Sanitation with belgian golden strong

[2BeerOrNot2Beer]

Hey guys,

I'm brewing a Belgian golden strong and I plan to let it get most of the way through primary before adding the 3lbs of sugar that it calls for- in order to let the yeast develop the proper enzymes and make their way through a good portion of the maltose before the introduction of simple sucrose. Since I'll be adding the sugar directly to the fermenter, what way should I go about sanitizing? I could boil it in a small amount of water and add that. I could just sanitize the bowl I measure the sugar into, basically not worrying about the sugar itself. Based on people's experience, have they experienced contamination from adding sugar that hasn't been boiled? Or would the beer be well enough into fermentation that it would push out bacteria along with the co2? Any thoughts on this would be helpful. Cheers!

 

[homebrewdad]

3 pounds sounds suspiciously like you'll be doing Jamil's recipe. Am I right?

I personally boiled mine. I did it in two additions - a pound and a half of sugar with a cup of water. Made a nice golden syrup that I added directly to the fermenter.

Two days later, I did it again. Beer turned out great.

 

[beergolf]

I do like homebrewdad does and boil it up in a little water, cool and add.

With three lbs I would probably do 2 or 3 additions. If you add it all at once be prepared for massive blow off. I usualy do an addition, give it a couple of days and then do the next addition.

 

[2BeerOrNot2Beer]

Nice guess sir. Yep doin jamils recipe. If he didn't tell me to do it, I would have been very hesitant to use 3lbs of sugar. But he is the master when it comes to style. Thanks for the tip on doin 2 separate additions, I'll be sure to give that a try.

 

[homebrewdad]

I got some really great pear esters out of that recipe. Really pleased with how it has turned out.

Just be prepared for the yeast to take forever to floc out (took three weeks for me, but I've seen lots of reports of up to six weeks). Also has been rather slow to bottle carb. My batch has been in bottles seven weeks (I primaried for 9 weeks, secondaried for 2 weeks), and a week ago, it was still fairly flat.

It was better than it was at four weeks, but it's just gonna take some time.

 

[highgravitybacon]

Chill to below freezing for a while if you can. I made a similar recipe but used less sugar and more malt last winter. Two second place awards out of 30+ entries surprised the hell out of me . I set it outside for a week in the winter, then used gelatin to clarify. I also added more yeast at bottling.

If you can chill it to about 28f, that is almost perfect. It wont freeze until about 26f and you will get smooth loving when you're done.

 

[2BeerOrNot2Beer]

Hey guys so I have a few other issues regarding this brew. The OG for the beer is 1.072, so naturally I made a starter for a 1.072 beer. However since I'm doing the sugar additions later I actually pitched this starter to a 1.052 (I don't quite remember...1.05-something). So that's one problem I can't do anything about ( I think it should be ok since the sugar additions should help in making sure this beer fully attenuates). Second problem: Jamil says to pitch at 64 deg F and slowly increase to 80 deg F over the first week (I do have a temp. controlled fridge). The problem is that I don't know what the basis for these instructions are. I'm assuming the recipe is working under the assumption that the sugar was part of the wort prior to pitching, and therefore as the yeast work their way through primary and start to slow to secondary, the temp is raising specifically during this time to evoke certain esters/phenols based on certain intervals of expected intensity of yeast activity. In my case, since I'm doing 2 sugar additions (the first maybe 3 days into primary, and the second maybe 2 days after that- depending on activity levels). So I'm basically extending the duration of the primary by maybe 4 or 5 days. Should I stick with the temp. increase over the first week no matter what? Or should I drag out the temp increase to accomodate the increase in the primary length? I'm inclined to think the latter. How did you guys deal with this issue? Thanks.

 

[homebrewdad]

I was freaked out by the lower gravity at yeast pitching time, too. Don't worry, though - our starter is fine.

I don't think the exact timing of the temperature raise is as big of a deal. The big point of raising the temperature is to get those last few points of attenuation once the yeast get tired. I do know that you don't want the temp to get too high too early, as that's how you get off flavors.

As I recall, I didn't get to the highest temperature point until after my sugar additions. I waited to do my first addition until I was about 2/3 of the way to final gravity, then did the same on the second. Again, it turned out great.