BeerBorg

My second batch of Brew Demon was disappointing. I brewed Brew Demon's Ye Olde Devil Nut Brown Ale, and while it's not a BAD beer, I don't particularly love it, either. The label says:

Like the devil of yore, one sip of this deceptively sweet ale and you will be striking a bargain for your soul.

The refill kit consists of:

• HME: Ye Olde Devil Nut Brown Ale
• UME: Red Horse Mellow Amber

The beer was in the fermenter for 2 weeks, and in the bottles for 2.5 weeks, so it had a nice long time (wrt the recommended 1 week, 1 week). I have two complaints about the beer:

First, the flavor didn't "pop". My first batch was American Prophecy Ale, and when I took a sip, I could TOTALLY tell it was homebrew. The flavors were crisp, malty, clean. Even though the beer wasn't as hoppy or strong as I usually drink, it was delicious and tasted very, very fresh. I didn't get the "punch" of flavor from Ye Olde Devil Nut Brown Ale.

Second, it wasn't very sweet at all. I usually tend towards hoppy beers, but I have a weakness for Newcastle Brown Nut Ale. I don't drink it as a beer -- I drink it as a dessert. It's like a dessert for adults. Sweet and delicious. Almost like alcoholic ice cream.


I don't think there's anything I can do to help complaint #1. I guess it is what it is. I simply don't care much for this particular Brew Demon refill kit.

But I was wondering about complaint #2. How do people produce a sweeter beer? My understanding is that when you add sugar during the fermentation phase, the yeast simply eats all of it converts it into beer flavor + alcohol. The more sugar, the more beer flavor + alcohol, in other words, you can't sweeten a beer by simply adding sugars into the fermenter. Same problem with adding sugars to the bottle -- it doesn't produce a sweeter beer; it just produces more carbonation (and possibly a bottle bomb).

I don't think I'll ever purchase this particular refill kit again, but if I were to give it a second chance, how do I make the beer sweeter? A LOT sweeter? Like a Newcastle?

In general, how do we control the sweetness of our homebrewed beers?

If you wanted to make that beer a lot sweeter, then you would want to add more malt extract, not sugar. Malt extract will only ferment out 70-80%, the rest is left over malt sugars, so... sweetness. In your case you would want to use an extra can of the Red Horse Mellow Amber extract, or buy some DME (dried malt extract) and add say 8oz of it to the batch. If you were an all grain brewer you would add more malt, or cut down on your bittering hops. You can't as easily just cut down on the hops in your case, because they are baked into the HME. The only way to cut down on the bitterness in this case is to brew more volume (dilute it by adding more water). That leads to...

And then yes, I would say that you should also increase the volume of wort a bit (by adding more water) and try to get closer to 2.5 or 2.6 gallons out of your fermenter instead of 2, which will get the ABV back down closer to where it's supposed to be, but also help to cut down on the bitterness and still leave a bit more residual sweetness and help make the extra $ spent less painful because having more bottles of beer is always a good thing right?

If you don't add more water it will still be sweeter, but it's going to higher in alcohol then Newcastle. I think diluted more as above is going to get you closer to what you want. It will also help the color to not be a lot darker.

mashani wrote:If you wanted to make that beer a lot sweeter, then you would want to add more malt extract, not sugar. Malt extract will only ferment out 70-80%, the rest is left over malt sugars, so... sweetness. In your case you would want to use an extra can of the Red Horse Mellow Amber extract, or buy some DME (dried malt extract) and add say 8oz of it to the batch. If you were an all grain brewer you would add more malt, or cut down on your bittering hops. You can't as easily just cut down on the hops in your case, because they are baked into the HME. The only way to cut down on the bitterness in this case is to brew more volume (dilute it by adding more water). That leads to...

And then yes, I would say that you should also increase the volume of wort a bit (by adding more water) and try to get closer to 2.5 or 2.6 gallons out of your fermenter instead of 2, which will get the ABV back down closer to where it's supposed to be, but also help to cut down on the bitterness and still leave a bit more residual sweetness and help make the extra $ spent less painful because having more bottles of beer is always a good thing right?

If you don't add more water it will still be sweeter, but it's going to higher in alcohol then Newcastle. I think diluted more as above is going to get you closer to what you want. It will also help the color to not be a lot darker.

Wow... I can't believe how much I just learned from 3 paragraphs.

You've given me a lot to research and a lot to experiment with. I'll be playing around with this for months. Very much appreciated!

Thank you!!!!!

I have nothing to add, mashani covered it.

So if nothing else, know that there's a "I second that" on what he wrote.

Kealia wrote:I have nothing to add, mashani covered it.

So if nothing else, know that there's a "I second that" on what he wrote.

Awesome! Thank you!

Yup. Mashani nailed it, and he usually does.


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In addition to what you've learned so far ... you can 'back-sweeten' your beer with an non-fermentable sugar such as lactose (or Splenda?).
I've never back-sweetened nothing so maybe see what Teh Google or Teh Mashani have to say about it.

It's also possible the BD kit ain't all that.
A different recipe might give you better results.

HerbMeowing wrote:In addition to what you've learned so far ... you can 'back-sweeten' your beer with an non-fermentable sugar such as lactose (or Splenda?).
I've never back-sweetened nothing so maybe see what Teh Google or Teh Mashini have to say about it.

It's also possible the BD kit ain't all that.
A different recipe might give you better results.

Thanks for this. I just watched a video on back-sweetening on a channel called CS Mead and it was excellent. Some of it was beyond me, but I'm sure I'll grow into it with more experience.

What is Mashini?

caffeine wrote:What is Mashani?

Not a day goes by when I don't ask myself that very same question ;/
http://beerborg.com/forum/memberlist.ph ... file&u=123

- apologies to Mashani for the misspelling in the original post

HerbMeowing wrote:

caffeine wrote:What is Mashani?

Not a day goes by when I don't ask myself that very same question ;/

Ha Ha good one Herb

HerbMeowing wrote:

caffeine wrote:What is Mashani?

Not a day goes by when I don't ask myself that very same question ;/

mashini.jpg

http://beerborg.com/forum/memberlist.ph ... file&u=123

- apologies to Mashani for the misspelling in the original post

He's a brewing and triathlon guru. He has helped me up my game in both of those arenas.