Dextrose vs corn syrup

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IrishBrewer74

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I'm looking to make some apfelwein but don't want to buy a bunch of small packages of dextrose from LHBS. There is a Heath Hut that may carry it near me, but I was wondering about the possibility of using corn syrup... Since dextrose is corn sugar and corn syrup is liquid corn sugar, is it possible to substitute one for the other? How do measurements convert? Or should I just keep looking for dextrose?
 
You've got to keep an eye on your ingredients when it comes to corn syrup. A lot of the corn syrup is not pure dextrose. I think often it has varying degrees of fructose and can contain things like salt or vanilla.

I really don't think you'd have any trouble substituting plain old table sugar for the dextrose. Several beer sources say that using too much sucrose in wort can cause the beer to take on a cidery flavour, but I can't see anything wrong with that for your purposes. Tons of people like to make their strong cider with brown sugar, and that's sucrose.

Someone else can chime in here if I've got that wrong.
 
Table sugar gives my cider a nailpolish like flavor. To back this up, several judges of competitions that I've entered have corroborated this .

Stick with corn sugar, Apple juice concentrate, and Brown sugar to bottle prime.
 
You can pick up dextrose (corn sugar) at your home brew store . Of anyone knows another place to buy please speak up. My local home brew store has strangely jacked up prices on their ingredients lately.
 
My local home brew store has strangely jacked up prices on their ingredients lately.

I don't think it's just your LHBS. It's not really all that much cheaper for me to make beer/cider at home...but I do it because I like my beverages and I can easily sit (with a homebrew) and watch an active airlock for hours.

Ok...it's a little cheaper, but not if you include the star san, the bottle caps the priming sugar, the gas to boil wort, the copious amounts of water to prep bottles and rinse them...;)

I would think you could mail order corn sugar for around $10 for 4 lbs including shipping.
 
My LHBS carries it, but only in 5 oz packs as priming sugar at $1.25 a piece. I would need 6 of them for the two pounds needed, making them a pricey option. Supplement warehouse has 2 pound package for $2.44. I was just hoping for an easier or cheaper alternative.
 
Here in Atlanta, even white table sugar is expensive these days. They even went from 5lb bags to 4lb bags a while back and didn't drop the price.

$1.22 a lb is pretty cheap.
 
My LHBS carries it, but only in 5 oz packs as priming sugar at $1.25 a piece. I would need 6 of them for the two pounds needed, making them a pricey option. Supplement warehouse has 2 pound package for $2.44. I was just hoping for an easier or cheaper alternative.

I have a feeling I know who you're talking about and everything there is expensive especially since they killed off most the other LHBS in the area. Try The Purple Foot on 92nd and Beloit/Oklahoma (they all meet right there) they may have it in bulk.

**EDIT**
I called for ya and checked. They have it in stock. 1lbs for $1.30 and 4lbs for $4.50
Dont let the big fancy stores rip ya off.
 
I'm making a 120 Minute IIPA recipe that called for 11lb of Dextrose (anhydrous corn sugar, glucose). For sanitary and simplicity reasons, I built a drip feeder out of a bucket and filled it with corn syrup (pure glucose) so I wouldn't have to oppen the fermenter every day and add X amount of dry sugar and then stir it. The glucose drips in and the yeast has its way with it, so to speak.

My question: No clue on how one equates to the other. I have to logically assume that I'd need more of the corn syrup vs. corn sugar because of the weight of the water, but how much more? Is there an exact science to this? I figured it would be something I would have to get from the manufacturer - something like the potential, or the PpPpG of this specific corn syrup.

And for the record, yes it's pure corn syrup. Not Karo. Not with added fructose or HFCS or vanilla or salt.
 
I'm new to the hobby and I could be wrong but I would think corn syrup would work just fine. As for conversion of volumes, I would just focus on getting the right OG.

However, if it is nail polish remover taste that you are worried about, I think that may have more to do with high fermentation temps than sugar type.

Also, I understand that the nail polish remover taste (fusil alcohol) can age out via malo-lactic fermentation. May turn towards a more desirable banana taste over time. Might need as much as a year to age. This is what I've read and I'm counting on... Not first hand experience.

I have a batch aging with the nail polish problem. It fermented at room temp in June heat.

I used dextrose on my last batch but also the kegerator was empty so I used that as a fermentation chamber and kept the heat at a constant 68. No nail polish remover taste.



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Ya I'm not worried about the flavors, I built a 66 degree fermentation out of a window air conditioner and our bedroom lol.

It's got a 1.2 calculated OG, spot on with the recipe (20+% ABV)

Turns out it's like a 30% increase from dextrose powder to glucose syrup, factoring in the water weight.

The recipe just says slowly add it until the fermentation stops.
 
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