Making some Belgian Candy Sugar

Amphiprion said:

This is good to know! Are you using raw (not invert) sugar? At what level (percentage of grist bill or lbs. per 5 gal. batch) are you using when you start to notice the cidery taste?

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Just regular white table sugar right out of the sack. I don't invert it. I just toss it in 10 minutes before the end of the boil (although the heat probably does invert it).

I've gone to 11-12% and never had a cider taste. I think some people have gone as high as 20% without noticing a cider taste. Most of my beers I've added table sugar to have been in the 7-11% range and none of them have had a cider flavor. I have added table sugar at about 10% to a 4% beer (as an experiment) and still did not have a cider taste although it is very thin. I think if you start going beyond 10-15% it's going to get noticeable, especially the lighter the beer.

Yeah- cider tastes come from using table sugar in really high quantities (i.e. above 20%). You can use just straight cane sugar and be fine because when you add it to the boil the acidity of the wort and heat invert it, breaking it down into simple sugars. I've never added it by feeding post yeast pitch... but I suppose it could possibly stress out the yeast or create off-flavors... Either way, adding it to the boil will invert it, but you aren't going to get any different flavors from it unless you go through the process of inverting to varying degrees. I posted a thread yesterday about the process; it's called "The" How-to for Making Belgian Candi Sugar. Prost!