Best Adjunct To Beef Up A Belgian

[blackbock]

Could I have a few opinions on the best adjunct to increase the alcohol level for a Belgian strong-ale partial please. Some of the options I am considering are:

raw/demerara sugar (up to 12%)
light honey "
golden syrup "

I don't have access to candi sugar, and don't want to caramelise my own either.
I would like the end result to be fairly authentic, so no white sugar suggestions please!!

Also, has anyone used liquid glucose for this purpose?

:unsure:

thanks,

 

[Screwtop]

I would like the end result to be fairly authentic, so no white sugar suggestions please!!

Sorry, but I would think table sugar would be fairly Authentic! Possibly Beet Sugar but still sugar.

 

[blackbock]

Well you might have a point in some cases Screwtop. Maybe it won't matter after everything else is in there!
Question is: Do you do these high alcohol beers yourself though???

 

[Stuster]

I'm with Screwtop. White sugar is the authentic choice. There is almost no difference between cane sugar and beet sugar (99.8% the same or something) and beet is used by Belgian brewers. If you are doing a tripel/golden strong ale, you should use up to 20% sugar to be authentic. If you are doing a dubbel or a dark strong ale, you'd want something else. I'm not sure what you can get round there, but you might want to look in any Asian stores there might be for some unrefined sugars. (In Nowra perhaps not. :unsure: ) If nothing else is available, dark brown sugar might be the best bet.

 

[blackbock]

Sorry I should have mentioned, the recipe is for a Dark Strong. I wanted to add some complexity, not just ethanol.

 

[Screwtop]

I wanted to add some complexity, not just ethanol.

For complexity, afraid your gonna have to look at grain bills, decoction mashing and type of yeast, and then theres the fermentation procedures.

 

[neonmeate]

actually i would respectfully disagree with you there stuster, i think dark brown sugar is way too molassesy for belgian beers. you want caramel flavours not molasses flavours. i wrecked a rochefort 8 clone by subbing dark brown sugar for dark candi. had to tip 20 litres out it was so foul.

if you don't want to muck around with caramelising sugar i would use white sugar and just use a few different crystal malts to get some toffee/caramel complexity that way. try cara-aroma, cara-munich, etc.

demerara, raw sugars of various sorts are good alternatives but they aren't substitutes for candi - a different sort of flavour. if that's what you want great, but it won't give you the richness you're after.

 

[Malnourished]

Caramelising sugar is awesome fun!

And I'd say it's a lot less effort than posting something on a forum and reading all the replies

 

[blackbock]

actually i would respectfully disagree with you there stuster, i think dark brown sugar is way too molassesy for belgian beers. you want caramel flavours not molasses flavours. i wrecked a rochefort 8 clone by subbing dark brown sugar for dark candi. had to tip 20 litres out it was so foul.

if you don't want to muck around with caramelising sugar i would use white sugar and just use a few different crystal malts to get some toffee/caramel complexity that way. try cara-aroma, cara-munich, etc.

demerara, raw sugars of various sorts are good alternatives but they aren't substitutes for candi - a different sort of flavour. if that's what you want great, but it won't give you the richness you're after.

Thanks for the tip neonmate, I think I'll stick with the plainer sugar this time and just go with some CaraAroma and maybe some wheat. I'm really intrigued!

 

[Stuster]

You're probably right, nm. I will be using some Gula Jawa in my next dubbel. In the two I've done so far I've used cane sugar, one caramelised, one not. I was just trying to think of something available in Nowra, but thanks for pointing out that brown sugar is no good. Sorry to be misleading, blackbock.

I found caramelising sugar to be relatively quick and painless. Do you have Radical Brewing? If not, I can post Randy Mosher's method for doing this which you can do during the boil if you are interested.

Edited for slowness and lack of caffeine.

 

[Malnourished]

I will be using some Gula Jawa in my next dubbel.

I've got a dubbel fermenting with Gula Aren right now, and I'm pretty excited about how it's shaping up. I'd be keen to hear your experience with the Gula Jawa.

 

[Stuster]

Mal

The dubbel is in the queue behind a number of beers, but I'll post my experiences when I do it. I've also got some Gula Aren in a Belgian, a pale ale I'm fermenting at the moment. It certainly tasted very nice going into the fermenter. I was amazed at the colour it gave when I dissolved it in a litre of wort. Midnight black. Was yours Wira Aksara brand?

 

[Malnourished]

I was amazed at the colour it gave when I dissolved it in a litre of wort. Midnight black. Was yours Wira Aksara brand?

I can't recall the brand off the top of my head. I'll get back to you.

Yeah the colour was pretty impressive. I diluted 10g in 500mL of water (ie. 500g per 25L) and it was about the colour of a Vienna, which is pretty good but probably not dark enough to emulate the dark candy syrup the Yanks can get now.

 

[neonmeate]

i should add that the reason the dark brown sugar wrecked the beer was that it was 500g of it or something (subbed it directly gram for gram). came out tasting like a licorice stick's armpit. i'm sure in small doses it could work in a belgian. but i only really use it in porters now.

 

[warrenlw63]

Yep, ecountered the same problems as NM.

Used 700g of dark brown sugar in a Belgian strongie and wound up with 23 litres of Bundy Rum. Not a bad thing if you want Bundy Rum but I wanted something like Rochefort 10 which I most definitely did not get.

Use neutral sugars and try and bump the colours up with small amounts of Cara Aroma and Carafa.

Warren -

 

[barfridge]

If you're doing a mash, something like flaked maize boosts gravity without adding too much to a beer.