Demerara Sugar : What's it's Color?

[Silver_Is_Money]

What color (scaled as Lovibond, SRM, or EBC) is typically assigned to Demerara Sugar when using it in a beer recipe?

 

[Nosybear]

What color (scaled as Lovibond, SRM, or EBC) is typically assigned to Demerara Sugar when using it in a beer recipe?

Generally it doesn't matter, the color is so light and so heavily diluted the charge is minor unless you're brewing something extremely light. Make a solution equivalent to a pound in five gallons (500 g in 20 l) and see how dark it is. That's the color contribution of the sugar.

 

[Megary]

Thanks for this question. I just wasted an hour trying to find a reasonable answer and have failed miserably.

Best I can come up with is "about the same as Tubinado", but that isn't very helpful. Maybe experiment by dissolving a bit in some Bacardi and noting the color change.

 

[dmtaylor]

It contributes an equivalent of about 2 Lovibond. It ain't as dark as you might think.

 

[Nosybear]

It contributes an equivalent of about 2 Lovibond. It ain't as dark as you might think.

And that diluted over batch size... As mentioned above, not worth worrying over.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

It contributes an equivalent of about 2 Lovibond. It ain't as dark as you might think.

I was going to guess somewhere around 5 to 8 Lovibond. I'll be adding 1.5 Lbs. of Demerara sugar to a 6.5 gallon (to the fermenter) ESB in a few days. I'm trying to hit 14 SRM for the finished beer. I was surprised that the BF recipe builder doesn't have it as an ingredient option. And a web search turned up zilch.

 

[dmtaylor]

I was going to guess somewhere around 5 to 8 Lovibond. I'll be adding 1.5 Lbs. of Demerara sugar to a 6.5 gallon (to the fermenter) ESB in a few days. I'm trying to hit 14 SRM for the finished beer. I was surprised that the BF recipe builder doesn't have it as an ingredient option. And a web search turned up zilch.

It is also known as turbinado, try looking that up instead. If aiming for 14 SRM, you could ignore the demerara and aim for 12 SRM, then that should likely hit close to your goal of 14.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

If I assign 2L to the Demerara my spreadsheet says 13.5L for the final beer. If I then assign zero L to the Demerara, the final beer color only drops to 13.3L.

If I assign 8L to the Demerara my spreadsheet says 14.0L for the final beer.

All of this being for 6.5 gallons to the fermenter.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

The Brewers Friend recipe builder assigns a value of 10L to Turbinado sugar.

 

[dmtaylor]

Welp......... guess I'm not much help then! I suppose there's a reduction factor for volume which I neglected above. I believe it's really 2 L but dividing by 5 gallons I can see how it might only add a fraction of an SRM to the final brew -- doh!

I don't use Brewer's Friend actually.... I use StrangeBrew, and it combines demerara & turbinado, so it basically says to use 2 L for either one. And there are probably different grades and shades of this family of sugars, so..... YMMV!