Starting to brew again

[francois brosseau]

Hi, fellows, thanks in advance for your opinions on this, i got back to brewing 2 weeks ago, im very far from being an alchemist but i did brew 9-12 good beers before, mostly bocks and 2 weizen and one lager that failed miserably lol.

Now 2 weeks ago i brewed a belgian triple with malt extract from OBK since i wanted to get the twist again, i havent brewed in years.

Pilsen malts, northen brewer hops, saaz hops, i used one pack of wlp 530 and one pack of wlp 540 yeasts.

My OG missed the target being 1.064 instead of 1.084 since i didnt empty the malt jar perfectly.

the fermentation went well blah blah, now its done at 1.010, now here is my question, can i add some raw sugar to complete the fermentation since i guess adding any yeast wont do since there are no more fermentables or do you guys have any suggestions?

the taste is good for now i plan into leaving it 3 more weeks and then keg it with gelatin for another 3 weeks maybe.

 

[catdaddy66]

Sugar will surely drop the FG and dry out the beer but since it's at 1.010 already you won't need to use much, say a half pound at most. That will reach saison dry imo.

To paraphrase George Thoroughgood,

"That's plenty dry!"

 

[Cheesy_Goodness]

Technically your fermentation doesn't really need to "finish up" anything if you've hit terminal gravity. The yeast are still active cleaning up some unawanted flavors but if you're worried about bottle bombs and the like, it sounds like you're in good shape.
Now if you wanted to up the ABV to get it back to where it should be, I'd say your best bet is to boil some malt extract, cool it down, and add that to the fermenter.
Personally if it were me I'd just let it ride.

 

[Jayjay1976]

Adding white sugar will boost your ABV resulting in the gravity dropping a few points, but whatever residual sweetness you taste is from unfermentable long chain sugars which should remain unfermented so it won't actually "dry out" at all or take on a saison character. Thats a myth.

IMHO, low gravity tripels are boring so I would add some shuggah and age that bad boy

EDIT: Welcome back, welcome back, welcome baaaaack!

 

[francois brosseau]

so basically i could add pure dextrose in the primary? i would like it to reach at least 8% its sitting at 6,85% now, but i dont want to trash the taste either.

 

[Jayjay1976]

so basically i could add pure dextrose in the primary? i would like it to reach at least 8% its sitting at 6,85% now, but i dont want to trash the taste either.

You can use plain table sugar, just boil and cool it before adding to the fermenter. Boiling will invert it for complete fermentation. You should shoot for 9-10% ABV for a Tripel.

 

[francois brosseau]

You can use plain table sugar, just boil and cool it before adding to the fermenter. Boiling will invert it for complete fermentation. You should shoot for 9-10% ABV for a Tripel.

will dextrose do the trick? i dont have raw sugar at the moment haha? i have 150g dextrose, would that do the trick or its not nearly enough?

 

[francois brosseau]

oh well, i added all the dextrose, 300G honey and about 125G molasse, go bold i guess

 

[doug293cz]

will dextrose do the trick? i dont have raw sugar at the moment haha? i have 150g dextrose, would that do the trick or its not nearly enough?

What was your original volume?

Brew on

 

[catdaddy66]

Adding white sugar will boost your ABV resulting in the gravity dropping a few points, but whatever residual sweetness you taste is from unfermentable long chain sugars which should remain unfermented so it won't actually "dry out" at all or take on a saison character. Thats a myth.

IMHO, low gravity tripels are boring so I would add some shuggah and age that bad boy

EDIT: Welcome back, welcome back, welcome baaaaack!

I have read multiple threads/posts here on HBT about adding sugar to the fermenter and 99.9% mention lowering FG (ie, drying out) of the beer, along with a rise in abv%. True, it would do nothing with the unfermentable sugars. And I meant dryness when I mentioned it could go into saison territory. Never meant to imply saison "character", which is a function of yeast strain and temperature of the primary fermentation.

 

[Jayjay1976]

I have read multiple threads/posts here on HBT about adding sugar to the fermenter and 99.9% mention lowering FG (ie, drying out) of the beer, along with a rise in abv%. True, it would do nothing with the unfermentable sugars. And I meant dryness when I mentioned it could go into saison territory. Never meant to imply saison "character", which is a function of yeast strain and temperature of the primary fermentation.

I could be wrong, but I thought "drying out" normally implies decreasing perceived sweetness. Ethanol being lighter than water, it's possible to achieve quite a low gravity with a higher ABV, without tasting as dry as a saison. Mashing high then adding simple sugars to the boil would do that, and this is how tripels are brewed, with just pilsener malt, simple sugars, and trappist yeast. Saison yeast is what makes saisons so dry.

 

[catdaddy66]

I could be wrong, but I thought "drying out" normally implies decreasing perceived sweetness. Ethanol being lighter than water, it's possible to achieve quite a low gravity with a higher ABV, without tasting as dry as a saison. Mashing high then adding simple sugars to the boil would do that, and this is how tripels are brewed, with just pilsener malt, simple sugars, and trappist yeast. Saison yeast is what makes saisons so dry.

That sounds reasonable. I haven't yet made a tripel so I can't say but you're right about lowering sweetness making a beer 'dry'. I always thought that was synonymous with lowering the FG. It's certainly going to get a higher abv% when sugar is added but none of the long chain sugars would budge.

Interesting...

 

[Jayjay1976]

I love tripels, one of my favorite styles even though I still haven't managed to brew a good example. So far always either a bit too dry or a bit too sweet, not enough yeast character, and oh I almost forgot, an attempt at brewing a golden monkey clone with toasted coriander and a touch of cardamom that ended up tasting weirdly like egg foo young...

I recommend anyone dabbling in trappist styles should read "Brew Like a Monk", a great book even if in my case it hasn't helped me produce excellent trappist beers.