What is the best sugar to use?

[adriedel]

I know I could use table sugar but i heard that makes a harsh cider that takes a while to age out.
I used honey last time but that can be expensive.

Should I use dextrose or some other kind of sugar. Any help would be great.

Thank you

 

[bobbrews]

Here's some info, but it's more relevant to beer...

Dextrose = a form of glucose, aka d-glucose or corn sugar.
Sucrose = a combo of glucose and fructose, aka table sugar.

The primary difference is between these sugars have to do with the way they are metabolized. Of the two, dextrose is said to be slightly more easily metabolized by brewing yeast. In either case, when brewing beer, you want the yeast to go after the maltose and maltriose first and foremost. To accomplish this when using simple sugars as a portion of your fermentables, 1- limit the amount of simple sugars used in brewing, and 2- (optional) pitch your sanitized/cooled simple syrup at high krausen, when the yeast are in full effect of actively munching on the malt sugars. As always, fermentation temperature and yeast health/cell count are of the utmost importance.

I would imagine with cider, you want primarily fruit sugars... or Fructose.

 

[Pickled_Pepper]

My personal preference is brown sugar...it's obviously just sucrose, but in my ciders I can tell a HUGE difference in brown and white table sugar. It even tastes different than Demarara Sugar that I have done test batches with.

I get really weird warm earthy tastes and aromas from refined white and demarara sugars. From Brown Sugar it's just a slight hint of caramel. I always thought that it might be because Table Sugar is probably made from Sugar Beets and the Brown Sugar is made from Sugar Canes. This is just a theory of course. I have no scientific evidence to back this up.

 

[hwilshusen]

I use dextrose because it dissolves easier. Most table sugar is cane. At least S&H is.

 

[WilliamSlayer]

I like to use a combination of Brown sugar, and inverted Table sugar. Inverting the table sugar makes it easier for the yeast to consume, thus stressing them out less and adding less off flavors.