On 25 Apr 2005 16:33:09 GMT, "Peter.QLD" <a@b.c> wrote:
[color=blue]
>"junkhunter" <junkman18@hotmail.com> wrote in
>news:CF7be.370$Gd7.88@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com:
>[color=green]
>> Is it possible to make the alcohol content higher using the Beer
>> Machine??
>> The beer is good but seems to be low in alcohol.
>>
>> Thanks
>>[/color]
>Just add a bit more sugar, an extra 250g in the small model should
>help, but figure out what percentage your kit is giving and how much
>you should reasonably add, or someone else might suggest a figure that
>isn't just a wild guess as to what might be about right.
>
>Use a pure sugar and it shouldn't affect the taste at all while adding
>some alcohol. Can someone tell me if table sugar is pure? Or is it
>something in there that makes people so reluctant to use it in brewing?
>You should be able to pick up a bag of dextrose anywhere that sells
>home brew supplies anyway.[/color]

"Pure" is relative and subject to a lot of hyperbole. From what I
read table sugar (cane sugar) should ferment out completely as should
dextrose (corn sugar). All the sugar turns into alcohol . . .

Digressing for a bit . . . regarding hype and the word "pure." Ivory
Soap has been "new and improved" some hundreds of times since it was
introduced in the 1800's, yet it has always been "99.9% pure" (what?)
Do they really thing I'm stupid enough to believe they can fiddle with
the last .1% and make a real difference in the product? All they
gotta do is fool some people into thinking the product is better
because the packaging has changed.

I stick with maltose, but that's mainly because there was a lot of
propaganda about cane sugar causing a cidery taste. It is entirely
possible that maltose masks the cidery taste that would be present in
all beer except for the masking effect. Frankly I don't know.

I make very good beer using all maltose, so, for the time being, I
plan to continue making all maltose beer. The difference in cost?
Not significant compared to good beer, the labor of love, and the
spiritual sanctity of food. but that's just an opinion . . .

Read the theory, listen to the experts, all you want; in the end do
what works for you. This is art and science. Learn the science;
practice the art. Or, to express it another way: there are no
experts.
[color=blue]
>Note that if the alcohol goes too high the yeast won't cope and will
>stop fermenting. Then you'll taste the unfernemted sugars. Too high
>is somewhere around 6 or 7% as I understand it. The thing to remember
>about the beer machine is that for the fermentation stage it's just a
>small carboy as far as you're concerned, so anything you read on
>homebrew information sites is going to apply once you adjust for size.[/color]

Some yeasts are supposed (advertised) to go to 20% (distiller's
yeasts). Champagne yeast tolerates ~10% with no problems. Now . . .
if you brew with maltose and use a champagne yeast, that doesn't mean
you get champagne. You get some ******* of a brew that may be good
but don't expect to match some other style just based on ingredients.
Ditto: baker's yeast pitched into wort doesn't yield bread, but makes
pretty good beer, but it may not pin down the style you're trying for.
In the 2-6% range it is dependant on the yeast and sugar- almost
anything works - outside that you may need to let it ferment longer
(below 2% who will ever know?)

Regarding carboys and sugar and percents of alcohol: I figure on
about .8% per pound of fermentable sugar in five gallons of liquid.
(or did back when I used a hydrometer)[color=blue]
>
>[url]http://www.howtobrew.com[/url] taught me a fair bit about the theory and
>practice of what I was doing. No matter how simple to use your
>equipment may be, it's nice to know just what's going on in there.
>[/color]
Excellent site.
[color=blue]
>Apologies for things I've told you that you already know.
>Abject apologies for things I've told you that are wrong, I'm sure the
>nice people here will let us know about those.
>
>peter[/color]

No need for the disclaimer. Some of the experts just need to realize
we should all advance the art of homebrew. No one has all the
answers, no one controls all the variables - not to mention the most
important variable: One's individual taste!

Unless we all start brewing in passivated stainless steel with
ingredients from the same place, and time, with equipment that came
off the same cookie cutter . . .

Thomas Edison had something to say about that. He wrote something
like "you read about an expert's knowledge and trust it because of the
name associated with it, but when you do the experiment, you find that
the idea isn't supported by the experiment." (not verbatim - too lazy
to look it up, and I really don't think T.E. was a scientist, just a
guy trying to make a buck from other people's discoveries, like Bill
Gates, half a brain and a lot of showmanship and greed)



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