Slightly sweetening an IPA?

Can you add an unfermentable sugar like lactose to an IPA to add sweetness? I've got the beer bitter like I want and the malt is coming through but would like to sweeten it just slightly. Any ideas? Thanks

That would be unusual, but maybe it would be a good experiment.

The more usual methods would be to adjust your mash temperature and/or adjust your recipe to include more crystal or caramel malts.

Boil up a 1/4 lb of Maltodextrin and add that to the beer. Should add 2 points to the gravity of a 5 gallon batch. Maltodextrin is an unfermentable sugar from malted barley.

Calder said:

Boil up a 1/4 lb of Maltodextrin and add that to the beer. Should add 2 points to the gravity of a 5 gallon batch. Maltodextrin is an unfermentable sugar from malted barley.

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Maltodextrin is usually produced from corn AFAIK and it doesn't add actual sweetness rather it enhances body and mouthfeel.

RE graduate's original question I would argue against adding sweetness and consider adding more malt flavor to your beer to balance the high bitterness. Posting your recipe might help in getting more detailed suggestions.

10.5 lb 2row
2 lb crystal 40
1 lb carapils
1/2 lb honey malt
1.5 oz chinook @ 60 min
1 oz centennial @ 20 min
1 oz simcoe @ 15 min
1 oz simcoe @ 10 min
1 oz simcoe @ 5 min
safale s05
4.5 gal of strike water and mash for 1 hour @ 152'
Boiled 1 hr wit hop additions. 10 days in the primary at 68'.
Kegged with 1/2 oz of amarillos and 1/2 oz simcoes.

First batch of the winter and of course it hasn't aged a week. Not sure it will make its second week. That could be the entire issue. It will be gone.
I welcome any input on the recipe.

Substitute Munich malt for the carapils?

Pappers said:

That would be unusual, but maybe it would be a good experiment.

The more usual methods would be to adjust your mash temperature and/or adjust your recipe to include more crystal or caramel malts.

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This gets my vote as well.

Also, I wonder if it is too bitter or too green?

In theory you could add some Splenda to make it sweeter...takes all kinds I guess, but I've never done it that way with a beer before.

You dirty beer molester.
Your beer is not where you want it because its not done. Every week the hop flavor changes until it gets where its going. Go buy some commercial beer and come back to your beer in 3 weeks.

Calder said:

Boil up a 1/4 lb of Maltodextrin and add that to the beer. Should add 2 points to the gravity of a 5 gallon batch. Maltodextrin is an unfermentable sugar from malted barley.

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I was thinking of Splenda which is maltodextrin and sucralose. I've been wondering if it has any value in brewing. Can't be too wonderful if you don't hear of anyone using it.

northernlad said:

You dirty beer molester.
Your beer is not where you want it because its not done. Every week the hop flavor changes until it gets where its going. Go buy some commercial beer and come back to your beer in 3 weeks.

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This. I actually had the opposite situation where my IIPA was almost like birthday cake level sweet, but it died down over a month or so & turned out to be the best brew I've done. Age it up & you'll see how much of a difference it makes.

Yep, it's the age.

I made an India Brown with the Moose Drool recipe and it was so hoppy early on that you really couldn't taste the malt. Then it mellowed after a week and everything became really balanced.

But I can completely sympathize with wanting to drink a beer when it's young... I've very guilty of this. I like to taste the beer as it evolves.

I'm thankful for the replies. I think "you dirty beer molester" may be what is wrong. Made me think a little. Of course this is the problem. I was the first batch of the winter brewing season and I got a little excited. I usually bottle two bombers with each batch and they are good for critiquing the recipe long after the keg is gone. I'll back off a little and see how some age works.

rather than start a new post with a similar problem, I thought I'd perform a friendly hijack. I've just tasted my second attempt at cloning Stone's indominatable IPA. The first time I brewed it I ended up way high on my mash temp (~170'F). Product was actually not bad. Second time, I used my new beer sculpture with HERMS. Needless to say, my mash temp was pristine, and actually reached iodine-indicated conversion 30 minutes in (but, being suspicious, continued with the prescribed 60min mash). I also hit the target gravities spot on for both OG and FG. After a week in primary and 10-12 days in secondary (with dry hop, recipe below), I let it cool and force carbonated.
The SRM is good, although still a little cloudy, but this batch tastes watery- almost like hop-tea. I'm wondering if by seriously NAILING the mash temp (154'F) I "over-digested" my grain (Papazian's recommendation for happy spot to involve both alpha- and beta-amylase), leaving too many sugars and not enough unfermentable? Fermentation was a riot- blew-off for the entire week. What can I do differently next time? I like a previous suggestion of adding maltodextrin, but I think something might be wrong with my technique.

Recipe:
13lbs Pale Malt, 2-row
8 oz 10L Crystal
8 oz 20L Crystal
1 oz Magnum hops (75 min)
Whirlfloc tab (15min)
1 oz Centenial (0 min)
2 oz Centenial (leaf, dry-hop in secondary)
Homemade slant of White Labs California Ale (WLP001) via scaled up starters (2oz, 8oz, 12oz to pitching final volume of 500mL)

To quell the screams of "beer molester", it's aged in tertiary (keg) for another week (almost 3 weeks in aging) before carbonation. It's not that the hops are overpowering, it's just that that's all I really taste! Where's the malty body? What did I do wrong, and, most importantly, how can I make a better beer on Batch #3?

What was the OG? Somewhere below 1.060? That could be the problem - I feel like you definitely have to break 1.060-1.065 for an IPA.

Also, I'm surprised you don't have a hop addition in the 1-15min range. I find that besides the hoppy character you get from late hops, they also seem to add this this resinous IBU character to the body that isn't present in the bittering addition. Maybe an extra hop addition will give you more depth to the mouthfeel.

I really don't think mashing at 154 is the culprit - that's a find mashing temp and generally what I target for all of my normal beers. In fact, for IPAs, that's the upper limit of my mashing, though you should also know that I use 1968 in my ales so I generally mash lower anyway.