-MG-

Recipes 

I am making a Pliny clone, and never used corn sugar before and I added it to the mash and noticed my pre-boil gravity is way low. I'm thinking it has to do with the corn sugar? Am I screwed at this point or should I add it again at the end of the boil?

duboman

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Sugar in the mash would not effect your low gravity and there is no reason to add it to the mash-it can be added at the end of the boil or even during fermentation

The efficiency of the mash has to do with PH and quality of crush as well as mash temp and duration and sparge

__________________
Nothing Left to do but smile and drink beer.....

The Commune Brewing Company-Perfecting the "art" of beer since 2010

-MG-

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Does it still make sense for me to add it at this point again to the end of the boil?

-MG-

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Well when I took that pre-boil gravity reading I tried just putting the hydrometer in the BK. I may have had a light reading because of the density of the liquid. I just took a sample and while I'm unsure of the temp, its around 130 now and reading 1.080. So probably adding the DME I did is going to put this guy in a big beer category!

duboman

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The DME definitely added to the OG but you also need to be correcting your readings for temperature, ideally at less than 100F

__________________
Nothing Left to do but smile and drink beer.....

The Commune Brewing Company-Perfecting the "art" of beer since 2010

day_trippr

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If you dump sugar in with the mash, the resulting OG at the end of the brew day will most certainly be lower than if that same sugar was dumped directly in the kettle...

Cheers!

-MG-

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Thanks for the replies guys.

This beer probably won't be reproduce-able. With some of my mistakes and trying to correct what really didn't need to be corrected!

The beer ended at 1.106 !!!

This will be something else! At least I learned some good things about taking hydrometer readings and adding sugar.

william_shakes_beer

Recipes 

You mash grains to permit the enzymes to convert starch to sugar. You run off and then sparge to wash those sugars out of the grains and into the wort. Adding sugar should boost the SG, but adding it to the mash will inevitably result in some of the added sugars getting stuck in the grains. Add it to the brew kettle. Unless corn sugar is specifically called for, you are better off boosting the brew kettle gravity IMHO by adding malt extract instead. I usually do a SG calculation at the start of the boil to predict my post boil gravity and add DME if needed.