Candy Syrup In Trappist Beer

[Scroopter]

I'm preparing to make my first Barley Wine / Trappist Beer. It will be an all grain brew with some added candy syrup. The recipe I'm following says to use no more than 5% candy syrup for fermentables. My question is, 'how do you calculate the right amount of candy syrup so that it only constitutes 5% of the fermentables?'

 

[Dave70]

Firstly, decide weather its Trappist or barley wine. Two completely different animals.

Secondly, download this and use it. You can set it to work strictly on percentages if you like.
http://www.brewmate.net/

 

[Scroopter]

Im doing a Trappist. The recipe says not to add more than 5% candy syrup for fermentables. But, I think there is at least two ways for this to be read:

• Are they saying 5% of the wort volume. So, say there was 1 litre of wort, then not to add more than 5 grams of candy sugar?
• Or, if there was already a brix of say 10, then 5% of that would be 0.5 grams of candy sugar

Im just confused as to how I am supposed to be reading 5% of fermentables, and how to measure it.

 

[hsb]

5% of your grain bill. 5kg grain would be 250g sugar/syrup.

 

[Scroopter]

Damn, is it that simple? Thanks...

 

[Scroopter]

I'm also looking for a formula that will tell you how much sugar to add to the wort to bring it to a particular gravity. I found the following formula on a wine site. Just wondering if anyone thinks there's any reason why it would not be accurate for beer? I can't seem to find an equivalent formula for beer.



M = V x (SG) x (Bf Bi) / (100 Bf)



M = Amount of sugar to add

V = Volume of must (or wort for beer)

SG = Current specific gravity

Bi = Current Brix value

Bf = Desired Brix value

 

[black_labb]

www.brewmate.net

 

[DeGarre]

5% of your grain bill. 5kg grain would be 250g sugar/syrup.

5% of fermentables is the same as 5% of grain bill only if the degrees Litre are the same. 5% sugar has more fermentables than 5% say pale ale.

 

[Dave70]

Im doing a Trappist. The recipe says not to add more than 5% candy syrup for fermentables. But, I think there is at least two ways for this to be read:

• Are they saying 5% of the wort volume. So, say there was 1 litre of wort, then not to add more than 5 grams of candy sugar?
• Or, if there was already a brix of say 10, then 5% of that would be 0.5 grams of candy sugar

Im just confused as to how I am supposed to be reading 5% of fermentables, and how to measure it.

You're overthinking this shit.

And in my opinion, 5% sugar in a Trappist is for poofs. Using up to 20% is par for the course in some cases. The style loves sugar for good reason.

Also, sugar's for poofs (unless you're making dark / amber stuff that is). Go with 100% saccharide Asian grocer bought stuff. Not the HFCS variation though.

 

[Nick JD]

I use 15% dark Candi syrup in a couple of Belgians for a couple of reasons. One is because beers above 7% need to be mashed impossibly low or they'll end up needing a spoon to drink - one way of fixing this is to have all the alcohol above 6.5% produced by sugars that are completely turned to alcohol by the yeast. This way, the beer will finish at 1.015 and not 1.028 and be sickly sweet. Most belgians are low IBU beers too, so this doesn't help the percieved sweetness.

And secondly, go to Dan Murphys site and look what a box of Chimay Red or Leffe would cost. Then spend the $12 on amber or dark candi syrup because it's sooo worth it. It's the signature taste in darker belgians.

I've never seen the point in paying for clear candi syrup as it's pretty much dextrose from a yeast's POV.

20% sugaz in a Belgian is completely acceptable - hell, it's acceptable in a Aussie Lager.

I find the AG brewer having ditched forever the shame of adding kilos of sugar to their beer gats a guilt complex when adding it to their "AG". **** that - chuck it in when the style calls for it!

 

[Scroopter]

Thanks for the feed back. I had a couple of Chimay Blues last week and thought they were nice. Plus, my beer fridge is full with lager and some wheat beers. But I want to keep brewing, so I thought Id make some beer that I could store under the house for a long time. So I thought why not do some Chimay Blue clones. Ive got the book brew like a monk and in it they say that the monks that brew the Chimay discontinued using candi sugar (the syrup) about 40 years ago. He said sugar amounts to less than 5% of fermentables. I know other Trappist beers use up to 30% though, so I guess its up to individual taste. Ive also read up on how to invert normal table sugar yourself, which I reckon Ill have a go at.

 

[Nick JD]

Inverting sugar turns the sucrose into glucose and fructose. Yeast see this as pretty much the same as dextrose - which is $3 a kg - so I reckon unless you're caramelising the shit out of the invert sugar, what's the point? YMMV though.

Another interesting point with Belgians is their use of wheat starch (wheat "corn"flour).