[Pinski]

For my birthday this year I was given a 5 gallon Brewcraft kit for  Rogue's Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout (RSOS).  I wasn't all that excited about it at first but when I finally got around to preparing to brew it I was intrigued by a new ingredient the kit contained that I had not used before; dark beet sugar candi.  Straight, I prefered it's flavor to cane table sugar (which I hate in my coffee so I have a hard time with the notion of adding it to my beers).  I went to the LHBS to get enough ingredients to amp up the batch to 6.5 gallon fermentation volume and brewed it up. I expected to like the final results but not have this beer reach favorite tap status.  Once again I am happily incorrect as this beer is outstanding and going fast. Even the Brewmistress and her minions dig it.  I've caught myself "rinsing" my weekend coffe cup with a bit of the Billy Shakes as we affectionately refer to it. 

Yes, well to the point. sorry.  I've been looking for some good RSOS clone recipes to do my second AG batch with and I'm finding that none seem to call for dark beet candi sugar. This concerns me for a couple reasons. One, I really want something very close to what we produced with the extract kit and candi sugar. Two, since this kit product seemed "licensed" ie, the Rogue logo and Shakespeare label were all over the box I assume that the Rogue brewers had something to say about the ingredients that went into the kit.  Is there a reason that one would want to use the beet candi sugar in an extract kit and not in an all grain clone recipe?

[morticaixavier]

The only thing I can think of is that the extract is less fermentable (potentially at least) than the same wort done all grain so the sugar might be there to lighten up the body of the beer. I would think though that you could pump up the mash temp to get a less fermentable grain portion of the wort and then add the beet sugar to lighten it up again. just a thought. Havn't had that beer either so I can't speak to the body.

[denny]

I assume that the Rogue brewers had something to say about the ingredients that went into the kit.

Knowing the guy who designed the kit, all I can (tactfully) say is don't assume that.

[Pinski]

Hmmm, so maybe my best bet at AG duplication is to try to convert the recipe I used from extract to AG using Beersmith or something similar?