Adding Sugar During Fermentation

[stef]

So, got an extract pils fermenting at the moment. It'll be ready to rack to secondary soon. I had a thought a day or 2 ago- my recipe was all malt extract, with no dex or anything. However, i thought maybe it would have been a good idea to have put in some dex or sugar or something to "dry it out a bit" and make it a bit more of a thirst quencher... So my thought, could i boil up some plain white sugar (not much- 150-200 grams or so?) in a small amount of water, and add it to the secondary when i transfer? Or is that a bad idea? And would it help at all/change the flavour/body of the beer? As it was it was gonna be pretty low alcohol- think about 3.5-4% off the top of my head. Increasing the alcohol volume is not the main aim of this though.

Alternatively, i could add the sugar to the primary and leave it a day or 2, then move to secondary if that is a better idea.

I know that plain sugar is frowned upon and can lead to cidery or other flavours, but i thought in a relatively small quantity it might not be too bad? I dont have any dex on hand, and its a bit of a hassle to get some in the next day or 2, so if its a bad idea to use sugar i'll avoid it all together.

Any thoughts?

 

[Bribie G]

Sugar does not by itself cause 'cidery' flavours - Australian commercials use up to 30% cane sugar and whatever else you might complain about in the flavours you wouldn't include 'cidery'. I regularly use up to 300g of white sugar in stronger UK bitters for a 'historical' style that I like, although with the price of grains and sugars nowadays most UK breweries have gone back to mostly malt in their recipes...

I think the cidery myth comes from the home brew twang that is regularly tasted in kit beers made on a kilo of sugar, and really that twang is probably more related to poor temperature management, thinness caused by just plain stupid and over-the-top sugar ratio, and poor sanitation. At this stage you don't want to be introducing oxygen to the brew so, If I were you I'd carefully add 300 of sugar to the brew dissolved in a litre to two litres of boiled water that has been cooled in a closed container (and therefore de-oxygenated) and pour it gently into primary not secondary. Then let that ferment out. Just adding sugar won't dry out the beer, just provide a bit more alcohol 'heat' but by adding that bit of extra water as well you will slightly thin out and dry out the beer.

cheers

:super:

Edit: of course it will make the beer a tad less bitter and less hop flavour etc as well, you might want to boil up just a few grams of hop pellets and chuck in as well, they will settle out fine, but really it's probably best to see how it ends up and if the beer ends up to your taste.

 

[argon]

+1 to what Bribie is saying. Belgian breweries add sugar into the primary after fermentation has commenced all the time. It's what i do in my belgian beers. Makes the yeasties go after the big sugars first before feeding them the simple stuff. Mote "digestible" as the monks say.

Make sure you disolve in boiling water and let it cool to same temp as your main batch before gently adding it in and avoid splashing.

 

[the_yobbo]

+1 on Bribie also.

Although, I'm not sure if my logic for agreeing is correct.

What actually measures the thinness of the beer?
Is thinness directly related to a beer being more thirst quenching?
Is thinness directly related to the dryness of the beer?

Therefore can all of the above simply be measured/calculated by the FG of a beer.
Ie Beers with a FG less than 1008 is a thin dry beer? or Beers with a FG between 1006-1010 are easy to drink sessionable beers (assuming flavour tastes good)?

My google search failed to give me meaningful answers. Best I could do was thirst quenching is related to carbonation and bubble density and effected by hoppiness, aroma, bitterness, etc etc etc.

Help, I think I'm going crazy.

 

[Bribie G]

Haha

Chuck Hahn, in defence of Hahn (now Lion Nathan owned of course) who use a proportion of sugaz in their beers, said that Australians would not drink an all malt beer as a session quaffing beer because it would be more heavy and not as 'drinkable' as the beers they are used to that contain a large amount of sugar adjunct. Doesn't seem to stop the Germans, so I'm not really in agreement with that.

I suppose it's on a sliding scale, with not just body and mouthfeel involved but other parameters as well, such as sweetness, dryness and hop presence. In the Czech Republic they have long brewed an all malt but fairly light beer, a bit like our mid strength, for industrial workers which they would actually drink at the blast furnaces and down the mines during the shift. Where do I apply.

So there's a refreshing quenching beer but no sugaz.

Like I said, sliding scale. :icon_cheers:

 

[stef]

Thanks for the help guys. Sounds like adding sugar wont hurt too much anyhow.

 

[drtomc]

I think the "thinness" of a beer is largely related to the amount of unfermented carbohydrates remaining. When brewing a big beer, the amount remaining, even if you mash for attenuation, is more than desirable if you use malt to supply all the fermentable material. This is why Belgians, and others, use sugar to "thin" the beer. It's actually about achieving a desired balance between the level of alcohol (high) and the amount of residual carbohydrate (low).

HTH.

T.

 

[MHB]

In a funny sort of way most of what is being said about Sugar is largely missing the point. It isn't the Sugar or when it's added it's the residual non fermentable fraction of the wort that determines how heavy/light, malty/dry or whatever term you want to use to describe body is.
The fermentable to non-fermentable nature is determined by the person converting the starch into soluble sugars (i.e. the masher), whether that's us at home or the employee of the company that made the extract we use.

As an example say from 5Kg of Malt you make a beer with an OG of 1.050 and that will finish at 1.010
Given that you are inside the alcohol tolerance of the yeast, a beer that is going to fall from 1.050 to 1.010 will still stop at 1.010 even if you add enough Sugar to raise the OG to 1.060 and will still be just as heavy. If the fermentation was well managed I doubt you or I could tell the difference.

To change the body of the beer you must act to change the FG, by lowering the mashing temperature or reducing the initial amount of grain or extract, so for this example 4Kg of malt and 1 Kg of Sugar you still get an OG of 1.050, but the FG would fall by 1/5^th or to about 1.008. You now have a lighter bodied beer.
So would 5 Kg of Malt mashed cooler and I think the Germans have demonstrated fairly convincingly the beer will taste better.
Where judicious use of Sugar really comes into its own is when you want to increase both Body and Alcohol, mashing hotter for more residuals and adding Sugar to get more alcohol is a well tested method of making strong beer that isn't cloying.

MHB



drtomc posted while I was typing yep on the money
M

 

[DUANNE]

agree with the above. if you add sugar now all it will do is increase alc levels but not change the body of the beer.also depending how much you use it may affect the sweetnes due to the rising alc levels. that is sweetnes not body, two different things altogether in my book.