What would happen if I brewed a batch that was nearly all sugar?

I used Belgian candi sugar in a recipe for the first time, and it made me think...what would happen if I used nearly all sugar, maybe a very small percentage of a base malt? With the addition of yeast nutrients, would this ferment? What would the results be?

 

Yes it would ferment. I wouldn't call it beer - "hootch" maybe, or "firewater". Why bother?

 

It would be extremely dry, thin-bodied, high alcohol, and probably not all that pleasant to drink. You would probably want some Carapils or maltodextrin added for body.

Of course, if you go through with it, make sure you follow up with the results.

 

+1 to this. It would most likely have none of the characteristics of beer. It might be interesting to try a gallon or so, but it doesn't sound worth making more than that.

 

Watered down vodka?

 

I have a friend who is planning this. He has been throwing his beer (progressively darker saisons) onto the same trub for the past 3 batches. For the forth batch he is using ton of belgian candy sugar, 1# Honey Malt, and 1oz Sarachi Ace for a 5 gallon batch. I'm curious to see what happens.

 

I'm actually trying that this weekend. I have:

• a pound of honey malt
• an ounce of sorachi ace
• 8 pounds of sugar
• a pound DME

I'm going to throw all of that into a carboy full of belle saison yeast that's currently fermenting actual beer. Don't worry, I'll save the beer first.

Ideally it'll come out tasting like honey and lemon and belle saison esters, but really I'm just finishing out an experiment to see what happens if you continuously pitch wort on the same yeast cake (you get very high attenuation, if you're curious).

 

These brews do not sound very palatable. Just high ABV fluids. They are absolutely certain to ferment and in my view absolutely certain to result in something I would not want to drink. Each to their own of course.

 

The good thing is going into though knowing you are making something terrible. It's just a closing to a really weird experiment.

 

Have you tried fish fingers dipped in custard?

 

What you have here is very close to gluten free extract brewing...
Check out the gluten free threads/recipes. You'll see what I mean.

 

I suppose. I wouldn't be a fan of the approach.

An un-proposed similar experiment:
Q: A study into what sensory experience will be elicited by placing my nads in a vice and having it subsequently slowly tightened shut.

It's true I don't know for sure what I will experience, but I am 99.999999999% cetain it is not something I ever want to try. I kind of already know what the outcome will be. OTOH I'm sure a quick non-worksafe google search will find many an individual who regularly conduct such an experiment.

As I said, each to their own. No judgment here.

 

That's nuts.

 

Yes, but I prefer jammy dodgers.

 

"That's not a fish finger!"

"Well, that's not custard!"

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I was thinking of trying something like what the OP suggests, but the warden keeps turning my cell.

 

Sounds like it would be easier to just have a Zima. Of course that is not made in the U.S. anymore, which is a good thing.

 

First glass: Ugh! Gross!
Second glass: So gross!
Third glass: I'm drunk! Still gross

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilju

Something similar to this stuff.

I made a gallon batch of it before just for $hitz-n-giggles.
It really didn't taste much like anything.
So i put some almond extract into it with some overly intense coffee just to give it SOME flavor at all. It wasn't bad at that point but not something so good that i felt i needed to make more of it.Seeing how the guy wants to make this with some malt extract i figure it would resemble michelob ultra or one of those other `dieters beers`

 

I have fermented table sugar and yeast nutrient. It was thin, sour and terrible.

 

It would be pretty close to straight alcohol with no beer characteristics at all. Doesn't sound very appealing.

 

To those that have done this and are posting the results: Thank you!

To those that are going to try some variant: Can I also recommend just doing one gallon for science before making 5 gallons of something you don't like? Post what happens.

To the naysayers: Go away! Let the men experiment in peace. The worst they can do is waste a few bucks while learning something first hand.

As an aside: if people are actually going to ferment some sugar - what yeast? Saison? Distillers yeast? I'm thinking some things might actually give interesting flavors.

 

Well there is probably some good yeast in my beard or my kids hamster. Maybe then it would make everyone hamster dance!

 

If you'd use sugar for more than 50% of your fermentable it'd be more correct to call the end result sugar wine. You also run the risk of creating off flavours in the realm of cider flavours. But it's prob fun to experiment with less refined sugars like palm sugar, molasses and those Mexican sugar cones. Part of those unrefined sugars are "unfermentable" so they'll give some sweetness and body.

 

For the continued experiment we are doing (probably this weekend). The concoction will be added to an existing trub from 3 previous batches of Saisons. Normal, lemon grass, and coffee. I don't expect it to taste good at all, but it is a good farewell to the overall experiment.

To sum up the experiment. It's about how much you can push the trub , the effects of over pitching (given a huge bed of yeast), and how much the yeast changes over time. About to hit the 3rd month with the same trub and have yet to have signs of autolysis.

 

I let 2 five gallon batches of cider (lots of sugar added) sit for 4-5 months in primary that was a yeast cake divided in 2 from another five gallon batch that sat for at least a month in primary.....(lavlin ec 1118)
no off flavors at all.
I often wonder about how much a concern autolysis really is for the homebrewer.
Doesn't the yeast strain Guinness use a few HUNDRED years old?
Certain distillers also use a `private yeast strain` they have kept for generations.
I'd love to read some info on `breeding yeast` but that perhaps should have it's own seperate thread.

 

I did this, but added an ounce of ginger root and an ounce of lemon peel with 5 minutes left in the boil -- I was worried it'd end up pretty tasteless with such a small amount of malt extract, but I regret adding them now. The end result was alright, nothing worth trying to reproduce though.

On bottling day, the ginger flavor and lemon zest overpowered everything and I came pretty close to just dumping it. The beer burned to drink. I did end up dumping some of it, but since I had a 12 pack of 1L EZ-cap bottles I filled those.

Over time the ginger and lemon flavors have dulled, it no longer burns, and it's an acceptable beverage. The sorachi ace flavors are present (lemon and dill), and it tastes quite a lot like beer with some ginger. It's just very light in body.

I'm willing to give it another try without the ginger/lemon, and preferably a fruitier yeast using low alpha high beta hops.

 

I'm going to be doing a 2g batch of just table sugar and water and yeast. Will mix in some grape kool-aid and splenda on bottling day Gonna bottle in reused old English plastic bottles. Callin it 'purple drank'.

Purely academic, these pursuits.

 

There's a product made in CT called Spiked Seltzer that's sugar wash, a little flavor, and carbonation. To me it tastes just like it sounds, and it sounds exactly like what they make in prison toilets, but they actually can't keep up with demand. You may just end up with a raging success.

 

Any reason you couldn't use plain sugar syrup for a yeast starter? All the recipes I have seen call for wort but I don't see any scientific reason for it.

 

Malt has nutrients that yeast need to grow and be healthy. You will need to add yeast nutrient if you want to try something else. Not worth it IMO.

 

I've started this project.

8 litres of H20
800g table sugar (I think...it was a lot)
1/3 packet of turbo yeast

into the fermentation chamber at 67.5 degrees (because that's what it's set to already).

This is going to be...well... interesting?
LOLZ

 

Anyone remember Zima?

 

I wish I didn't.

 

I loved Zima! Guess I'm the only one??

 

Zima was actually fermented malt, they just filtered out the color and flavor - same as Smirnoff Ice, etc.

 

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You need free amino nitrogen (FAN) to feed the yeast