I want to brew rye wine (44% pale ale, 37% rye malt, 6% cararye and circa 12,5% sugar = 25Blg). I dont want to use white sugar or malt extract. I read “Radical brewing” and Im interested in use something like jaggery, muscovado or molasses. Which sugar should i use when i want to have light rum notes?
I have no advice¹ but I’m curious what others we’ll say.
1 - Other than to suggest you just cheat and tip a bottle of rum into the batch when you bottle or keg it.
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If you really want rum notes, then adding rum to the finished beer is the best way to do it.
If you want something similar to but different from rum, then try the jaggery, muscovado, or brown sugar. It might be very difficult to taste though. You might want to consider using 25-30% to really bring it out.
I’d avoid any direct use of molasses, it is too powerful. An ounce might be fine, but not 12.5%.
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I would advise against using a “Caramelly" sugar with rye. To me it sounds like a flavor conflict.
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If that feels too much like cheating, you can always soak oak cubes in rum and then add them in secondary. A lot of brewers do that with whisk(e)y to simulate barrel aging.
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Okay, let’s start over. I want to use some sugar because I don’t know if I can achieve such a high extract. However, I don’t want it to give off moonshine-like flavors, but rather to nicely complement the flavor profile.
See above.
Why would that be “cheating"?
Table sugar
Really, only because OP’s question was about sugar additions before fermentation — adding flavor at packaging isn’t quite what he was asking for.
But it’s a fair point: rum vs. rum+wood isn’t substantively different. Neither of those is more “cheating” than the other.
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I like using jaggery, it has a strong rum-like flavor. And if you have an Indian or Asian grocery story near you, it’s pretty cheap.
So do I, but I’m not sure it would work with rye.