any Brands of sugar better than others?

Sugar, and all about sugar washes. Where the primary ingredient is sugar, and other things are just used as nutrients.

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essjay
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any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by essjay »

I ask this crazy question, as a certain brew store told my brother to only use CSR sugar, telling him that cheaper home brand and coles or woolworths own brands etc contain bulking agents, while CSR is nothing but pure sugar. Wondered if anyone knew anything about it, sounds like a bit of a line to me, and if it was true I still cant see a small percent of maybe cornflour or the like making it worth paying a 30% premium on the big name brand stuff... Its all labelled as cane sugar. I found one place suggesting the cheaper ones are all from bundaberg sugar and repackaged. I also read the cheaper ones are a larger granule, dont know what effect that would be when sold by weight anyway.
Anyone shed some light for me?
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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by Washashore »

Personally, I don't use anything other than 100% pure cane sugar...whether it's fine or coarse doesn't really matter other than the effort required to dissolve it.
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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by Oxbo Rene »

I go to Wal-Mart = buy the reg 10lb cane sugar = works for me ................
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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by 620rossco »

I ask this crazy question, as a certain brew store told my brother to only use CSR sugar, telling him that cheaper home brand and coles or woolworths own brands etc contain bulking agents, while CSR is nothing but pure sugar.
G'day bloke. Yeah had this, had a couple of really low yield batches. Short story is that I can't tell the difference between bulking agent and sugar but yeast can. The really weird thing is that using generic brand sugar some batches will be fine and others will only yield a couple of liters. I'm guessing they are not consistent with how much they use.

Aldi sell $2 2kg packs of sugar that is sugar.
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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by Boda Getta »

I buy Walmart Sugar in 25# bags for $14.00. It is labeled 100% cane sugar and I have never had a problem. I suspect that cane sugar is cane sugar and there's no point in paying extra just to buy a "name brand" sugar.

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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by RevSpaminator »

Costco for sugar, bread yeast, lemons (or lemon juice), tomato paste, etc.
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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by moose11 »

I was at Costco today and plain white sugar was $15.79CDN for 20kg and yellow sugar was $9.79CDN for 20kg :thumbup: so I thought I'd try some yellow sugar for my next wash, what are you guys paying?
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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by RumRaider »

Yellow sugar? WTF??? :D
but seriously, what is it?
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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by essjay »

Huh, so there may be something to this... time for experiments then for me, i would just head to walmart or costco but unfortunately that would include an international flight, kinda expensive... The ingredients on them all just say 'sugar' but i guess they dont have to list a bulking or anti-caking agent...
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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by LWTCS »

RumRaider wrote:Yellow sugar? WTF??? :D
but seriously, what is it?
Never seen yellow as such but that like is a way for some outfit to market their oxidized product cuz their typical distributor has rejected it....Hahahaha Im serious.

White sugar is the biggest hoax since the 30 year mortagage.....Now all these " green" and "natural" and "organic" strategies are coming full circle......Can you say sugar loaf?
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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by Richard7 »

RumRaider wrote:Yellow sugar? WTF??? :D
but seriously, what is it?

The method currently used to produce brown sugar is called blending. Blending is a process that combines the separately purified white sucrose crystals with refiners' syrups (such as fancy grade molasses) to produce yellow or brown sugar. The difference between light (yellow) and dark brown sugar is that the darker brown sugars have more of the refiners' syrup (molasses) left in the product.

Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Difference_be ... z20vil1RHr" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Sounds like it would make great alcohol with a very slight hint of rum to me! I would almost bet the yeast would prefer it! :thumbup:
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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by RumRaider »

Interesting. I saw on the wiki entry that it has a buttery flavor. Buttery flavor might be a nice touch for rum. Thanks for teaching us something new.
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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by moose11 »

The price was the most appealing part of the yellow sugar, so I bought 3 bags!
50 cents a kg is a good price around here, and rum is my drink of choice, and if the yellow will do the trick then that's even better :thumbup:
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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by LWTCS »

If it has color or turns color,,,we want it....
It is the unfermentables.......
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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by beelah »

So to repeat myself...in Canada yellow sugar is sometimes the same as brown sugar only less brown and more yellow? You will likely get more of a rum like flavours from that.

As for sugar cost, I just bought a load of sugar from Super Value @ $2 a bag for 2 kgs. Good deal as usually your looking at 5.98 a 2kg bag.

The best deal ever was at the Shopers Drug Mart at 1.98 per 2 kg bag ( Canadian dollars that is)
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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by 620rossco »

time for experiments then for me, i would just head to walmart or costco but unfortunately that would include an international flight, kinda expensive...
Or you could just go to your local Aldi.
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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by essjay »

The local Adli would be a minimum 3000km drive. Or an interstate flight, which is jot at all cheap in this corner of the world. Think I'll stick to doing some experiments, or see about getting it bulk from a catering supplier or something, now you lot have confirmed there is some truth to it ill have to try it out and see what works locally.
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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by thecroweater »

My experience has been white sugar is white sugar ya can pay heaps or $ 1.70 f 2 kgs and the cheap stuff doesn't realize its cheap and works the same . Any coles , woolies ,foodworks or IGA stores will have some home brand or B&G use it its good . ifen ya want to play around with not so neutral flavors use raw sugar , brown sugar is sugar and molasses blends and is quite nice . All these off white sugars have various amounts of molasses in them and as such the flavor to varying degrees pull through a reflux (that and tanin seem t be the only ones that do) :lol: . There are a bunch of other sugars ya can get from caterers palm pana something a rather beet dex fructrose lacrose ect ect ect I've got no experience with any of them but if I could get them cheap that would change In short I'd have to say no that theory is busted
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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by 620rossco »

