Forgot the Corn Sugar in Boil-Christmas Ale Kit

Thought i was doing a fine job of putting together the kit. Had a 1 pound bag of Corn Sugar that didnt make it into the main boil. Didnt realize it until after i was cooling down the wort. The OG was less than was supposed to be, about 1.045 instead of expected 1.065. Supposing i'll still have good beer, but just much lighter in ABV than expected? Am i right or doomed ??

Where did the kit come from? The reason I ask is because many places will include 5oz of corn sugar for bottle conditioning.... not during the boil. Do you still have the direction sheet?

Good Luck!

was a Brewers Best kit. This was a separate corn sugar, 1 pound. the conditioning sugar is in separate bag. the kit called for the 1 lb. of corn sugar to be put in with the 6.6# of liquid malt extract and 1# of dry golden malt extract. never made it in!

I would imagine you could boil the sugar in two or so cups of water, cool down then add in with the rest of the beer.

You can just add it to the fermenter.

Your right, the beer will just be lower alcohol, the corn sugar doesn't really contribute to the flavor, just the ABV. And as said before, you can always add it to the fermentor.

You're fine. As others have said, not having it in is just gonna lower the ABV.

Dauntless said:

I would imagine you could boil the sugar in two or so cups of water, cool down then add in with the rest of the beer.

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This. There are reasons why adding the sugar a few days later is actually better than adding it to the boil.

EvilGnome6 said:

This. There are reasons why adding the sugar a few days later is actually better than adding it to the boil.

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Can you explain this?

EvilGnome6 said:

This. There are reasons why adding the sugar a few days later is actually better than adding it to the boil.

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I'm confused, if it doesn't affect flavor and is supposed to only affect ABV wouldn't you want it in as long as possible so the yeast can do their thing for longer? Or is it something with boiling breaking up the sugar molecules? I'm lost

I've read that yeast tends to like to eat the simplest sugars first (in this case corn sugar) and then often gets too lazy to eat the complex ones so I'm guessing this is what Evilgnome6 is referring too when he's saying adding it later might actually be preferable. This is why it's reccomended not to make yeast starters with corn sugar. In the case of the late corn sugar addition you'll be doing- your yeast will fully ferment the malt extract and then move on to the later addition of corn sugar and possibly get better attenuation.

I kind of doubt it would make too big a diffference than adding at boil in any event. Boil the corn sugar in a couple cups of water, cool it and toss it in the fermenter.

As chrispykid mentioned, yeast can prefer the simple sugars to the complex sugars. This can sometimes lead to a slow or incomplete fermentation.

The other advantage is that it reduces the shock to the yeast since they don't see the full gravity of the wort all at once.