Nut brown ale

cjtrask67 · Jun 29, 2012

Thinking about adding a pound of dark brown sugar to my nut brown ale. Thoughts, suggestions? Receipt is as follows:

.25 lbs English chocolate malt
.25 lbs Belgian special b
.25 lbs Belgian biscuit
.25 lbs bries special roast
6 lbs gold malt syrup
1 oz fuggle 60 mins
Danstar Nottingham ale yeast

iambeer · Jun 29, 2012

My thought is don't add a pound of sugar. Add more syrup if you want a stronger beer... but for more ABV? I don't get it, for brown ale.

cjtrask67 · Jun 29, 2012

I've read in other posts that the molasses in the brown sugar adds another layer of flavor with brown ales and boosts the abv, was looking to see if anyone has personally tried this and results

iambeer · Jun 29, 2012

cjtrask67 said:
I've read in other posts that the molasses in the brown sugar adds another layer of flavor with brown ales and boosts the abv, was looking to see if anyone has personally tried this and results

I think you'll have better luck getting layers of flavor from your specialty grains than from sugar. I routinely have been using turbinado sugar on a Dubbel recipe and it mostly just adds alcohol. By the way I have added molasses directly to a recipe. It didn't do much. For flavor go for the grains or adjuncts. For alcohol just put in any kind of processed cane sugar.

PS might want to add another hop @30 minutes?

kaconga · Jun 29, 2012

I have uaed true brew nut brown ale from a kit and it has quite a bit of brown sugar in it. It does add a nice rumlike flavor but it is quite subtle. I would definitely use some but not sure about the amount. Also, the darker the better.

dfc · Jun 29, 2012

cjtrask67 said:
I've read in other posts that the molasses in the brown sugar adds another layer of flavor with brown ales and boosts the abv, was looking to see if anyone has personally tried this and results

I make an imperial stout that has molasses in the recipe. It's my favorite beer that I've ever made (3 different batches of this particular beer) and has a deep complexity to it. Maybe just get some molasses and add that as opposed to brown sugar. That is if the extra complexity (from molasses in the brown sugar) is what you're looking for.