Dark Belgian sugar or table sugar

I am brewing a Black Double IPA that is currently fermenting right now. My starting gravity is 1.084 and is going strong. Recipe is pretty simple: 85 two row 5 DME, 5 C60, and 5 Carafa III. I am using WLP007 and last time I made a beer similar to this, I got 75 attenuation ending around 1.019. I want to get to about 1.015, so I was going to add about .75 lb sugar to get the FG down and add a little ABV. If I add this amount as Belgain candi sugar, how pronounced will the flavor be?:rockin:

Maybe I'm thinking wrong here but I don't believe adding the candi sugar will help lower your FG all that much if at all. Adding dextrose on sucrose (non caramelized) may come closer to lowering FG a bit. As for the flavor, adding it post boil will likely give a significant profile, but I've never done it so cant say for sure.

Since it is 100% fermentable, should be consumed. Table sugar needs invertase to go from sucrose to glucose and fructose. Belgian candi sugar is already "inverted", so it's ret to go.
Mainly thinking about the flavor it might or might not impart.

501irishred said:

Maybe I'm thinking wrong here but I don't believe adding the candi sugar will help lower your FG all that much if at all. Adding dextrose on sucrose (non caramelized) may come closer to lowering FG a bit. As for the flavor, adding it post boil will likely give a significant profile, but I've never done it so cant say for sure.

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It depends on how much and what type you add. D-90 style candi sugar is about half fermentable.. Meaning if you raise a water and D-90 solution to 1.040 and add yeast, it will drop to around 1.020 in a couple days.

(I've done these tests to determine if my home made syrups were similar in sugar caramel formation)

Not sure why you got that result because sugar is sugar and it should have fermented out.

MG1602 said:

Not sure why you got that result because sugar is sugar and it should have fermented out.

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Portions of the candi syrup is caramelized and therefor is unfermentable by the yeast.

50% though?

Try it yourself and see.. Real easy to test as you only need water, a drop of yeast, some of the syrup and enough volume to fill a test tube for the hydrometer. Which would be approximately 100ml.

If you think about it, it makes sense.. that is not food coloring making D-90 extremely dark brown.

Now, unless you were trying to make something completely unique. Candi Syrup is not often used at higher than 15% of the total fermentables so the impact is not that great in the remaining sweetness.



Your question about flavor still stands, I personally will not make a belgian without using candi syrup as the flavor profile is drastically different than plain old table sugar. If you are wanting something with extreme flavor use D-180, that would show up quite nicely with the black IPA. If you are just wanting ABV, table sugar would work.. my choice would be to use a D-1(least caramelized, aka Simplicity) or D-45.

The great thing about brewing is there are lots of choices and most of the time it leads to good tasting beer.