brewing sugar in replacement of malt extract?

[LouisCarney]

The brew I'm about to follow says that 3ibs of light malt extract should be used, I was wondering if I could half this amount and make up the rest with brewing sugar? PS. I'm very new to this

 

[McKnuckle]

You can do this, but realize that malt extract is the special stuff that beer is actually made of (sugars and other components derived from malted barley). If you use corn sugar for 50% of the prescribed amount, you'll dilute flavor, texture, aroma, and everything else to a large extent.

 

[bja]

Why would you want to do that?

 

[chickypad]

What is the whole recipe? Replacing a small portion of the extract with simple sugar might be a good strategy if you maybe had a high gravity beer that you wanted to dry out - like a big IPA for example - and you were worried about it attenuating. It sounds like you're talking about just replacing a significant amount of the recipe with sugar, which in most instances would not be good thing for the beer.

 

[Psylocide]

Yeah, don't go the sugar route... much too dry.

But, it could depend on the recipe, if you could post the recipe, it might help a bit.

 

[LouisCarney]

3 lbs light dried malt extract
8 oz crushed crystal malt
1 oz Northern Brewer pellet hops
50g pkg brewers yeast

 

[Psylocide]

What size batch is this?

 

[LouisCarney]

2.5 gallon

 

[Psylocide]

It's probably not the answer you want, but I would highly suggest getting the 3 lbs of dry malt extract.

The problem with using simple sugar for ~half the malt bill is that it will result in a SUPER dry beer. It would be pretty disappointing, unless that's what you're going for.

 

[chickypad]

Looks like a pale or blond ale. I would not advice replacing 50% of your fementables with sugar. I think you mean 5g of yeast, right?

 

[LouisCarney]

I was going to make a 2.5 gallon batch but I ordered the wrong amount of extract, so instead of scaling the ratios down to make one gallon I was going to try and replace the extract with sugar, obviously this would of been my first rookie Mistake though! Going to make one gallon now as this is my first brew and go from there! Could I have added more crushed crystal malt instead of the extract?

 

[LouisCarney]

And yes I do mean 5g of yeast! My bad

 

[Psylocide]

Do you have a homebrew store local to you? I would run out and get some. You'll also want to scale back that crystal by about half if you're only going to do a gallon... maybe a bit more.

Crystal malts will contribute very little in the way of fermentable sugars, so no... adding more wouldn't help much.

Try giving this a read in your spare time, it may answer a lot of the questions you're having.

http://www.howtobrew.com/intro.html

 

[LouisCarney]

Unfortunately not, having to order all my ingredients online which is why I was looking for any alternative but to purchase more! I've redone the ratios for a gallon and it should be fine now! I'll definitely give it a read though, this is my first attempt and I'm sure I'll find many more problems along the way! Thanks for the helpful advice

 

[Psylocide]

Unfortunately not, having to order all my ingredients online which is why I was looking for any alternative but to purchase more! I've redone the ratios for a gallon and it should be fine now! I'll definitely give it a read though, this is my first attempt and I'm sure I'll find many more problems along the way! Thanks for the helpful advice

No worries, good luck with your brew. Let us know how it turns out.