Calling all homebrewers

[mac56]

I got a new homebrew recipe book that calls for "glucose syrup". WTF is that?! Is it the same as corn syrup?

Anyone?

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

1. I believe corn syrup is sucrose - but I'm sure I'm wrong

[Kellanved]

3. it is the European Equivalent

It is not quite corn (fructose) syrup. AFAIR it is considered to be slightly less unhealthy. It does not taste quite the same and the sweetening power is different.


Edit: was supposed to be in reply to the original post.

[On the Road]

2. Found This:

"Since I once worked at a corn wet-milling plant in Germany, I believe I can shed some light on this process. In the old days corn processors found they could take the starch they separated from the rest of the corn kernel, and break it down into sugar solutions (by an acid hydrolysis?). With typical marketing hyperbole, they called this "glucose" syrup, even though a lot of it was not glucose (ie a six carbon sugar monomer) but rather maltose (a dimer) and other stuff. I'm not sure if they ever solidified this stuff.

Then as technology progressed they became able to use enzymes to break down the starch virtually 100% of the way to a simple (monomer) sugar. This became "dextrose" even though chemically dextrose and glucose are the same. Thus dextrose syrup and crystalline dextrose."

http://hbd.org/hbd/archive/1016.html

In general, though, corn is an inferior ingredient in beer. It's usually used by discount brands like Red Dog and Milwaukee's Best. Might be worth thing about substituting some other kind of sugar or light malt.

[mac56]

5. Any suggestions for what to use instead?

This is a Scottish-style ale.

Have you ever used Lyle's Golden Syrup?

[Kellanved]

6. no real idea

IMHO Glucose Syrup has no business in a beer. Maybe it is possible to use dextrose powder?

[On the Road]

7. Traditional Ale is Malt, Yeast, and Water

so I'm not sure the glucose syrup is really necessary. But you do need to replace it with something else that will ferment.

I don't know how glucose syrup tastes or what the Scottish Ale is supposed to taste like. Perhaps a corresponding amount of whatever malt you're using, as long as it's not too strong?

I don't homebrew any more and I'm really not an expert. It might be worthwhile to check some other Scottish Ale recipes and see what they use.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

4. Some info I found

http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/biology/enztech/glucose.html