Adding sugar during ferment

[Cloud Surfer]

I’ve read widely about adding the sugar to Belgium Triples several days into the fermentation. This is what I just did with my Triple by pouring in the Candi Sugar on day 4. The reaction was some explosive fermentation for many hours before calming down again.

Anyway, I can’t find much info about this technique in relation to other beers. So I was wondering if it’s a process that would be useful for any high OG wort. Having said that, I just did a RIS that started at 1.100 and last I checked it was 1.025, so I didn’t have any problem getting the SG down. But next RIS will be a little higher on the OG, so I was thinking about this process.

Is anyone adding their sugars during fermentation in their high OG brews?

 

[kadmium]

I would suggest it, as it's a well known technique to avoid stuck fermentations and other off flavours. In mead making, step feeding is often used for high gravity ferments! I usually start a wort must around 1.125 or higher, and then stepfeed if I want more, but that's using something like Lalvin D47 wine yeasts.

Using ale / beer yeast, I would defo recommend step feeding sugar! Consider step feeding some nutrients too, to help with attenuation and avoiding fusel alcohols (the hot alcohol taste)

 

[Cloud Surfer]

Ok, that's what I'll do then. Is there a scientific way to decide when to add the sugar? In this case it's 1kg of dextrose. When I added the 900gm of Candi Sugar to the Triple it went crazy, and I thought perhaps I could have given it another day or two before tipping it in.

Thanks for the nutrient tip. I only just read about adding a second dose during fermentation of high OG RIS.

 

[kadmium]

Hey mate,

With nutrients, just be cautious which nutrient you add when. Diammonium Phosphate (DAP) which is the generic nutrient used in most cheap nutrient packs is not really useable by yeast over 9% ABV. That's why in mead making, it's usually a TOSNA schedule, which is Tailored Organic Staggered Nutrient Additions, This gives the yeast organic nutrients which they can easily take the Nitrogen from, as DAP will just remain in suspension and can fuel infections.

I would then, in that case use boiled yeast as a nutrient. Yeast are hungry and cannibalistic, so will have no issues eating dead boiled yeast to fuel themselves. Maybe add some at the start, then on day 3 and then on day 7 as a rough guide. Usually you go by sugar breaks, but that would do a world of good for your fermentation.

As for when to add the sugar, I would probably add it when you add your third dose of nutrients. So add nutrient with your sugar, and be careful it will rip through. Also, if it's not degassed and has some fizz left in it, she may start froffing up pretty heavily. Worse if it's under pressure. I would avoid pressure fermenting high gravity beers but that's just me.

 

[Cloud Surfer]

I have Wyeast yeast nutrient which I bought thinking it would be good stuff. It’s says it has nitrogen, zinc, organic nutrients, etc. I’ve used it for the first time in this current batch of Triple and it’s progressing really well. I’ll try it with the RIS and see how it goes.

 

[butisitart]

i can feel a shellacking coming on, BUT, i'm gonna do it anyway.
my go to nutrient after much careful research on this very site is bread yeast.
it's easy, drag cannister of bread yeast with use by date Nov 2017 out of the fridge door, boil the crap out of it for 10 mins and voila. come on, we've all got a dead can of bread yeast lying about somewhere.
apparently your beer yeasties will cannibalise the burned out remains of the very dead bread yeasties. like steroids to gym junkies. and your hideously expensive yeast nutrients from your lhbs are apparently built on that. they might have other stuff in there - a bit of salad, lick of icecream, but high on yeast skeletons. i half think that claims of organic, zinc and protein induced all come off the label of a shampoo bottle. but then, as previously advised, i have the scientific acumen of a lobotomised frog.
i even lurk about the neighbours rubbish bins on wed nights, scouring for old half filled cannisters of bread yeast, then scurry off into the dark with them.
might not be the BEST available, but apparently it's a pretty good deal. and it's never done my beer any harm.
so boil up and mix with your yeast starter DME, or boil up and add to fermenter when you pitch.

 

[butisitart]

Ok, that's what I'll do then. Is there a scientific way to decide when to add the sugar? In this case it's 1kg of dextrose. When I added the 900gm of Candi Sugar to the Triple it went crazy, and I thought perhaps I could have given it another day or two before tipping it in.

Thanks for the nutrient tip. I only just read about adding a second dose during fermentation of high OG RIS.

i tend to use 500gm ish of candi, (no right or wrong there, just how i construct my recipes, and it is low compared to some). but that can go off big time. if you're putting 900gm in and it goes violent on you, maybe 2X 450gm 12-16 hours apart, step feeding. no science, just a suggestion.
add when the ferment slows down, that depends on a lot of factors eg yeast, attenuation rate, so it's an eyeball job. 20 seconds between bubbles is a gauge

 

[kadmium]

Absolutely dead bakers yeast will provide a good base for nutrients.

Also, the wort that we produce does have more nutrients available for fermenration than something hostile like mead.

Organic yeast nutrients with YAN (Yeast Accesible Nitrogen) tend to provide it through other means as opposed to DAP which is an inorganic nitrogen source.

