Belgian Candy Sugar / Dry Hop

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IkeKrizzule

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I'm brewing a gluten free beer with Belgian Candy Sugar. Reading on here I found that it can be better to add these after the rest of the recipe has fermented a bit, letting the yeast do the easy to ferment sugars after the hard sugars.

Question is I also plan to dry hop this beer. Is it okay to put the dry hops in with the candy sugar, or should I wait until after its had a chance to ferment that out before the dry hops?
 
Bump, no answer yet (or even a view). I'll probably just add together if I don't hear back by tomorrow night.
 
No answer for you, but I'm curious about this too. I'm not doing a gluten free batch, but I just ordered the ingredients for a vaguely belgian batch using candi syrup.

I had thought about adding the candi syrup late in the boil, but hadn't thought about adding it after the fermentation had already started. But after seeing this thread, I did remember reading that some others have done that before. Hoping to hear some insight and reasons for/against this idea (preferrably with explanations).
 
Adding the hops with the sugar probably won't be an issue. If you use a hop bag and just let it float, then it might get nasty looking after being all covered in yeast krausen.

I started a belgian dubbel last weekend and put hard candi sugar in at the start of the boil. I added the sugar in the boil simply because I didn't think to investigate when and why to add it at another time. The biggest problem I noticed was the sugar didn't want to dissolve very fast and kept sticking to the bottom of the pot requiring some slight nudging with a spoon to prevent any chance of burning.

My fermentation has been vigorous and steady (tomorrow is day 5), but I've yet to try any FG readings. If my gravity doesn't get as low as I expect, then maybe the candi sugar causes the beer to get too alcoholic for the yeast to finish fermenting the malt extract. Certainly seems possible, though I don't expect mine to get quite that high in alcohol.
 
BuddyWeiser said:
If my gravity doesn't get as low as I expect, then maybe the candi sugar causes the beer to get too alcoholic for the yeast to finish fermenting the malt extract. Certainly seems possible, though I don't expect mine to get quite that high in alcohol.

The "hard" candi sugar is a simple sugar that the yeast will consume first. They tend to get lazy and take longer to eat the complex sugars because of it. The late addition of simple sugars ensures the yeast have worked on the complex ones first.

The hard candi sugars are exactly the same as common table cane sugar. Good way to save a few dollars on a beer that had a pretty expensive bill already.

The Belgian candi syrup is not the same. It's an inverted sugar and lends flavors as well as fermentables to the brew. If you do a search, there are some good threads on the differences and even how to make your own candi syrup.
 
Yea fermentation will off-gas a lot of your dry hop aroma, so I would definitely recommend waiting for fermentation to finish before dry hopping. That means candi sugar before dry hops. I like the idea of getting the yeast working on the maltose before giving it the simple sugars. I would suggest maybe adding the simple sugars after 3-7 days depending on how fast your fermentation takes off and then adding the dry hops once you hit FG, probably about another week after you add the candi sugar.

I haven't done this, so not speaking from experience, but theoretically that sounds like the best approach to me.
 
Yea fermentation will off-gas a lot of your dry hop aroma, so I would definitely recommend waiting for fermentation to finish before dry hopping.

^ This is what I was getting at.

I've done a Belgian tripel recipe once adding the sugar to the boil and once adding it 4 days into fermentation. The one with the late addition only finished one point lower. I think pitching enough healthy yeast and good oxygenation were the more important factors for me.
 
With proper o2 and the correct amount of yeast you will reach your goal gravity. All of my Belgian ales have used candi sugar and they all reach final gravity in 4-6 days of fermentation. Adding the candi sugar later seems like making something complicated that shouldn't be. Let your yeast do its job, they will go after all the sugar thats there! I also have found using yeast nutrients with my hi gravity Belgian ales helps a lot too!
 
The Belgian candi syrup is not the same. It's an inverted sugar and lends flavors as well as fermentables to the brew.

I made hard candi sugar using water, cane sugar, and cream of tartar, so mine should be inverted as well. The instructions I followed can be found here.

From my searching it appears that the syrup vs hard is simply whether or not water is added at the end of the process before the sugar cools and hardens. Also, I found that using beet sugar instead of cane sugar might be closer to the real thing.
 
BuddyWeiser said:
I made hard candi sugar using water, cane sugar, and cream of tartar, so mine should be inverted as well. The instructions I followed can be found here.

From my searching it appears that the syrup vs hard is simply whether or not water is added at the end of the process before the sugar cools and hardens. Also, I found that using beet sugar instead of cane sugar might be closer to the real thing.

Good article in the wiki! have to keep that in mind next time I need some.

From what I can gather, pure invert sugar tends not to crystallize. You can never get 100% conversion though. It's kind of like honey. It will eventually crystalize, but it takes a long time.

I never checked for availability of beet sugar where I am, but I imagine the difference between the 2 (beet vs. cane) isn't alot. Sucrose is sucrose. :)
 

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