the Roasted Barley may be fermentable, i don't know. the sugar is very much fermentable and will dry out your beer (may be a good thing in this case). the extract is not going to be as fermentable as an AG recipe would be, but the sugar may take care of that for you.
 
I'd say in your recipe it doesn't really matter much. You've got a few ounces of grain vs. 6lbs of fermentables. So in this case they probably are adding mostly color. I would suspect that you would be in the ballpark of 5% ABV. Maybe a little under. Are you sure the recipe calls for white sugar, and not corn sugar or malto dextrin?
 
What is corn sugar? I'm only familiar with white or brown :p I usually only see caster sugar about. I think we must have a european/american difference in names. On the software I chose dextrose, which I assume is just normal white caster sugar, or maybe that is your corn sugar.

I just deleted all my steeping grains from the list and it came to 4.8 like you predicted. I hope I dont have a thin, watery beer here with all this sugar. I mostly hope I taste the steeped grains enough.
 
I'm guessing your white sugar is corn sugar or dextrose. It's the same type of sugar you use for bottling. Your beer won't likely be thin or watery. The majority of your maltiness/sweetness is coming from the DME and the sugar. My guess is that the specialty grains will likely add a lot of color, but only a subtle roasted flavor. You have quite a lot of hops and a lot of base malt.
 
corn sugar like the name implies is made from corn. its also known as priming sugar and dextrose. normal table sugar is known as sucrose or cane sugar and if you bought your sugar in the market (do they have super markets in europe? i would assume yes) that's probably what it is. brown sugar if memory serves is just unrefined table sugar. corn sugar is slightly more fermentable than table sugar.
 
I would skip the sugar and bump up the DME to 2KG and go with a 19 liter batch. I would bump up the crystal and choc. This yields a 4% abv and I'm finding dark malts are great for getting flavor without making the beer thick.
 
A quick search shows that castor sugar is sucrose, and it's also known as superfine sugar. It's the same as what we would call table sugar or cane sugar, just smaller granules. This is going to be different than corn sugar, which is dextrose. The castor sugar will be ok, but the "ppg" from sucrose is higher than dextrose since dextrose contains some water.

TipsyDragon, how do you get that corn sugar is more fermentable? It's hard to get more than 100%.

You ask how it's going to taste; well, with over 30% of the fermentables coming from table sugar, it's not something I'd like to try.
 
On the topic Subject: Yes, you get some fermentables from steeping typical specialty grains, including crystal and chocolate malts and roasted barley. They're already converted (which is why they don't need a mash), but a typical 30 minute steep is lower efficiency than a full mash.

Crystal 15 and lower aren't fully converted by the kilning process, so they give you even less than most other specialty grains.

Palmer's How to Brew has a chart showing the typical PPG from steeping various grains:
http://www.howtobrew.com/section2/chapter12-4-1.html

In your case, the amounts you're using are so low that they wouldn't add much--a point of OG, maybe 2 at the most if you did a long steep.
 
TipsyDragon, how do you get that corn sugar is more fermentable? It's hard to get more than 100%.

sorry i got my figures mixed up. i thought you needed less corn sugar to get the same ppg as table sugar. turns out its the other way around. i also equated this to being more fermentable. silly me. :drunk:
 
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