# Brown sugar in ipa recipes.



## Pickaxe (4/7/13)

Hey guys,

Does brown sugar add residual sweetness to an ipa, or any beer for that matter, or does it add dryness?
Eg, would a 300g add to a 23 l batch add sweetness to help balance higher ibus?

Got a recipe looking at 47 ibus but that depends on efficiency which I'm having trouble with. If I hit targets I'm ok, but if I don't, will brown sugar kelp me balance?
A.


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## Pickaxe (5/7/13)

To clarify, if I don't hit my targets, and the ibus get too high and unbalanced, will.a brown sugar add help balance things.


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## Pickaxe (5/7/13)

Or am I better knocking back the hop schedule to fine balance at a high end apa value. Also having trouble with mash temp, which makes me think I might have to adjust "on the fly", and hop for drier finish. Again, wondering how to adjust quickly based on post mash sg/temp, whether to add.brown sugar, or alter hop schedule.


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## Diesel80 (5/7/13)

It will ferment out completely (well pretty close anyway), leaving no residual sweetness.
FWIW I put 500g in all my English styles now per 25L of brew, so 1KG in every double batch - I use raw sugar.

I am happier with the result overall. Makes my beers feel more sessionable, less heavy.

This is my experience, and others on here have said similar. I know Bribie is into his ales of the old country, and he is not afraid to throw in some simple sugars.

Don't fear it, but it may no be what you are after. I would look at steeping in some additional crystal malt if you get the IBUs too high or using some DME.

Cheers,
D80


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## Diesel80 (5/7/13)

Alternatively you might get away with boiling off more water? That would bump you OG but would rely on you knowing ahead of time and adjusting your hop schedule.

Note: you will get less beer volume wise but will be able to manufacture the desired OG for the IBUs.

Cheers,
D80


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## Pickaxe (5/7/13)

I've got 250 crystal, 250 Munich, 500 grams wheat, on 4kg perle. Thinking 300 light.brown sugar to up og, but nervous about 50 ibus if my mash runs below 66 and the beer.thins out. 

**** it, suck it and see I guess. Mash temp and eff are my big worries, starts to play hell with predicted ibus is all.... Guess I'll need to brew on the fly till my system is figured out. All part of the fun.


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## Diesel80 (5/7/13)

If you are brewing 23L and get about 70% brew house efficiency overall, then OG is at the low end of IPA range but so are the IBUs. This is with the 300g sugar added.

I would add extra 500g base malt and then brew it. IBUs will drop slightly to about 4 ibu, but this is nothing.
Est about 1.057 OG and 43 ibu.


Crack on and take notes for next time.

Cheers,
D80


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## slash22000 (5/7/13)

If you're worried about the beer not being sweet enough, buy a box of Coopers dry malt extract from Big W or something. If you don't hit your target, add some extract.

Adding sugar is the opposite of what you want to do. People add sugar to beer to dry it out.


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## manticle (5/7/13)

Pickaxe said:


> I've got 250 crystal, 250 Munich, 500 grams wheat, on 4kg perle. Thinking 300 light.brown sugar to up og, but nervous about 50 ibus if my mash runs below 66 and the beer.thins out.
> 
> **** it, suck it and see I guess. Mash temp and eff are my big worries, starts to play hell with predicted ibus is all.... Guess I'll need to brew on the fly till my system is figured out. All part of the fun.



For good malty balance in a hoppy beer without the sweetness of too much crystal, up the munich or add some vienna. Brown sugar won't do what you want it to do. Wheat is unecessary in this kind of recipe, especially 500g.


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## NewtownClown (5/7/13)

Alcohol also helps to support high Ibu's


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## slash22000 (5/7/13)

Alcohol helps a lot of things.


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## NewtownClown (5/7/13)

If alcohol isn't the answer, you are asking the wrong question.


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## Bizier (5/7/13)

I've added different dark sugars to ipa before and it is not really a congruous marriage. I'm sure it could be done well, but you'd need to design the beer around the particular sugar flavour.


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## Kranky (5/7/13)

Are you trying to brew and English style IPA or US?

Brown sugar is often processed, personally I avoid using it for this reason. I'd suggest using dextrose and I wouldn't worry too much about about your ibu's, they're pretty low. Fully fermentable sugars will help produce a dry beer.

If you want your beer to be a bit sweeter, mash at a higher temperature.


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## Screwtop (5/7/13)

If you ADD sugar this will up your OG. Yeast strains, yeast health, fermentation management, pitching rate will have an effect on attenuation rate. 

