Five Gallon Bulk Malt Syrup from Health Food Store?

[mauiart]

Once I tried making home brew with bulk malt syrup from health food store and it came out massively foamy upon opening like a gyser about 6 inches until the whole bottle foamed out. I had to put the bottle in a large pot to capture it then upon settling of the foam I poured it into a glass and then I had a flat beer. ugh! I had made many succesful batches previously and the only change was the bulk malt syrup instead of the 3 pound cans labeled for home brewing.

My question is - Was this a coincidence of my first goofed up brew or should we avoid the malt syrup from the health food stores for some reason? And why? Buying in bulk was much cheaper then those prepacked 3 pound cans.

[brahn]

I don't know anything about the malt syrup you're referring to, so I can't say how well it would work for beer. I doubt that the malt syrup was really the problem here. You did boil it, right? It sounds like you have one of two problems:

1. You bottled the batch before it was done fermenting. The yeast consumed way too much sugar in the bottles and made geysers.

2. You've got an infection in the bottle and the wild yeast consumed the sugar in the bottles and made geysers.

Either way, if you haven't opened all of the bottles you've got a bunch of dangerous bottles lying around and you need to be careful with them.

[maltbarley]

And Art, should we guess you are in Hawaii?

Welcome.

Most of the homebrew shops around here sell malt extract in bulk so you might compare the cost of having it shipped to you vs what you are paying for cans locally. Of course, you can do away with all that if you decide to just go with all-grain brewing.

[mauiart]

And Art, should we guess you are in Hawaii?

Welcome.

Most of the homebrew shops around here sell malt extract in bulk so you might compare the cost of having it shipped to you vs what you are paying for cans locally. Of course, you can do away with all that if you decide to just go with all-grain brewing.

Thanks for the suggestions. a friend has experience with the all grain brewing and about shipping of liquid malt I live in Maui so that would be too costly. BTW we do not even have one home brew shop here, someone just sells small time supplies, overpriced from there home.

BUT, I'd still like to know if any scientists out there know about the composition of malt syrup for home brewing compared with malt syrup in the health food stores. Thank you.

[jward]

I went to a talk about extract brewing that addressed this. They were very down on some of the home brewing extract providers because malt extract varies in fermentability. If you mash malted grain at a higher temperature you get a higher percentage of larger/unfermentable sugars. Since one gets the highest sugar extract from grain at a higher mash temperature then one would use for brewing the food industry does this to make the malt they spray on cornflakes etc. This malt may taste as sweet on food but it can make for bad beer. So, you really do want to get malt intended for brewing sourced from a quality malt extract company.

[backyard brewer]

I love Maui.

I agree that if the intended purpose of the malt was not for home brewing, then the fermentability would be in question. Not to mention if they add any kind of stabalizers or anything else that could affect the yeast and flavor etc. Although, from a health food store I would guess it's probably organic. Either way, try to use malt extract intended for brewing or better yet, go the all-grain route.

[mauiart]

Thanks everyone for your responses, Aloha, Mauiart