Type of sugars??

What kind of sugar can you use to ferment with? Can you use table sugar bought in bulk from a store or do you absolutely have to use corn sugar with the beer kits?

Either one will work fine. But I think corn sugar in recipes is cleaner.

Ok, but are the quantities used the same? Would you still use 1 KG per kit?

hwy said:

Ok, but are the quantities used the same? Would you still use 1 KG per kit?

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I know that's what those prehopped "kit and a kilo" kits call for. But for the best flavor in those kits, I'd use no simple sugar at all and instead use dry malt extract in place of the sugar.

Yes, you can- but using a kg either is less than ideal. If you have a health food store or a high-end supermarket near you (Whole Foods, whatever) you can buy a jar of Eden Organic Malt Syrup, which is basically a jar of liquid malt extract, and sub that for half of the sugar. You'll get a better beer for your trouble.

hwy said:

Ok, but are the quantities used the same? Would you still use 1 KG per kit?

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I like to use a priming sugar calculator.

Um. One *kilogram* per kit? Just how large a kit is this?

You use a little less table sugar. Something like 7/8 as much. Or you don't sweat it 'cause it's not an exact science and you haven't really measured you batch size to the dram and the amount varies by desired co2 volume and ...

Thanks for the input but i am unclear on what priming sugar is used for. Is it for carbonating when fermentation is done and ready to bottler. If so, I was referring to adding the 1 KG of table sugar instead of malt extract enhancer (corn sugar?), As we are not particularilary going for great taste on these first batches as we are taking them camping at the lake and probably wont taste the product after the first few cases!! LOL

Just trying to cut our costs a little , if possible, that is why we are asking these questions.

We are using Coopers draught and Morgans pilsner brew canned kits.

Thanks again, all!

Oh! You are *fermenting* with sugar! I thought you were talking about bottling!

Ignore my priming sugar calculator! And my perplexion at 1 kilo (which is enough to *bottle* 50 gallons of beer)!

Sorry for the bad advice.

hwy said:

Thanks for the input but i am unclear on what priming sugar is used for. Is it for carbonating when fermentation is done and ready to bottler. If so, I was referring to adding the 1 KG of table sugar instead of malt extract enhancer (corn sugar?), As we are not particularilary going for great taste on these first batches as we are taking them camping at the lake and probably wont taste the product after the first few cases!! LOL

Just trying to cut our costs a little , if possible, that is why we are asking these questions.

We are using Coopers draught and Morgans pilsner brew canned kits.

Thanks again, all!

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If cheap is paramount, then yes 1 kg of sugar (either corn sugar or table sugar) will be cheapest. It won't make the best beer, but it will make the cheapest. That, along with the included yeast, would definitely have more cost savings.

For a better quality beer, using malt extract (not those canned kits) and hops along better yeast would be the way to go. I think those kits go for around $30 and up for 5 gallons.

The "kit and a kilo" no boil kits like those Cooper's kits are usually about $23 or so (but you need to buy some sugar and yeast) for 6 gallons. They are convenient because you just open the can and dump everything into a fermenter, like making kool-aid, but they just don't taste all that good.

I'll disagree with Yooper to a point. I've had some very good canned kits and some pretty good ones- but not by just using the can and some sugar. (The one exception is Brewferm's Triple kit, which doesn't read like a true triple to me, but is pretty tasty when brewed with Belgian candy sugar and WL500.) The kits need malt instead of sugar- and upgrading the yeast and/or adding more hops usually helps. Heck, several well-respected homebrewing books include a few recipes based on canned kits, including works by Uncle Charlie. So yes, you can make good beer from a canned kit.

Yooper is right that you can make damn good beer for not much work with extract, hops, and yeast and save a few bucks versus the canned kit to boot. And once you have that down, learn to steep grains or do a partial mash, and then the whole wide world of beer is at your finger tips.

All that said, for now, in this thread, I stand by my initial advice since you seem to already have the kits in hand.