Did I just do something awesome or completely ruin my beer??

[EddieTheBrewerLADET]

Hi everyone,


Relatively new to the craft. Just brewed Northern Brewers Dead Ringer IPA kit. Its been fermenting for about 3.5 days now, and decided Id be curious to see if I can lighten it up a bit and bump up the alcohol. Spoke to a brew master that I know and he said to boil some cane sugar and add that to the fermenter. I, today, added about 2lb of table sugar, boiled in some water to dissolve and I now hear the fermentation really kicking up.

Am I ok?

 

[McKnuckle]

Sure. I think it's neither awesome nor ruined, just a choice. You added some 100% fermentable additional gravity, and diluted by some (hopefully small) amount of water. The only criticism would be that you "broke" the recipe, but again, that's simply a choice. Hope it turns out the way you want it to.

 

[slarkin712]

That will almost certainly give the beer a drier perception. If it was overly sweet than that probably won't help. What you did may accentuate the hops more by effecting the the overall balance more towards the hops. Let us know how it comes out.

 

[Psylocide]

I have a feeling it will turn out with somewhat of a hop-cider character... that much sugar will dry it out some and that coupled with the bite from the hops may taste pretty tingly on the tongue. Maybe not, but I had that issue in an APA and I only added 1 lb of sugar.

Nohing to do but wait now, but it should turn out fine regardless.

 

[hendo80]

The question is: why?

Was the OG low? It will be different, but I'm learning that understanding the "why" as well as the "what" is very important.

 

[EddieTheBrewerLADET]

Haha I know I sound crazy. Heres my rational:

The Dead Ringer is a clone of the Bell's Two Hearted IPA. I love that IPA, however I did wish it would be closer to an Imperial level of alcohol, a bit lighter in body, and have a more pronounced hop character. From everything Ive read, what I did seems to make sense for that. Yay? Nay?

 

[EddieTheBrewerLADET]

Thoughts?

 

[1977Brewer]

Sounds like you ruined a really well regarded kit. It's beer.

 

[Brettomomyces]

Your thoughts are on track, but the amount of sugar you used is pretty extreme. It's going to be very boozy. It's not going to help the hop character much unfortunately; alcohol can have a very strong taste and it may mute the hops a lot.

 

[paperairplane]

Simple sugar does different things to beer than malt sugars. Cane sugar can lend a cidery flavor. I use some dextrose in IPA to dry the beer out a little, not to drive ABV.

The real answer would be to have added more light DME during the boil and probably slightly increase the hops as well.

The problem being, you don't know what the original beer would have been - so you don't know how this affected things.

It will all be fine. You are new to brewing so you want to throw stuff in the fermenter. Everyone does it. Get a pipeline going so you have enough beer on hand to forget about some for a while.

 

[EddieTheBrewerLADET]

Your thoughts are on track, but the amount of sugar you used is pretty extreme. It's going to be very boozy. It's not going to help the hop character much unfortunately; alcohol can have a very strong taste and it may mute the hops a lot.

You think there's no chance this could still turn out to be a great beer?

 

[1977Brewer]

You think there's no chance this could still turn out to be a great beer?

Well, all beer is great. Yeast ate sugar we fed to them and they have us booze. Some are greater than others though.

 

[Brettomomyces]

It's just a lot of simple sugar, which like paperairplane mentioned, is different from malt sugar.. Definitely not saying it's ruined, but it's going to be high octane for sure.

It would be kind of like taking a glass of IPA and throwing some vodka into it, if that makes sense.

 

[EddieTheBrewerLADET]

Interesting....it actually sounds like it maybe an interesting beer. Hahahaha

Oh well...so essentially you're saying it'll still be a great beer, just not what was intended.

 

[btbnl]

You'll want to watch the temperature of the spurred fermentation - if it gets too hot you'll get heavier (fusel) alcohols - bad taste, worse hangover.

Generally I'd be wary of changing recipe-horses in midstream, especially your first time brewing it - however it turns out, you won't have a reference point.

You'll have upped the alcohol from 7% to 9%, but with simple sugars so you haven't added any malt flavors. You also haven't adjusted the hop schedule so you've changed the bitterness to gravity ratio - though again without adding malt flavors, so I'd expect the impact to be more in the alcohol heat.

Whether one or the other version (or both) will be or would have been great depends on a multitude of other objective and subjective factors ... I'd ask the magic eight ball.