adding sugar to wort after the boil

so, I missed expected OG far too much. By my calculations I should have had 1.060 but instead I only got 1.032.

I added 5 oz of sugar to the cooled wort just before the yeast was pitched.

Did I make a mistake? Is it going to affect the beer?

400d said:

so, I missed expected OG far too much. By my calculations I should have had 1.060 but instead I only got 1.032.

I added 5 oz of sugar to the cooled wort just before the yeast was pitched.

Did I make a mistake? Is it going to affect the beer?

Click to expand...

Not an expert here at all. But I will try to help and others can back it.

Did you brew from a kit? Because chances are if you did, the reading you took was diluted and the OG should have been hit.

If you did your own recipe, then I am not sure.

Doesn't matter if it's a kit or not, if it was an extract brew and you followed the directions, then you hit your OG and your reading was low. So, you have whatever the OG was supposed to be, plus 5oz of sugar. The sugar really isn't that much though and won't have too much of an effect on your beer. In a 5 gallon batch, that'll raise your SG by .003 and that's it.

As far as ruining your beer? You added something to the cooled wort that you don't know for sure was sanitary or not so there's a possibility you introduced an infection, but I know a few folks on here will add priming sugar straight to the bottles and they usually make beer in the end.

I did my own recipe. AG brew,

actually it was my first SMaSH beer.

for 6 gallons I used 11 lb pale ale malt and 1 oz of pilgrim hops.

I would say you just gave your brew an ABV boost....:rockin:

400d said:

I did my own recipe. AG brew,

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Hmmm... I dunno then. One of the AG pros might have more of a recommendation on what happened. Though the sugar still didn't do anything other than add .003 to your gravity.

It depends. When did you measure the wort at 1.032? Before or after boil? In either case, what temperature was the wort at? Did you record the volume of the wort when it was measured at this level?

If it was AG, there are a few things that might make it a non-issue. If it was pre-boil and 150F when measured, it makes a lot of sense that it would be so far off.

Either way, I don't think the sugar is going to add or subtract anything of significance.

nebben said:

It depends. When did you measure the wort at 1.032? Before or after boil? In either case, what temperature was the wort at? Did you record the volume of the wort when it was measured at this level?

If it was AG, there are a few things that might make it a non-issue. If it was pre-boil and 150F when measured, it makes a lot of sense that it would be so far off.

Either way, I don't think the sugar is going to add or subtract anything of significance.

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the rading was taken after the boil, prior to yeast pitching. the wort temperature was 75 F.

400d said:

so, I missed expected OG far too much. By my calculations I should have had 1.060 but instead I only got 1.032.

I added 5 oz of sugar to the cooled wort just before the yeast was pitched.

Did I make a mistake? Is it going to affect the beer?

Click to expand...

At 100% effiiency, one would expect 1.068. At about 47% effiiency one might expect 1.032 using 11lbs 2 row in 6 gal. The raw sugar into a cooled wort only injects the possibility of contamination....

I made a recipe that I was following from a freind but I wasnt getting the same OG measurements. I know I was in spec on times and tempature but I was a little low...( or he was wrong) either way I was contimplating adding some kick to it now but I am 5 days into the fermentation process. Should I add any? or do you think it is to late and the sugar would just sit in the second fermenter and make the beer sweet? also what would you advise, dextrose? I have a little 5oz bag of priming surgar but dont think that would do much plus I would still use 5oz more when i go to bottle.

ChickenBeer,

What recipe did you follow? If you used extract, you can pin-point the gravity based on how much water you used and the amount of extract. Piece of cake. If you did a partial boil then measured the gravity, there is a good (great) chance that it wasn't mixed sufficiently.

If you did AG, then your efficiency could be off.

Either way, even though you didn't specify what gravity you measured (and was low) , I wouldn't recommend adding anything at this point. If you added sugar, the yeast will eat it, up to the point that they stall from lack of nutrients, oxygen, or just high ethanol content. IMHO, it's better to have a little less than what you thought than just add sugar and make it a hoochy foul tasting "strong" beer.

Im going to leave it alone. Though this does raise a good point for me. I have seen many recipes with late additions etc. I have read extensively on people adding sugar in the fermentation stage but they never say when or how much. any guide lines here? why add the sucrose while in the fermentation stage? i mean other than the obvious abv kick.

(I know, old thread, but my Q is similar.)

So, I know I [accidentally] under-grained my recipe -- already did the math on that.

My question is: How much sugar do I add per gallon to get each 0.001 in gravity?

That is, if I want to bump 5 gallons, say, 0.015 OG, how much sugar do I add? What's the math?

Thanks!

400d said:

I did my own recipe. AG brew,

actually it was my first SMaSH beer.

for 6 gallons I used 11 lb pale ale malt and 1 oz of pilgrim hops.

Click to expand...

I don't think the expected 1.060 is correct. I just plugged in 11 pounds of a generic Pale malt and six gallons into brewfather, and it showed 1.051 @ 78% mash efficiency

olie said:

(I know, old thread, but my Q is similar.)

So, I know I [accidentally] under-grained my recipe -- already did the math on that.

My question is: How much sugar do I add per gallon to get each 0.001 in gravity?

That is, if I want to bump 5 gallons, say, 0.015 OG, how much sugar do I add? What's the math?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Not sure about sugar, but if you use DME, I believe that every pound will give you about 9 points...

5 Oz added to the finished beer is about the right amount to carbonate it if bottling or kegging. Won't do much else.

According to the article linked below, cane sugar has a ppg of 46. 15/46=.33# for 1 gallon, so .33# X 5 = 1.6# for 5. You may want to check my math! Corn sugar would need 10% more.

https://beerandbrewing.com/brewing-with-sugar/