Distilled Water and Dextrose

Daniel Parshley

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Established Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2020
Messages
238
Reaction score
323
Points
63
One observation and one question, and then dextrose.
Observation - Using distilled water for DME brewing has been mentioned several times in recent forum posts. I have hard water and been using it right along but look forward to making this change to distilled water and maybe improve my brew even more.
Flavoring Grains and Distilled Water - Should distilled water be avoided when steeping flavoring grains?
Dextrose (Corn Sugar) - What is the most you should use? I like how it dries the brew out and have been using around a pound to 5 pounds DME. This gives me ~5.5 to 6.0 ABV.
 
You don't have to use distilled or RO water to rehydrate extract but it's better to do so, unless you want to add ions for flavor reasons... Advanced topic.
Steeping: Generally the steeping grains are crystals or dark malts so steeping them in soft water presents no danger of extracting tannins as long as you keep the liquor to grist ratio low. 1-1.5 qt/lb should be good, or follow Palmer's method and steep in extract.
Dextrose - That's a tough one. It adds alcohol and dilutes flavors (note that adding "dryness" is not in that mix!). It's 100% fermentable so hypothetically you could go to 100% if you provide the yeast the nutrients they need (hard seltzer, anyone?). Your ratio looks good, 17% of the grist. I wouldn't go much over 20 and personally generally don't use it, I use table sugar instead. Even more effective and much, much cheaper than dextrose.
 
Speaking of hard seltzer, it's all dextrose but other minerals and nutrients are needed for the yeast to have a healthy environment to do their job.
 

Back
Top