Adding sugar to the fermentor...

[AgentPowers]

...after fermentation has begun?

Greetings. I'm obviously a brand new member (and new to brewing your own beer) so please forgive me for the typical newbie questions.

A month ago I bought the Coopers kit and made the lager which comes with it. I've been drinking some of it and it's actually pretty good. I still have well over half of it aging some more to mature it and improve the flavor. I won't get into that all right now since I want to keep this concise and on topic in hopes my inquiry will solicit helpful answers.

I started my second batch (Coopers English Bitter) Monday after work. I sanitized everything thoroughly and did the necessary steps to start the batch, as per Coopers. In accordance with the instructions on the Coopers English Bitter can I added 454 g of light dry malt extract. They actually say 500 g but my local home brew supply place has another brand which comes in a 1 lbs. (454 g) quantity. Since I was a little short on DME I added a mere 3/8 of a cup of Corn Sugar which I understand to be Dextrose. So, I'm barely over 500 g of fermentable. I just stumbled on this site yesterday and have read that many folks are putting a lot more fermentable in their batch so, I thought about adding some fermentable. Is it a bad idea to add a little more DME or Corn Sugar at this point. I'm 3 days in the fermenting stage at this point. By the way, my fermentation temp is pretty much steady in the 68 to 71 F range.

Thanks for your time.

 

[dstranger99]

I'd leave it alone at this point, let the yeast do their thing.........

 

[william_shakes_beer]

Many recipies call for adding fermentables at mid fermentation. If this is your first batch I'd let it ride, and add fermentables to the next batch at mid fermentation. Compare the two and see how you like it. Experimentation is always the besty way to answer your questions.

If you do choose to add anything post boil be sure to sanatize it. FOr instance, if you're adding corn sugar, dissolve it in 2 cups water in a sauce pan, boil and then cool to the same temp as the fermenter before adding. That kills any bacteria that may be present. Let us know how it worked!!!

 

[boydster]

I agree to let this one ride. Your first few batches should be about nailing down your process and being consistent with sanitation, pitch rate, and fermentation temperature. Once you have those down and you know what certain kit beers taste like when you brew them, that is an ideal time to start experimenting - you'll be able to attribute changes in your beer to things you did intentionally (different ingredients, higher/lower ferm temp, etc).

 

[AgentPowers]

Sweet (pun intended...fermentable sugars....haha)! Thanks for the feedback. This site looks awesome. There's lots of activity here and also folks who seem to possess a lot of knowledge in connection with home brewing. What a resource!

 

[AgentPowers]

FYI, I used Star San for sanitizing. I sanitized everything that comes into contact with the brew. I also take the spout out and apart to clean it thoroughly as well as sanitize the hydrometer, stir spoon, etc. I mean EVERYTHING. I don't want to ruin a batch simply because I was too lazy to properly sanitize. My understanding is the most common ways to ruin a batch are contamination and wrong/inconsistent temps.

As for "pitching yeast", I just followed the instructions Coopers provides. With their kit you put your fermentable in the 6 gallon ferment container, boil 2 liters of water, pour the water in the ferment container, stir thoroughly, mix in the English Bitter extract, stir thoroughly, fill with room temp water to the 20 liter mark, check your temps and fill to the 23 liter mark using room temp, heated or cooled water in order to hit the necessary temp window. They say between 21 and 27 C but I like to hit 23 to 24 C, based on what I've read. Then they say to just open the yeast packet and evenly pour it across the surface. I've read about folks putting the yeast in water for a couple of hours first but I've not tried this yet.

Also, I guess I could have let the lager stay in the fermentation container for a little longer. It was in for 8 days. My temps stayed around 20 to 22 C for the duration. I understand lager can benefit from cooler fermentation temps but also understand fermentation takes a bit longer when the temps are cooler. I used the Coopers hydrometer and racked it straight to bottle with the provided Coopers carbonation tablets when the gravity stabilized for 2 days straight.

 

[Math0]

Could you tell us what was the OG? What I am seeing here is a beer that will be around 3%. In my experience, a coopers kit needs 1kg of fermentable sugars. It could be dextrose, liquid malt extract or dry malt extract.

 

[AgentPowers]

Yep, sure can. The OG on the Lager was, according to the Coopers hydrometer that came with the kit, 41. The FG was right about 17. The OG for the English Bitter, which is what I just started Monday, is right at 30.5.

I realized this was a little low in terms of ABV when I started to see how much fermentable other folks are using, which is what prompted me to post this thread. Generally speaking I like a beer to be around the 4.5% ABV mark so it's a good session beer. I hate not being able to drink more than 4 or 5 on a Friday or Saturday night as I attempt to shoot and blow people up on Battlefield (Don't worry, it's a VIDEO GAME). lol

Anyway, at this point I was thinking I'd end up with an English Bitter with an ABV of 3.5% to 4.0% which is a little lower than I'd like but you're saying more like 3.0%, which is certainly lower than I'd like. This is why I was asking if I could add a little more sugar now so I can end up with around 4.5% but others have kinda discouraged it here so far.

I have another 454 g bag of light DME and about 800 g of corn sugar. I also have plenty of raw sugar I could boil in water to make simple syrup.

By the way, I did the math on the Lager, per the formula provided for via the Coopers brewers log which came with the kit, and it appears the ABV is around 3.8%, and this includes an additional .5% which they said to add subsequent to bottling. I'd like a good .5% more, maybe even 1% more.

I might go ahead and add just a touch more corn sugar in accordance with the method William Shakes Beer (love the user name) suggested. 3% is just too light in the pants....

 

[Math0]

If this can help, I did a couple batches in the past and I wasn't happy with the ABV so I added a bit more sugar in it. The taste was not altered at all. I am not sure what happens in terms of chemistry in the process when you do that though. The more I added at once was 1lb. And yes when you bottle you will gain a 0.2-0.6% more.

 

[AgentPowers]

Alright. I just couldn't stand that it would only be 3% so last night I brought about 1 1/2 cups of water to a boil, dumped in about a cup of corn sugar, boiled for a couple of minutes, let it cool to room temps while covered and dumped it into the ferm vessel. After reading some things around the forums here it looks like I need to let it stay in the primary ferm vessel for a little longer than Coopers says. One week simply doesn't seem to be enough. I'm also going to ferm at a slightly lower temp (should be between 67 and 70 F) so I understand it'll be slightly slower due to the lower temp. Based on my reading here, this time around I'll let it stay in the ferm vessel for 3 or 4 days after it's reached FG since one member mentioned letting the yeast "clean up after itself".

The ABV will still probably be a little on the low side but I didn't want to go crazy with it.