adding molasses
 

I like to add some sort of sugar to my beer. I know a lot of you guys frown on it, but after making a few batches without it the beers seem boring and flat. In the past I have tried honey but really dont like the aftertaste to much. I made a couple of batches with pure cane syrup and they turned out real nice.
I found some molasses and am going to give it a try.

Question, Should I add this during to boil or to the fermentor? In the past I always put it in at the end of seeping my grains and mixed it well with the extract.

In the boil, but you only need to boil it for a few minutes.

Add it in on flame out. Be carefully on the amout. Really strong taste so it's easy to over do it.

I have a small bottle it is only 12 fl oz. I figured that it would have a stronger flavor than the cane syrup.

It depends how much molasses you like and how it would work with the style. I've put 2 oz (by weight) of light molasses in a nut brown and it's noticeable. At least one friend didn't care for it. On the other hand I put 8 oz of blackstrap molasses in my Taddy Porter clone and it absolutely nails the flavor.

Well I chickened out after reading a few posts on how molasses ruined the taste of their beer. The beer I made yesterday was a fat tire clone and Im not sure how it would work out. A porter sounds like a good one to try it with. I need to make another batch to keep my pipeline full, so I will nose around my lhbs and see what kind of recipe he has laying around.

Samuel Smith's Taddy Porter is an example of a molasses-heavy beer. If you've never tried it, it's worth seeking out. As I said in my post above, I find that 8 oz of blackstrap in 5 gallons captures the flavor well. In lower amounts - say 1-4 oz - it lends a rum-like nose.