Do you use sugar/brewing sugar or just grain

Hi,

Many of the recipes I read don't mention sugar at all. But most of them do.

What are the benefits of brewing without sugar at all.

Is it just cost? Does the final mash taste differently?

I'm looking for a nice IPA recipe (UK / Proper Job style) and the only ones I find have no sugar.

Thanks - Nick

The only sugar I've ever used is dextrose added during the bottling process to bottle condition my beers. As yet, I have not kegged beer.

Sugar is a cheap "booster" that makes a beer thinner and drier. It can be used in some cases like a Belgian tripel or a big IIPA so that a beer isn't "too heavy" but in most cases it won't make the best quality beer.

I never use sugar. I'm a fan of beer that uses malt, hops, water, and yeast. Occasionally, I'll make a "light" beer by mashing corn or rice, but not sugar.

I don't think 'most' of the recipes you see use sugar, except for those cheap kits that use extract and ask for sugar as a cheap alcohol boost instead of malt extract.

I just started to include a portion of sugar in my IPA recipe (American, not UK or IIPA). Keeping to a very low percentage of the overall grist - < 5%, this provides me with a slighter dryness I look for in my IPA. I add it to the boil during the last 10 minutes or so. The last batch I used .5 lb of honey.

As I recall from my London trips, the British IPA (Greene King specifically) is a fairly light beer compared to the American IPA. Lower in OG and overall hop presence. With that in mind, I would stick to an all-malt beer because added simple sugars will thin out the beer too much.

I use an English yeast (1968) in most of my ales. It finishes slightly but noticeably sweeter than the American strains (as well as having all sorts of other delicious flavors). When I'm making an American style beer with this yeast, I'll frequently add 5-10% sugar to increase my attenuation to an American level.

The idea is that the yeast will completely consume any simple sugars you add to the wort, while in the case of malt some of the sugar will be left behind. This is not necessarily good or bad - it just depends on what you want. Theoretically beers with some sugar in them will finish slightly dryer and slightly thinner than the same beer with the same gravity made with all malt.

Thanks. I brew English ales and all the recipes I see call for 200-400g of brown sugar.

I think I'll take the sugar out and add more grain. My usual beer is this.

3800g Malt
200g Crystal Malt
50g Amber Malt
350g Demerera Sugar
50g Fuggle 50g Goldings for the Boil
20g Goldings last 10 mins
20g Golding dry hop
OG around 1045-47

Finings to clear.

No secondary. 2-3 weeks in primary then Keg with priming sugar.

How much extra malt should I add to make up for the sugar, if I take it out?

I'll take my sugar and fruit on the side, thank you.

Quite a few English Ales call for sugar. I made Orfy's Old Speckled Hen clone that calls for both demerara sugar and Lyle's Golden Syrup and it was great.

You'll need about 560g of extra base malt to replace the sugar. This is assuming your mash efficiency is 70%.