The local Adli would be a minimum 3000km drive.
Wow so it is... they are everywhere in the eastern states.
CSR have a 3kg pack at Coles, its about $5.90 over here and would do at a pinch.
If you can find a bulk source that would be best case.
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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by essjay »

Yup so far iv been using bundaberg in the raw sugars, but for the white sugars just been using home brand or black and gold, bout $1.30 per kg, compared to seemingly the same stuff in CSR brand for about $2.10 per kg. OK so jury isnt unanimous but majority says there is some truth to it. I guess the only way for me to be sure will be two simultaneous birdwatcher runs, one with CSR and one with home brand. Ill be well surprised if there was any difference with the results in quality or quantity, but the story my brother was told by the LHBS planted the seed of doubt, and now i have to know for sure haha
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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by thecroweater »

k bud just checked 3 brands I have here , B&G contents : 100% sugar , best buy :cane sugar , Home brand " sugar . Either these companies are risking court action to secretly supplement something cheaper than sugar not sure what that would be maybe dirt or ..... also if you check the price per 100g for some weird reason it is always significantly cheaper in 2 kgs , the last lot I got just in this little hick town was 12c per 100g for 2 kgs or 17c per 100g for 20kgs
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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by maheel »

Australian Cane sugar is by far the best sugar to buy because it contains more sugar per KG than any other in the world.

i suggest you ask your local wal-mart / lowes / k-mart manager if your outside Australia to start stocking it ASAP to increase your yields.
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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by whiskeytripping »

Ive found out that the cheapest works just fine. Cane sugar that is :thumbup:
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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by Prairiepiss »

I don't know that I have ever seen anything labeled as just sugar cut with anything? They add corn starch to powdered sugar. And they charge more for it. It's not water soluble so if mixed with water the corn starch doesn't dissolve and stays suspended. Looks milky. So you would know it it was cut with something the like.

Maybe the guys wasn't explaining himself correctly. And was misinformed. Maybe he was trying to say there was more unfermentable sugars in cheap sugar? But most of the time you can remedy this by inverting it.

Or maybe he was talking beet sugar? Some of the cheaper sugars are derived from beets not sugar cane. But I have yet to find any on the shelves around here. Not to say they aren't on the shelf in your area?

No mater what he ment to say. I don't think I would be taking to much advice from him?
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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by Dnderhead »

there is no difference between refiend beet sugar and refiend cane sugar,,,,the molasses yes as it is processed different.
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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by moose11 »

maheel wrote:Australian Cane sugar is by far the best sugar to buy because it contains more sugar per KG than any other in the world.

i suggest you ask your local wal-mart / lowes / k-mart manager if your outside Australia to start stocking it ASAP to increase your yields.
After reading this I went and checked the sugar I recently purchased to see what would be listed as a filler and found no such thing!
All I found was that my Yellow Golden Sugar has 400 calories per 100 grams, and that it is refined in Canada, which leads me to believe that the sugar cane is imported raw and finished here as is the case in most northern countries that do not have the climate to grow sugar cane.
At $10 for 20kg I didn't think I could go wrong. Smells nice too.
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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by essjay »

It was from a woman at a local home brew store, who iv never gotten along with or gotten good advice from personally, but my brother swears by them. She told him 'dont use home brand or any of the cheaper brand sugar, they have fillers in them, only use CSR brand its the only one thats 100% sugar' Wasnt about molasses or beet sugar, just about whats available at the local shop in the way of plain white sugar.

Like i said i dont get along with her or get any knowledgable advice from her (ie; what is this peach essence like, any good? answer: its peach essence. it tastes like peach. me thinking Wow thanks einstein.) But it planted the seed of doubt anyway. She was telling my broter this while selling him turbos, probably makes the advice even more shady.

Cheers for all the replies, sorry if i should have worded the question as 'are there fillers or anticaking agents in any brands of sugars' but i sorta got the answer or at least a prod in the right direction, and i learnt about canadian yellow sugar and other stuff i'll never see here lol. If i get to doing those back to back runs i will update here or post a new thread and link it here, but for the moment all the cheap brands say the same on their packaging Ingredients: cane sugar
So ill do a CSR vs no Home Brand test at some point but i wont lose any sleep over using home brand for the moment lol
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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by thecroweater »

No I'm glad ya raised it because I've heard this argument before , more than once normally started by HBS advise and its just horse shit they spread around to sell there "better" sugar , can't blame em for trying . Nar do the test so ya can stick it to ya bruz . Yeah funny that we don't readily get more of those sugar products as many are made/processed up nth . I'd say if ya could find a good catering suppler you'd find anything ya want , wouldn't mind trying panela myself but can't find a cheap enough supply to justify using it yet
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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by maheel »

moose11 wrote:
maheel wrote:Australian Cane sugar is by far the best sugar to buy because it contains more sugar per KG than any other in the world.

i suggest you ask your local wal-mart / lowes / k-mart manager if your outside Australia to start stocking it ASAP to increase your yields.
After reading this I went and checked the sugar I recently purchased to see what would be listed as a filler and found no such thing!
All I found was that my Yellow Golden Sugar has 400 calories per 100 grams, and that it is refined in Canada, which leads me to believe that the sugar cane is imported raw and finished here as is the case in most northern countries that do not have the climate to grow sugar cane.
At $10 for 20kg I didn't think I could go wrong. Smells nice too.

lol i was just joking and trying to help Aussie Cane farmers :)

i only buy aussie sugar, not sure they import it here anyway :)
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Re: any Brands of sugar better than others?

Post by LWTCS »

the farmers get paid on the amount of sugar in the cane (juice). Yer a good soul
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