The downsides to DAP are a rapid increase or frenzy by the yeast, leading to increase in temps, stress on the yeast and an inability to utilise the DAP above 9% ABV.

Organic nutrients are readily available (a good source of YAN), provide a gentle uptake of the nutrient, and thus lower increase in temps. It's also usable through all stages of fermentation / ABV.

So if you load up on DAP then above 9% ABV it remains behind, possibly fueling other organisms.

Boiled yeast hulls do provide good nutrition but not everything that is needed. For beer, its probably plenty but for something as hostile and nutrient deprived as honey, it's not enough.

Having said that, we're talking best practice here. But, if I'm going to do reiterated mashes, step fed sugar, yeast starters, blah blah blah the last thing I want to do is cheap out on the nutrient and end up with a stuck ferment. Its easy to get a mead un fucked I mean stuck, you just pitch EC-1118 champagne yeast but your RIS might not be feeling very French and probably won't mix well.

I would not be worried about it, but if you plan on doing a lot of high OG beers, and get into 9+ % then I would invest in some Fermaid O (not K or A) and do a step feed TOSNA hybrid where:

1/3 nutrients on pitch
1/3 nutrients 3 days later
1/3 nutrients and step feed sugar on day 7

This is not perfect as you should be going by sugar breaks which is where you have used 1/3 of the sugar but it will be far well and above what even commercial breweries would be doing I would say.

TOSNA and step feeding is the diamond standard in my opinion.

 

[kadmium]

Just as an FYI you can't buy Fermaid O in Australia unless you buy commercial quantities, but the guys at iBrew buy commercial and then divide into 100g packs. Only place I have found it in Australia.

https://www.ibrew.com.au/products/fermaid-0-nutrient-di-ammonium-phosphate-free
And I would use less nutrients than the TOSNA for beer than what's needed for mead. How much less? **** knows hahaha

 

[butisitart]

my unscientific eyes glazed over and i fell off my chair from dizziness when i got to YAN. i would have stuck to stamp collecting, but it's not easy to find stamps anymore.
ok, 3 reads and i think i've got it

 

[bbqzookeeper]

Just as an FYI you can't buy Fermaid O in Australia unless you buy commercial quantities, but the guys at iBrew buy commercial and then divide into 100g packs. Only place I have found it in Australia.

https://www.ibrew.com.au/products/fermaid-0-nutrient-di-ammonium-phosphate-free

Also available @ Beerco in 450g packs #unaffliated
https://beerco.com.au/collections/y...s/lallemand-fermaid®-0?variant=32045303562286

 

[kadmium]

Hahaha. Don't think there's much YAN to be gained from feeding stamps to yeast, but maybe that's how you get the foreign strains?


As for beerco thats good! Only probs is 450g is a lot if youre only doing beers etc.

 

[butisitart]

Hahaha. Don't think there's much YAN to be gained from feeding stamps to yeast, but maybe that's how you get the foreign strains?


As for beerco thats good! Only probs is 450g is a lot if youre only doing beers etc.

bad dad jokes are best left till fathers day

 

[MHB]

I'm mostly agreeing with kadmium, I also would be a little concerned about adding too much Nitrogen from any source late in the ferment.
A well made wort contains enough N in the form of peptides and amino acids (called FAN Free Amino Nitrogen) that the yeast can take up very efficiently and in general as your wort gravity goes up so does the amount of soluble N2 as both comes from the malt, more malt, more sugars and more soluble nitrogen to.
Naturally if sugar plays a large role in you wort (either at kettle or later) it doesn't bring any N2 (same applies to many adjuncts - they are largely used as Nitrogen dilatants especially when brewing with high protein 6-row malt).
This is one of the reasons getting the pitch rate and wort aeration right is so important in beer brewing (perhaps much more so than in wine or mead making) we want the yeast to spend some time reproducing. During this time it takes up the FAN that can (and will) cause problems later. Yeast doesn't need much more nitrogen once the reproductive phase is over, most of it is recycled within the cell.
Too much can cause problems like-
Diacetyl production fall as FAN levels rise, up to a point, than more FAN gives more DA.
Yeast will make more higher alcohols when it has too much FAN available, especially in high alcohol beers.
Can contribute to premature staling

Its a good idea to keep FAN under 350mg/L, it isn't all that hard to add a bit of a protein rest into a high gravity wort mash regime to increase the amount of FAN. Protein rests allow protease to reduce insoluble proteins into soluble ones and reduce already soluble protein into smaller peptides and amino acids that are more available to the yeast.
Any malt COA will give FAN or Soluble N and often a soluble/insoluble ratio, its very important to get available Nitrogen right, and one of the areas where lessons learned on must really cant be applied to beer brewing without a fair amount of thought. Might be part of why so many good wine makers are indifferent brewers - that and that they cant throw Met around with a wide mouth shovel.
Mark

 

[kadmium]

What he ^ said.

 

[Cloud Surfer]

Just catching up with all the info, thanks guys. Lots of great stuff to read over.