Adding Adjunct sugar AFTER boil?

[Kasrkin]

Hello all,

So Our local brewery is doing a homebrew competition with their wort,

I had the idea to basically add adjunct sugar after I receive the wort in order to make a Belgian strong-ish beer, and I have a couple of questions

first off! Is this an awful Idea? It's sort of a lark really, but i thought it could be fun to try and get something interesting out of a wort that is for a Pale Lager, but I'm not confident enough in my recipe skills to tell if this is a fools errand or not.

If not I'm considering just dry hopping with something interesting and using California ale yeast

Secondly, if I'm to do this, if the gravity of the wort is between 12-13 Plato, how much adjunct sugar should I add to the wort?

and thirdly, if I'm going to ad adjunct sugar AFTER the boil, how should i do this so as not to get an infection of some kind?

Thank you for help!

-k

 

[tnichols00]

I am by no means an expert but I think you would be a little better with something that might add some flavor and not just increase alcohol content. Honey, Molasses, maybe even maple syrup?

 

[Kasrkin]

Well honey I have a TON of so that might work out!! any idea about amounts or anything like that?

 

[myndflyte]

If you're looking to get a noticeable honey flavor, you won't really get it by adding honey. Yeast will just ferment it. Adding any sugar like that is just going to thin out the beer and dry it out. What are you looking to add to the beer? Just increase the ABV or do you want to add a flavor?

EDIT: But I guess that's the point of a Belgian strong. Ok, in that case, how much wort did you get?

 

[tnichols00]

Thats above my head lol. I am still learning all of this and have never tried what you are about to attempt.

I am in the "I understand how it works" stage but haven't actually done it. Hopefully someone that has tried it will chime in.

 

[Kasrkin]

EDIT: But I guess that's the point of a Belgian strong. Ok, in that case, how much wort did you get?

yeah, I'm worried about drying it out TOO much, I've bee considering adding something like orange zest and cloves or something to add more interesting flavors to it, I don't want to just nuke the flavor from the wort entirely, but to actually answer your question, I'll be getting about 5 gallons

 

[Riot]

For a dry Belgian you want between 5 and 10% simple sugar usually. Assuming you were given 5 gallons of wort, that would be about a half pound at the high end.(sugar adds 46 points/pound/gallon, .5lb in 5 gallons is 46/10, is 4.6 points. In ≈ 1.05 wort this is 9.2% of fermentables.). Unfortunately this would only bring you to ≈1.055 and I imagine you want 1.065+ for a Belgian strong. Any issues with using malt extract to get it there?

 

[wilserbrewer]

....but i thought it could be fun to try and get something interesting out of a wort that is for a Pale Lager, but I'm not confident enough in my recipe skills to tell if this is a fools errand or not.


-k

Not a fools errand at all, and likely why they are proposing this event. Pale lager "wort" is really a base simple recipe that can be altered by steeping any sort of adjunct grain in a small quantity of water and adding it back to the batch. The possibilities of what can be done with such a wort are really limitless. By adding steeped specialty malts, adjunct sugars, or more malt with a small partial mash, and specific yeast types you can hit many many styles.

Perhaps decide on a style and someone here can guide you how to alter the basic wort you will be receiving.

Another "tool" would be to boil down the wort by 20 - 50% to make a much stronger beer, like your belgian strong idea without having to add an excessive quantity of sugar to thin the beer! I'm kinda liking this idea to stand out from other entries FWIW.

As said...the possibilities are endless, this is almost like someone handing you 10 lbs of base grain, you can really go anywhere with this....

Interesting concept...I like it!

 

[Kasrkin]

For a dry Belgian you want between 5 and 10% simple sugar usually. Assuming you were given 5 gallons of wort, that would be about a half pound at the high end.(sugar adds 46 points/pound/gallon, .5lb in 5 gallons is 46/10, is 4.6 points. In ≈ 1.05 wort this is 9.2% of fermentables.). Unfortunately this would only bring you to ≈1.055 and I imagine you want 1.065+ for a Belgian strong. Any issues with using malt extract to get it there?

not personally no, I just want to make something really interesting!! any recommendation for extract to add would be great too, I'm just looking to Frankenstein this thing into a badass beer!

