Sugar to "dry out" beer

[THart]

This weekend I'll a rack to secondary & add some sugar to a big Belgian beer. First time I've done this. I've been reading a lot on this forum how this "dries out" a beer but what does that mean? If all the fermentables in the wort are already fermented isn't the beer as "dry" as it will get? Does the additional sugar allow the yeast to metabolize more of the otherwise unfermentable sugars? Or does the additional alcohol give the impression of a drier beer? What exactly is going on here?

 

[PseudoChef]

Yeah, adding sugar at this point isn't going to do anything except boost the alcohol content of the beer.

When people say sugar dries out the beer, they are replacing gravity points otherwise derived from malt with sugar in a 1:1 ratio.

For instance, if you want a 1.050 beer, and it is all malt, depending on your mash temp, you get down to 1.012.

However, say you replace 1 pound of grain with the equivalent gravity points in sugar, and you get down to 1.010 (hypothetical). That's drying it out.

 

[Evets]

If you are going to add sugar, you want to do it beforeyou rack to secondary. You need the yeast to eat the sugar.

 

[THart]

Seems like i've seen a number of times talk of adding sugar after or late in fermentation when the gravity is higher than desired to dry out the beer which didn't quite make sense to me. Anyway, more alcohol = a good thing too. I think I'll be dry enough but it seems like an interesting thing to try (sugar addition to 2ndary) tho' I'm not really sure why. Seems like it would do the same thing if I'd just added it all to the primary & you're saying that's the case. Anyway, I'm curious what the gravity will be at that point, before sugar addition. It's been two weeks but there's obviously still some activity at this point. Started at 1.094 with nearly 20% sugar. (extract brew by the way)

Oh, another post. I don't think the yeast would probably have any problem with the sugar, wyeast 1388 & still active. Bottling sugar gets fermented no problem right? Actually a recipe I was looking at from a clone brews book included the 2ndary sugar addition so I thought I'd try it. I think I might just pitch some champagne yeast though.

 

[PseudoChef]

If you are going to add sugar, you want to do it beforeyou rack to secondary. You need the yeast to eat the sugar.

They'll be plenty of yeast to ferment the sugar. That's how all us bottlers carb in the bottle.

 

[Piotr]

Yes, and it works.

I had stuck fermentation in roggerbier, 13 Palto fermented only to 7 Plato.
I added 1.5 lb of sugar in 2 liters of water, it dried out the wort sufficiently, plus the yeast after fermenting the sugar continued the work on wort, fermentation finished on 5 Plato.

Beer is very good, the best of 3 roggens I did this season.

 

[THart]

Great Piotr. Didn't know we had Eurobrewing members here, I like that. So much good cheap beer there maybe homebrewing isn't that common?

 

[david_42]

Or does the additional alcohol give the impression of a drier beer?

Correct. Dryness is basically percentage of residual sugar. Added simple sugars ferment 100%, so the residual percentage drops and since alcohol is lighter than water, the specific gravity will also drop.

 

[Piotr]

Great Piotr. Didn't know we had Eurobrewing members here, I like that. So much good cheap beer there maybe homebrewing isn't that common?

In Poland - not any more. Our beer market has been taken over by 3 big companies, now we have plenty of cheap beer, but not that good as you think.

Good news is that homebrewing society is growing rapidly.