Brown sugar

I'm going to brew a dunkelweizen and was wondering what effects adding 1/2 cup brown sugar would have all around (taste/gravity ect)?

Almost nothing.

Just my opinion, but I wouldn't use brown sugar on a Dunkel. Just not very "German" in my opinion.



Corn sugar is suppose to be the most neutral. Not giving too many off flavors. I brewed a Caribbean Stout a couple weeks back. Now that is something I'd like to try again with brown sugar!

Would it help "dry" it out a little though? Because as it stands mine is likely only to get to 1.014 I really want to get it down to 1.010-1.012.

Any suggestions?

daveooph131 said:

Would it help "dry" it out a little though? Because as it stands mine is likely only to get to 1.014 I really want to get it down to 1.010-1.012.

Any suggestions?

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Adding sugar, especially in a small amount, really won't bring your attenuation up. Usually, you add the sugar instead of malt so that it's 100% fermentable. What I mean is- say you have an all-malt brew of 1.070. It'll maybe go to 1.016 with nottingham. But if you have a brew of 1.070 that is 10% sugar, it might go to 1.010 because the sugar is more completely fermented than the sugars in the malt.

Sometimes a little sugar will awaken the yeast and encourage them to finish up, but that's usually when the yeast hasn't given you the full attenuation. It's not really recommended, but it might work. More often, simply gently agitating the fermenter works to resuspend any prematurely flocculated yeast.

Are you mashing grains? If so, mash at a little lower of a temp. and you can get the beer to "dry out". I'm not sure what the mash temp. is for a Dunkel, but let's say if it's 154, you can mash at 151-152 to get it to finish at 1.011-1.010. JMHO...

I'm not mashing....just doing extract.

Yoop - So shoudl I add 1/2 a pound then, becuase to me it seems like it would drop the FG since it is 100 percent fermentable.