When To Add Sugar To The Boil

[Kingy]

Never used sugar when doing AG, do you guys just throw it in @ say 10 mins and give a stir? Or something different?
Cheers Kingy

 

[kelbygreen]

yes enough to sterilise it. I usually do 5 mins though never used it for AG, Just mash lower if you want it to ferement out further. I guess if you want to stay true to a beer then it may be needed

 

[Sammus]

whenever. I think it's best to boil it separately in a little water and dump it in the fermenter when it's through the first lot of malt sugars. But that's because I only tend to add it to big beers, and too high of an OG to begin with I think isn't great for yeast, it certainly helps with attenuation doing it in steps like that.

Sugar is IMO the most underrated and looked-down-upon ingredient in homebrewing, AG or no. Nearly all "big" beers made by fellow homebrewers are either underattenuated (ie thick and cloying), or only just acceptable. Mashing low is only really enough for regular 1.050ish beers. Mash temps over 63 should only be used to increase body in light and mid beers.

 

[Nick JD]

I put sucrose in at the start of the boil because the heat and the pH will convert it to fructose and glucose, and the yeast like that.

Sure, you have to use a little bit more hops to compensate for the raised SG - but IMO you get a nicer bitterness from more hops in a higher SG.

 

[bcp]

The only beers i've added sugar to so far have been belgians. I don't add it until after the initial fermentation has died down, because the yeast will tend to go for the easiest sugars, and I want them to hit the maltose first. That gives a great dry finish. But to do that I also invert the sugar separately, and that's more work.

 

[MHB]

I put sucrose in at the start of the boil because the heat and the pH will convert it to fructose and glucose, and the yeast like that.

Sure, you have to use a little bit more hops to compensate for the raised SG - but IMO you get a nicer bitterness from more hops in a higher SG.

Well I just opened the fridge and vox poped the yeast, not one said they liked Fructose, tho there were a few packets of Champagne and Cider that looked like they join the cross benches, but being outnumbered by the Ale and Lager by over 50:1 they werent too outspoken (joke OK).
Nick I cant work out where you get some of your ideas from, or is this just another Nick V Every brewing text on the planet, which suggests Kettle Sugars be added in the last 10-15 minutes of the boil, or later in the ferment. Do you have any evidence for your assertion?
I think Sammus is much closer to the money.
Mark

 

[QldKev]

Well I just opened the fridge and vox poped the yeast, not one said they liked Fructose, tho there were a few packets of Champagne and Cider that looked like they join the cross benches, but being outnumbered by the Ale and Lager by over 50:1 they werent too outspoken (joke OK).
Nick I cant work out where you get some of your ideas from, or is this just another Nick V Every brewing text on the planet, which suggests Kettle Sugars be added in the last 10-15 minutes of the boil, or later in the ferment. Do you have any evidence for your assertion?
I think Sammus is much closer to the money.
Mark

It's a good point of whereever or not the sugar will invert in the boil. I've been following some of the Barclay Perkins recipies and they often have inverted sugar in them. If I could not invert the sugar prior and just throw in the base sugar into the boil it would make my life easier, and that is good. I understand we are boiling the sugar in an acetic environment so in theory it should invert, but then why did brewers of old spend so much time manually doing it prior, is it that we dont hit the 115c temps during the boil?

QldKev

 

[MHB]

Seriously, I would be startled if even a fraction of 1% of the Sucrose inverted during the boil, the main wort sugar Maltose manages to hang together just fine.
When you have a significant fraction of sucrose in the wort, yeast excretes a shed load of Invertase and that will change the beer, not I believe for the better.
Mark

 

[Benchish]

Depending on how much sugar you are adding really. Only a little then into the end of the boil last 10-15 min.

If it makes up a larger portion of the gravity then add it a few days into fermentation.

Why:

The best analogy i heard was lazy people at a buffet eating till they full or tired (or the food is gone).

The soup goes first, as you only need to swallow. (singe chain sugars)
Finger food is next, chew then swallow. (double chain sugars)
Regular food, cut then chew then swallow. (triple chain sugars)


Yeast will always start with the simplest sugars and work their way up until they give out. With sucrose being simpler than maltose it goes first making it possible for yeast to run out of puff before all the maltose is gone. The yeast "fills up" on soup and won't eat much else.

Adding the simple sugars after most of the maltose is gone allows the yeast some lazy eating it can process even when almost spent.