Thank you again for your advice!

 

[Kasrkin]

Another "tool" would be to boil down the wort by 20 - 50% to make a much stronger beer, like your belgian strong idea without having to add an excessive quantity of sugar to thin the beer! I'm kinda liking this idea to stand out from other entries FWIW.

As said...the possibilities are endless, this is almost like someone handing you 10 lbs of base grain, you can really go anywhere with this....

Interesting concept...I like it!

Awesome!! that's a great Idea, I wasn't thinking about thinning it out myself but that would be pretty badass wort-hacking there, to save myself too much pain i might see if i can just start by adding in some extract etc first, but if those solutions don't seem idea I'm definitely stealing your idea!!

Thank you for your response!

 

[Cyclman]

Add light DME (boil it), some Candi Sugar, and you could make a Belgo. Strong. I always add my Candi after fermentation has subsided, it always finishes beautifully- I inject O2 and lots of healthy yeast.

 

[Kasrkin]

Add light DME (boil it), some Candi Sugar, and you could make a Belgo. Strong. I always add my Candi after fermentation has subsided, it always finishes beautifully- I inject O2 and lots of healthy yeast.

Do you have any input on the amount of DME and candi sugar i should be using?

 

[Cyclman]

Do you have any input on the amount of DME and candi sugar i should be using?

I would run it through something like Beersmith or an online calculator to get it "into style."

If you PM me the recipe thus far, I'd be happy to do it.

 

[Kasrkin]

I would run it through something like Beersmith or an online calculator to get it "into style."

If you PM me the recipe thus far, I'd be happy to do it.

Thank you!

I'll be sure to try and run it through beersmith at home, the problem is that the only information I really have about the wort I'll be receiving is that it's between 12-13 Plato, and 42 IBUS

 

[wilserbrewer]

Thank you!

I'll be sure to try and run it through beersmith at home, the problem is that the only information I really have about the wort I'll be receiving is that it's between 12-13 Plato, and 42 IBUS

From this chart here, your donor wort is estimated to be 1.050 SG
http://www.brewersfriend.com/plato-to-sg-conversion-chart/

Boiling this wort down by 1/3 will bump your gravity to 1.075

Or adding sugar will bump the gravity as well....from here http://hbd.org/uchima/tech/extract.html

Sugar will add 45 points per gallon, so adding 1/2 pound of sugar would bump the 1.050 wort to 1.050 + 1.0225, or 1.072

I would suggest boiling down by 1/5th, and adding 1/4 pound of sugar per gallon...this should put you close to 1.070 OG

Play with a calculator a bit, start by adding in enough two row base malst to get your donor wort gravity of 1.050, then you can reduce batch size (boiling down) or adding sugar to see the impact on your gravity.

I also would not be afraid to kinda wing it, just don't get crazy and bump the gravity too much, say no more than 15-20 % adjunct sugar....why I suggested boiling down to avoid adding excess sugar. Reboiling and adding more hops will also give you an opportunity to change the hop profile...cheers!

 

[misterkidd]

My regular Belgian Strong recipe has 15% granulated cane sugar in it and the dryness from this balances out well (the grain bill just consists of marris otter with a little torrified wheat for head retention). I don't think you should be concerned about going that high. If you are adding it to already cooled wort, I would dissolve the sugar in a little water on the stove and rapidly cool it - this would also serve to sanitize. Boiling some of the wort away is an excellent and elegant solution as well. You could add DME as well, but it looks to me like you could get comfortably into the lower end of the Belgian Golden Strong ABV range using the two other methods.

In fact, I'm pretty tempted to have a go at something like this myself, so thanks for the idea!