this is what got me into home brewing...

[FreeLordBrewing]

I watched a program on T.V. called "good eats" on the food network hosted by Alton Brown. The episode was called "Amber waves" and was an episode on home brewing that got me interested in the hobby. Have you seen it??

unfortunately I practiced a lot of things he explains to do that I have found to be bad practices, only learning this after my first couple of batches, via reading/researching. On the program he uses a bag of ice bought locally to cool the wort down straight off the stove in his fermenter (this is bad practice according to Charlie Papazian in his book of joy of home brewing as who knows what kind of water and what kind of bacteria is floating around the ice making companies equipment) this is what I use to do, now I give my brew kettle an ice bath (still doing extract at this point) prior to pouring it into my fermenter....I might eventually purchase a wort chiller.

Alton on the episode makes an extract recipe but He refers to "mashing" his specialty grain when I believe he should of said "steeping". I was under the impression that mashing/steeping was one in the same. I didn't learn the difference until joining this site.

In the episode Alton states that boiling the sugar on the stove is needed as common table sugar is a disaccharide (a double sugar) and yeast can not eat it, by boiling the table sugar in water on the stove you break the double sugar into two monosaccharides which is totally edible for yeast to eat. Is this correct?? I thought boiling was for sanitation purposes only? and that yeast are able to eat disaccharides. Does the same reasoning apply to corn sugar as well??

I'm not trying to slam the guy or anything as I am still pretty much a newbie, and if it wasn't for that episode I may have never gotten into this hobby. But I guess I am just trying to get my info corrected, and my head on straight so I get a full understanding of what I'm doing (and what I shouldn't be doing) and what is the correct or "better" practice of things so that my end product comes out to the best of its/my ability!! I'm sure I share this same philosophy with some of you! no one wants to produce something they are ashamed of right??

 

[Hammy71]

Hey, everybody makes beer differently. I enjoy Alton's shows and while he may make me cringe when he brews...he still made beer that he enjoyed. Sorta like the Craigtube guy everybody likes to bang on. It isn't the way I'd do it...but to each his own.

 

[TyTanium]

Good comment above. Agreed. I actually saw on a different episode (fermentation nation, I think), he has some StarSan, a corny keg and capper in his cellar...perhaps just for show, but I wouldn't be surprised if he got hooked after doing the homebrew episode.

 

[SouthBay]

I'm def going to find that episode online! Sounds like itd be fun to watch

 

[cshamilton]

Search for some of the old threads on here - there are a few from years ago when the show aired. Yes he made a lot of mistakes and confused some people, but he also showed a lot of people that homebrewing was relatively easy and fun. If I watched it now I'd cringe a few times, but hey if it brings more people to homebrewing then great.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

It was after watching his show in 2005 that I caught the homebrewing bug, and I've been afflicted by it ever since!

Does he follow the best practices possible? Not quite. But he got the job done.

 

[FreeLordBrewing]

I'm not trying to slam the guy or anything as I am still pretty much a newbie

I agree with the "to each their own" and again I am not slamming him, or putting him down just trying to get my info/understanding straight.

so can beer yeast consume a disaccharide and produce co2/alcohol?? or is Alton correct and only monosaccharides can be consumed by beer yeast??

so far this is what I understand

corn sugar = dextrose = monosaccharide

table sugar = sucrose = disaccharide

correct me if I am wrong please

 

[thecad]

my experience with table sugar is that it doesn't work well for carbonation purposes. I tried it several times and every time my beer came out flat. In contrast I have had very few problems with corn sugar. I recently used itable sugar in a recipie and have not yet gotten the results.

Don't know the science behind it cause i'm not that smart, but i'm smart enough to make beer.

just my 2 cents.

your pal;
THE CAD

 

[Waynep005]

I just used table sugar to prime a plae ale and it worked great. Only time I have done it so far but will try again.

 

[cshamilton]

Brewers yeast can breakdown mono, di, and trisaccharides. Glucose as a monosaccharide is broken down first, then disaccharides like sucrose and maltose, followed by trisaccharides like maltotriose. Now some strains of yeast don't breakdown trisaccharides well - I believe some wine yeast are unable to (juice doesn't normally contain many/any trisaccharides). There are some sugars that brewers yeast cannot breakdown (e.g. lactose).

 

[TyTanium]

You can certainly use table sugar for priming - works great, no issues. I see no reason to use something more expensive.

 

[HolyKrausenBatman]

I love Alton Brown. His scientific approach to food has always sucked me into his show. I can imagine it's not easy to approach something so complex as brewing is and try to pare it down to a 30 min show and only have a week to do it, so I'm not surprised that some of his methods differ from our best practices. I haven't seen this episode yet, but I'll be doing a search for it later. I'm sure some of his stuff in other areas isn't quite 100% either, but I'm happy to see that his work doesn't go unnoticed. I've gotten into many an area of cooking and baking because of him. Who knew he was inspiring brewers too!

 

[unionrdr]

My wife & I found the show on youtube last winter. I laughed at some points,& cringed at others. He may be a food nerd,but he has a few things to get straight about home brewing. but,...it was likely his first time,so that;s ok. But he should reasearch his facts a bit more with the likes of this site before filming.