How much table sugar is too much in boil?

[TripleC223]

I can't find a definitive answer about this. I recently brewed a 1-gallon Citra APA that used 1 pound pale DME and 4 oz table sugar during the boil. That means approximately 20% of the fermentables come from the sugar. Is that too much? What is an appropriate amount to boost the ABV without hijacking the flavor?

Here is the full recipe:

Batch size: 1 gallon
Boil size: 1.25 gallons
Boil time: 45 minutes

Fermentables:
1 pound Briess pale DME (full boil)
.25 pound table sugar (15 minutes)

Hops (total of .5 citra and .5 cascade)
.1 oz citra (45 min)
.2 oz cascade (15 min)
.1 oz citra (10 min)
.1 oz citra (flameout)
.1 oz cascade (flameout)
.1 oz citra (primary ferm dry hop)
.1 oz cascade (primary ferm dry hop)
.1 oz citra (post-primary dry hop)
.1 oz cascade (post-primary dry hop)

Yeast:
US-05 (~6.0 grams)

 

[Dcpcooks]

5-10% is decent threshold when used to boost abv and thin the body of a beer.

You can exceed that a bit for big Belgian style beers where your pushing for more booze

 

[TripleC223]

What are the detriments of using too much table sugar? What should I expect from this brew with 20% of fermentables from that sugar?

 

[BryceL]

Too much sugar can result in a very dry, thin bodied beer and may have some cider flavors as well. As noted above, generally 5-10 percent of the fermentables is the max you want to go with sugar.

 

[Dcpcooks]

What he said

 

[jwelch1103]

I regularly make Tripels with 20% of the fermentables from sugar. I've added this much sugar to the end of the boil and added it (after dissolving in a bit of water with a bit of yeast nutrient and boiling to sanitize) on the third day of fermentation. Both ways made excellent Tripels.
It seems like I get a tiny bit lower FG adding it on the third day but ymmv.
It seems like I read somewhere, not sure where, that 20% is the most one would want to use.