Coopers Dextrose or Brew Enhancer, which sugar your kit wants
Two bags that do different jobs
Every beer kit tells you to add a kilo of something fermentable, and the two things most people end up choosing between are dextrose and a brew enhancer, which look fairly similar sitting next to each other on the shelf and behave nothing alike once they're in the fermenter. Working out which one you want is really a question about what you're trying to fix.
What dextrose does
Dextrose is a simple sugar and your yeast ferments it right out, so it converts almost entirely into alcohol and leaves essentially nothing behind. That's the whole point of it. You get the strength you're after and the flavour of the kit comes through unaltered, which is exactly what you want when the kit already tastes the way you like it.
It also ferments cleanly and predictably, which matters more here than it might somewhere cooler, because a shed in a South Australian summer isn't a temperature controlled environment and dextrose is forgiving about that.
The trade off is that a beer built on dextrose finishes dry and light bodied, and if you push the ratio too far you end up with something that tastes thin and a bit sharp.
What a brew enhancer does
An enhancer is a blend. Some of it's dextrose doing the alcohol job, and the rest is maltodextrin, which the yeast can't ferment, so it stays in the beer and becomes body. The heavier blends also carry light dry malt, which brings malt flavour along with the texture.
That means an enhancer is what you reach for when the problem is mouthfeel rather than strength. If your last batch tasted watery, or the head collapsed before you'd finished pouring, an enhancer is the answer and more dextrose definitely isn't.
Picking between them
Go with dextrose when you're brewing something that's meant to be crisp and dry, like a lager or a pilsner, or when you plan to add your flavour later through a dry hop and want a clean canvas underneath it.
Go with an enhancer when you're brewing an ale or anything dark, or when the beer you made last time came out thinner than you wanted. The blends run from light to malty, and which number suits which kit is set out in Coopers Brew Enhancer 1, 2 and 3, which one to use.
You can also split the difference and run part dextrose with part dry malt, which lifts the alcohol and the body at the same time. It's a reasonable thing to experiment with once you've got a few batches behind you and you know what you're chasing.
The thing that actually matters most
Either of these beats plain white sugar from the supermarket, and that's the real decision. Table sugar ferments out completely and contributes nothing except alcohol, so a kit built on it will nearly always taste thinner than the same kit built on anything else.
Shop related products
- Coopers Dextrose 1kg. Clean fermentable sugar for crisp dry styles.
- Coopers Brew Enhancer 1 1kg. The lightest blend of the three.
- Coopers Brew Enhancer 2 1kg. Middle of the range, good for pale ales.
- Coopers Brew Enhancer 3 1kg. The maltiest, for dark beers.
Have a browse through our Coopers collection for the rest.
Did you know we carry brewing gear in the shop that isn't listed online, including fermenters, hydrometers, heat belts and carbonation drops. Give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what is on the shelf.
Brewhilder will help you match a sugar to a kit, or come in and chat with us.
Read next
- Coopers Brew Enhancer 1, 2 and 3, which one to use
- What makes homebrew beer taste off, and how to stop it
- Beer ingredients explained: malt, hops, yeast and water
I still keep a bag of each in the cupboard because I can never decide until the tin is already open and the kettle is on.
Candeece
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