Cascade Home Brew - Frequently Asked Questions

RECIPES

What water should I brew with?
How do I calculate the alcohol content?
Which sugar should I use?
Can I change your recipe to make different beers?

Q. What water should I brew with?

The short answer is to use any water from the tap that you feel comfortable with drinking. If the water has a satisfactory taste and flavour and it looks clean then it should be safe to use.

Nowadays some water supplies appear to be heavily dosed with chlorine. If there are chlorine flavours present you may wish to remove them by boiling. This is a laborious task but it might be necessary.

Q. How do I calculate the alcohol content?

When fermentation occurs sugars are converted to alcohol (amongst other things).

The process has an effect upon the beer's gravity (density). The loss of sugars lowers the gravity and the formation of alcohol, which is less dense than water, causes a further lowering of the gravity.

There is a direct relationship between the amount of sugar lost and the amount of alcohol formed. If we determine the drop of degrees of gravity we can calculate the alcohol content of the beer.

Use the following simple equation:
Alcohol Formula
Thus there is 4.6 mL of alcohol in 100 mL of beer at the end of primary fermentation.

Further alcohol is formed from the priming sugar during secondary fermentation after bottling. This amounts to an extra 0.5%.

Therefore the alcohol content of the final beer in the bottle = 4.6% + 0.5% = 5.1% by volume.

Use our Online Brewer's Calculator.

Q. Which sugar should I use?

This question opens up a huge range of options! All my following answers assume that a 1.7 kg can of one of my Cascade Master Craftsman kits has been used in a volume of 23 L and that some form of extra sugar is to be added.

SAFETY NOTE: In some instances changing the recipe can result in fermentation finishing at a different gravity from that given in the instructions that come with the kit. This could lead to indecision as to when to bottle or it could lead to a decision to bottle too early. This may result in excessive secondary fermentation in the bottle with CO₂ build-up causing a faulty bottle to explode. I strongly recommend that you talk to your home brew shop to determine what changes to the final gravity might be involved.

In commercial brewing it is common to add some type of sugar along with the malt. These sugars are generally called "adjuncts".

Usually in home brew instructions the adjunct suggested is 1 kg of "sugar" - meaning the standard white cane sugar (sucrose) used in the kitchen. This is because it is conveniently available in the retail stores where home brew kits are purchased. Sucrose is commonly used in very good beers produced by commercial breweries. In home brewing it is also useful but sometimes it is associated with a slightly cidery and thin taste in the brew.

Many home brewers are happy with this but others visit home brew shops to seek alternatives. The following describes some of these.

Glucose (dextrose), 1 kg; is a very good alternative to sucrose. Many home brewers swear that it gives a cleaner, fuller flavour than sucrose (I think they are right!).

Glucose/maltodextrin mixtures, usually 1 kg; glucose is fully fermentable but maltodextrins are not. Therefore more extract remains after fermentation and adds extra body to the flavour. Maltodextrins can also enhance the head.

Malt extract (unhopped); these products add more malt flavour and colour to your brew and take it away (if you wish) from the usual commercial styles of beer. They are syrups containing 20% water and therefore you should use 1.25 kg to add the equivalent of 1 kg of pure sugar (sucrose or glucose). Malt extracts are 75% fermentable (compared to the 100% fermentability of sucrose and glucose). Therefore, like maltodextrin adjuncts, they contribute extra body to your brew and also contribute to head properties.

You may wish to simply double up (or part thereof) on the can of Cascade Master Craftsman extract that you have used. However note that the properties of my kits have been designed for use with non-hopped adjuncts. Therefore the resultant brew may be more highly hopped and coloured than expected. On the other hand this may suit you very well.

There are other options. I recommend that you talk to your local home brew shop. They know the possibilities and have good literature to help you along on your home brewing adventure.

Email me and let me know how you went - we can share your findings with others.

Q. Can I change your recipe to make different beers?

There are so many ways that you can experiment to make different beers. Many of these are given in the answers to another question ("Which sugar should I use?") in which I give examples of the various ways in which the 1 kg of sugar (sucrose) can be varied. In the following I present some other options.

Also there is a quality issue. Make sure that you have at least 1.7 kg of malt extract per 23 L. This is because malt extract contains natural amino acid nutrients required by the yeast for fermentation. If the malt extract concentration is too dilute the concentration of amino acids may become too low to promote a healthy yeast population. The fermentation may be slow or it may cease prematurely.

To make a lower alcohol beer simply remove some of the adjunct from the recipe. For example, a normal brew has 1 kg of sucrose; using only 500 g of sucrose lowers the beer alcohol by 1.4% by volume.

For a stronger, fuller flavoured beer reduce the 23 L final volume (or add more hopped malt extract).

Try some of the more stronger flavoured malt extracts (from more highly kilned malt) from a home brew shop.

Increase the bitterness by using a hop extract (be careful, it is easy to overdo this and obtain a beer that is too bitter).

Increase the bitterness and hop character by using "tea bags" of hops.

Avoid the temptation of adding a large amount of sugar simply to create a very high alcohol product. Too much alcohol causes the flavour to be out of balance and "winey". It may also have a negative effect on the head.

Email me and let me know how you went - we can share your findings with others.