Experimenting with sugar

[Madjon]

Hello everyone, not posted for ages, mainly cos ive been experimenting with some rather nice WN1 variants, peach, pineapple, kiwi, etc... It's going well!!

With all my wines, and ciders, ive been using standard granulated sugar, but is this the best?? My local home brew shop stocks 'brewing sugar', do you know if this is better than normal (i.e. cleaner, sweeter, etc..) ? Can icing, castor, demerara and other sugars be used and if so what are the benefits? Are there other options other than using sugar, ive heard honey is good, should i try to dissolve it in boiling water first?

As you can see, ive got plenty of questions, all sweet though !

Any opinions would be greatly received, im sure some of you must have experimented with various products.

Its greatly appreciated, i do love this site for all its tips and assistance.

Jon

[NorthernWiner]

Hard to say if granulated sugar is "the best" but it's a relatively pure form of sugar. To yeast, sugar is sugar. They consume it at the molecular level. Flavor differences in different sugars used in winemaking can be attributed to whatever impurities are left in the finished wine after the molecular sugar has been metabolized by the yeast.

[NorthernWiner]

As far as what's best to use for back sweetening a wine, I often use reserved juice whenever I can. Second to that, I prefer plain granulated sugar.

[Madjon]

Cheers Steve, will carry on using the normal granulated stuff.

[NorthernWiner]

Well... I'm not really saying not to use anything but granular sugar. But just be aware that other forms of sugar may add their own distinct flavors. Sometimes that's not always a bad thing. I know winemakers who swear by using brown sugar to sweeten apple and strawberry wines.

[Cellar_Rat]

A subject close to my heart this one. I use granulated (unless I want the flavour of something else) BUT there is a difference between white granulated sugars.

Silver spoon is made from sugar beet.
Tate and Lyle (and Lidl) is made from cane.

Cane sugar is by FAR the best! Beet sugar I can have an earthly taste. I made some 2 batches of sugar wine with all else identical and the taste difference was startling.

Also when buying sugar read the label - some contain sulphites!!

Brewing sugar is inverted sugar - you pay for the priviledge of someone mechanically doing the bit yeast does (for free) before it gets going proper.

Or you can do it yourself on the stove. Boil the sugar up with some citric acid (or lemon juice). If you need a full recipe shout out!

This process inverts, or breaks down, the sucrose into its two components, glucose and fructose, making it easier to ferment by saving the yeast a job and thus preventing the fermentation from stalling.

I have given up inverting sugar, because I could not prove it made any difference.

Hope that helps.........

[NorthernWiner]

Silver spoon is made from sugar beet.
Tate and Lyle (and Lidl) is made from cane.

Good point. Living where I do, I wasn't aware of this.

When I say "granulated sugar" what I mean is "cane sugar". It's by far the most common available over here. It's a very pure, highly refined product (some consider it too refined). I've had beet sugar and it is in fact a little different in flavor.

[solly]

Morrisions are selling Granulated Sugar, 2 x 1kg bags for £1.30

Checked all over the bag and it dont say weather it made from Sugar Beet or Sugar Cane?

[Cellar_Rat]

65p is good, not a steal (cheapest I have seen recently is 59p) and particularly when you can't tell what it is. Sulphites??

PS - Isn't it illegal to sell things that don't display their ingredients?

[Rich]

£7.79 for 15 bags of Tate and Lyle is pretty reasonable I think. Local Costco today.

[solly]

Isn't it illegal to sell things that don't display their ingredients?

Thats exactly what I throught, but it just says Granulated Sugar on the front and the nutrition value on the back...and thats it............maybe sugar is sugar and to Joe Public it don't matter is its made from cane or beet?

Is there another way to tell if it made from cane or beet?

[Bill Berry]

The distinction between cane and beet sugar is interesting. I've not noticed the difference when making our elderberry wine. Sometimes we buy fair trade cane sugar but mostly we buy 5Kg bags of beet sugar.

When we make a 5 gallon batch we use just under 5Kg of white granulated sugar and 2Kg of Soft Light Brown Sugar.

We certainly seem to get a richer more complex wine when we use soft light brown sugar in the recipe. The wine is quite robust and flavoursome, maybe SLBS is particularly suited to this type of wine. Does anyone use this type of sugar in more delicate wines?

Just thought I'd throw my 50 grams worth into the mix.

[fatbloke]

dunno about the lesser brands, but T&L and Whitworths is cane, whereas "Silver Spoon" by British Sugar is beet......

and no, most don't list the actual source material.......

regards

jtfb

[mcblades]

hi, i once tried to use honey in a primary for a wn1. Never got it to clear properly and had quite a peculiar taste (sort of mead like but even more horrible). Guess honey can give trouble with clearing?

[fatbloke]

hi, i once tried to use honey in a primary for a wn1. Never got it to clear properly and had quite a peculiar taste (sort of mead like but even more horrible). Guess honey can give trouble with clearing?

Hum? not usually. Though you can get a few strange effects, like hazing if you back sweeten with it - as far as I can work out, that's a protein haze thing and there's either enzymes to sort it or if you leave it to age, it will usually drop out naturally but can take some time.....

regards

jtfb