Lets say hypothetically that you have an AG recipe for an IPA with an OG of 1.060 and intend using one pack of US-05 in 22L of wort. Pitching rate is a little low but lets say the yeast is fresh.

Lets use an apparent attenuation of 75% for the yeast and your fermentation management. FG should end up around 1.014 with an abv of about 6%

Now lets say hypothetically that you use the same AG recipe with an OG of 1.060 and you ADD 500g of sugar, this would increase your OG to around 1.065

Now using the same one pack of US-05 in 22L of this 1.065 wort. Apparent attenuation will increase slightly due to the higher fermentability of the 500g of sugar but not by much due to the now slightly reduced pitching rate (higher OG requires an increase in pitching rate). Lets say 78% apparent attenuation, FG should be around 1.013 If IBU's remain the same then the bitterness/sweetness balance will be about the same, however abv is now 6.7 which will result in a difference in mouth feel.

If you substitute 500g of sugar for some malt in the recipe and target the same OG, then all things yeast and fermentation remaining similar your attenuation will be higher accentuating bitterness slightly. (OG 1.060 AA% of 78% FG = 1.012 ABV 6.3)

So you see 500g of sugar makes very little difference when it comes to balance, but has an effect of mouthfeel due to abv. FG ranges above from 1.012 - 1.014 ABV from 6.0 to 6.7 

Screwy


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## Pickaxe (5/7/13)

Thanks screwy, I like em chewy. Had some crazy.idea that adding sugar helped up sweetness, although I know sugar should ferment dry from my k&k brews. I guess I've seen recipes with extra sugar or candy sugar to up alc but retain a certain mouth feel from the malt adds. Mash temp and dryness is something um discovering from lower temps I'm getting. Guess one I get temp control down better I can play with that.

Then with all the other factors... Big learning.curve. ag is ******* awesome isn't it? I love the tinkering to be done.


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## Screwtop (6/7/13)

Pickaxe said:


> Thanks screwy, I like em chewy. Had some crazy.idea that adding sugar helped up sweetness, although I know sugar should ferment dry from my k&k brews. I guess I've seen recipes with extra sugar or candy sugar to up alc but retain a certain mouth feel from the malt adds. Mash temp and dryness is something um discovering from lower temps I'm getting. Guess one I get temp control down better I can play with that.
> 
> Then with all the other factors... Big learning.curve. ag is ******* awesome isn't it? I love the tinkering to be done.



Bit of an exponential learning curve :lol:


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## CosmicBertie (18/7/13)

I used to put brown sugar in my English Ale recipes, but I found that I was getting a certain twang which I definitely didnt like. It never went away with aging either. So now I leave it out and up the base malt.

In my experience, brown sugar ups the OG and lowers the FG (due to it fermenting out fully), it also helps with colour and adds a small amout of caramel flavour. All of the can be easily replaced with malts.

Since I stopped using brown sugar, my beers are more sessionable. They also need to be drunk at warmer temperatures (10C) due to subtle malt and hop flavours. My Black Sheep Ale is very sessionable and easily quaffed. Tasty.


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## Greg.L (18/7/13)

If you are reading recipes from the US and seeing brown sugar being used, they mean raw sugar. In the US they call raw sugar "brown sugar" (also I believe, heroin). They don't have any equivalent of our brown sugar, which has caramel flavouring added. In Australia or England using brown sugar will add a caramel flavour without the sweetness, which will be a bit weird. Brown sugar was never meant to be fermented and I don't think its a particularly good idea.

There are a lot of cooking terms from the US which are quite different to ours. eg cilantro for coriander.


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## manticle (18/7/13)

@cosmic: I found similar with large amounts of raw sugar in belgians. Dex and/or commercial candy only from now on.


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## Parks (18/7/13)

Screwtop said:


> Bit of an exponential learning curve :lol:


Yep, every new thing I learn I find 2 things I don't know.

At least it's to the power of 2 and not 3 :lol:


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## Forever Wort (21/9/13)

Has anyone added brown sugar to a blonde or dry lager style beer? I am curious how the caramel flavours would interact.


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## tazman1967 (22/9/13)

I had brown sugar in a Belgian Pale Ale clone... sourced from a American brew site.
I just subbed it for Dex, brew was great, doing again soon.


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## bradmccoy (22/9/13)

From what I've read, brown sugar is just refined sugar (i.e. white sugar) with molasses added to it. If you want the brown sugar "taste", you're probably better off just adding molasses, right?


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