Adding Brown Sugar to an English Brown Ale?

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DocBob

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I'm a newbie (first batch ever is in the primary) and am planning my second already...I love the way the house smelled!!!

Anyway, I bought an English Brown Ale Kit but it sounds like it might be a bit boring. I don't want to get crazy yet, but I like darker, fuller body beers with low bitterness but a lot of flavor (porter is high on my list for instance).

The recipe for the Brown Ale is:
3.3 lbs. Plain Amber Malt Extract
2 lbs. Plain Amber Dry Malt Extract
8 oz. Crushed Crystal Malt 60L
1 oz. Willamette Hops (Bittering)
1/2 oz. Willamette Hops (Finishing)
5 oz. Priming Sugar
And of course the yeast.

I was thinking of adding brown sugar to the recipe, but was wondering if just replacing the priming sugar with brown sugar would have a good effect?

Any thoughts/suggestions?
 
add 1 cup of brown sugar w/ 5 min left in the boil, and then use brown sugar rather than the corn suagr for priming. i'd use dark brown sugar......
 
I've been using 1/2 cuo molasses, instead if the one pound of brown sugar in my brown rye. But then, I like molasses. I dunno if it was added for flavor, or if it acts as a yeast nutrient of some kind, but I think it adds another layer of depth to the flavor. Brown sugar is just white sugar with some molasses added....
 
Thanks for the tips.
I'll add the cup to the boil as well as using it to prime...how much do I use as a primer? Do I need to add a little extra over the 5 ounces? I'll be adding it to a 5 gallon batch in my bottling bucket...I'll probably try the molasses next go round...I like molasses too but had the brown sugar already handy, and knew it had molasses in it.
 
Just moved a batch from the bucket to the car boy. We added 1 cup of brown sugar in the car boy. Did we mess up? What do we need to watch for? Thanks
 
Just moved a batch from the bucket to the car boy. We added 1 cup of brown sugar in the car boy. Did we mess up? What do we need to watch for? Thanks

If everything is clean then you probably didn't mess up. Since you didn't add during the boil I am interested to know why you didn't add honey or syrup instead - i am sure these would produce a nicer flavour at the end of the day.

I recently had a dubbel where I could taste the brown sugar and it was too rich - I shared a small (340ml) bottle with a friend and neither of us could finish our half of the bottle.
 
Is there a prize for oldest thread revival? :)


Possibly, I don't know. But I came in here beacuse I've built an ESB/11C recipe that uses 1lb of brown sugar as a fermentable. I've used it in Belgian Strongs and it can be sweet, but I've changed the hops accordingly. We'll see.
 
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