 

[bcp]

Well I just opened the fridge and vox poped the yeast, not one said they liked Fructose, tho there were a few packets of Champagne and Cider that looked like they join the cross benches, but being outnumbered by the Ale and Lager by over 50:1 they werent too outspoken (joke OK).
Nick I cant work out where you get some of your ideas from, or is this just another Nick V Every brewing text on the planet, which suggests Kettle Sugars be added in the last 10-15 minutes of the boil, or later in the ferment. Do you have any evidence for your assertion?
I think Sammus is much closer to the money.
Mark

I popped open scientific journals and asked them.

http://www.scientificsocieties.com/jib/pap...93_99_1_067.pdf
http://www.springerlink.com/content/p1716742062v72h2/
Neither of those is definitively linked to my practice, but does confirm that yeast contact with various sugars affects its uptake of other sugars.

But I don't pretend that this necessarily translates into a tasteable difference in the beer. I lack sufficient brewing experience to really know, and initially took the advice from an interview done by the founder of wyeast, and several people who have been reasonably successful with belgians. I do get the dry finish on my belgians I'm looking for, when in comps many seem to struggle to achieve this.

 

[Nick JD]

Do you have any evidence for your assertion?

Do you have any evidence against it?

Show me that boiling wort doesn't invert sucrose.

 

[Brewer_010]

Haven't read the brewing literature but i always throw my sugar in 10 minutes from the end of the boil to kill any bugs, but I never use more than about 5% so not concerned about yeast starting on the simple sugar molecules first and getting lazy..

Inverting sucrose needs citric acid or something doesn't it, not just boiling it?

 

[bcp]

Inverting sucrose needs citric acid or something doesn't it, not just boiling it?

That's a catalyst, but it isn't essential. Heat can bring it about.

 

[MHB]

Do you have any evidence against it?

Show me that boiling wort doesn't invert sucrose.

Maltose and Sucrose are both Disaccharides, they both have the same molecular weight and are for all intents and purposes nearly physically identical, (yeast can tell them apart and treats them differently) you can make invert from both of them under nearly identical conditions.
So if Maltose isnt being inverted in the kettle why would you think Sucrose should be?

A belief system is not evidence, if you want to make an assertion support it with evidence.

 

[Nick JD]

Maltose and Sucrose are both Disaccharides, they both have the same molecular weight and are for all intents and purposes nearly physically identical, (yeast can tell them apart and treats them differently) you can make invert from both of them under nearly identical conditions.
So if Maltose isnt being inverted in the kettle why would you think Sucrose should be?

Make sure you have an adult present when you do this experiment.

http://www.csiro.au/Portals/Education/Prog...r-activity.aspx

 

[ShredMaster]

Thanks Nick, now I'm boiling the kettle and trying to convince the Mrs to have a cup of tea at 11pm. I don't even want tea but ffs I'm gonna test that experiment out.

Before you ask, yes, I am wearing my tinfoil hat...

 

[Nick JD]

I'd say not much inverts in a cup of tea - but obviously it's some.

How much inverts in 60 minutes of hard boiling in a lowerd pH? Probably quite a bit.

Hopefully Mark will find some numbers ... or just go quiet, with a surprised baboon sitting on his head and all. Maybe he's entertaining pirates and can't get to his oracle.

 

[MHB]

A small fraction of any sucrose introduced to the kettle may be inverted, I accept that as may a small fraction of the Maltose extracted from the grain. That the yeast prefer (like) this is debatable.
To get something over a couple of percent isomerisation of sugar you would need to be down around pH 3 or have sugar concentrations and/or temperatures outside the parameters found in brewing.

Quite a lot of Invert is still sold to big breweries; invert is much more expensive than plain sugar syrup, if it is so easy to get sugar to invert in the kettle why do they buy invert?

If you think otherwise please show some evidence, and quit taking it so personally when someone disagrees with you, the insults just make you look like a teenage troll surprised baboon sitting on my head - seriously Nick.
Mark

 

[ianh]

Mmmm I thought the question was "When to add sugar to the Boil"?

 

[brettprevans]

Mmmm I thought the question was "When to add sugar to the Boil"?

What don't u understand. They are.arguong over what will hapoen to sugar if u add it to tge boil and when. Hence the actual evidence base supporting when u should add it to the boil.

Now imo if the op hasn't worked out how to search ahb or read a brewing book, they shoukd prob stick with conventional wisdom (palmer et al) and stick with adding to boil at 10min or if its a lot of sugar gradualky after a few days. Ymmv

Edit. There are threafs on the 'belgian' way of adding sugar to ur beers gradually during fermentation but im not sure what they would be u.der. J know manticle has a few threafs and u could start there. Alternatively u could read brew like a monk. Good info in there