Too much sugar, now what do I do?

[justincdst]

So I decided to get back into brewing after selling all my kit 5 years ago. I picked up Cooper dark Ale and got started with my bucket. Between the dogs and the 4 year old and any other excuse I can think of for basically messing up, I accidentally measured out 1 lb of dextrose instead of the approx 140ish grams that I should've used. My temp was at 22C and the OG was very low compared to what I used to get. Then I remembered the 1lb... I was going to do a secondary in a few days but I guess I should just leave it where it is for longer or is the kit shot? If I leave it long enough what are the chances the yeast will have taken care of it and I still do priming sugar before bottling or should I not add any priming sugar?

 

[RM-MN]

Your yeast will love having extra sugar to ferment and will reward you with more alcohol. Let it have time to finish eating the sugar and then settle out a bit. No need to secondary on this beer or most other beers either. Once it has had time for a lot of the yeast to settle out you can prime and bottle like any other batch.

 

[justincdst]

would to much sugar cause my OG to be so low, it was at 1.028. All other kits i did in the past were above 1.046 at least?

 

[Calder]

I suspect the extract was not fully mixed. There re a lot of reports of low OG with extract batches. The cause being, the heavier sugars re not fully mixed and the sample from the top gives a lower reading.

Just assume you hit the OG the kit said it should be.

 

[McKnuckle]

Just assume you hit the OG the kit said it should be.

Well he can't quite assume that, since he added about 3x the prescribed weight of sugar. But your point about the inaccuracy of the low reading due to stratification is certainly worth taking.

 

[RM-MN]

Well he can't quite assume that, since he added about 3x the prescribed weight of sugar. But your point about the inaccuracy of the low reading due to stratification is certainly worth taking.

He can assume that the OG was correct before the extra sugar was added unless he added way too much water since extract has a known amount of sugar. The OG with the extra sugar can then be calculated if he wishes.

would to much sugar cause my OG to be so low, it was at 1.028. All other kits i did in the past were above 1.046 at least?

No, too much sugar would raise the OG. When you are using an extract kit the OG is what is shown on the kit. A low OG is caused by incomplete mixing of the very dense extract and the much lighter top off water. These can be very difficult to mix properly so from now on use the kit's OG as accurate and go on from there. When the ferment starts the yeast will do the mixing for you and they will find all the sugars.

 

[justincdst]

I know I add just enough water. I have markings on my bucket to bring the entire amount to 23L. The concentrate was mixed with 2L of hot water with the sugar all at the same time then dumped to the bucket. The liquid level was then brought up to 23L slowly to compensate temperature. Long short of it.... the batch will be fine, just needs to sit in the bucket a little longer!

 

[justincdst]

so it'll be a week tomorrow this batch is in the bucket, temperature is hovering around the 18C(dark ale) the gravity is at about 1.018 and it still foaming away and is really carbonated. I figured I leave it another few days since Im bottling to glass grolsh style bottles and dont want any messes but question 1, how much longer do you suppose I should leave the yeast do its thing, ive always had it in a glass carboy by now? and 2 should I still use a priming sugar given the amount of carbonation Im getting already?

 

[RM-MN]

so it'll be a week tomorrow this batch is in the bucket, temperature is hovering around the 18C(dark ale) the gravity is at about 1.018 and it still foaming away and is really carbonated. I figured I leave it another few days since Im bottling to glass grolsh style bottles and dont want any messes but question 1, how much longer do you suppose I should leave the yeast do its thing, ive always had it in a glass carboy by now? and 2 should I still use a priming sugar given the amount of carbonation Im getting already?

You leave it where it is until all the foaming stops and your hydrometer shows no change in the gravity on two samples a day or two apart.

The priming sugar calculators will have you input a temperature that takes into account the amount of CO2 that the beer can still have. This will be the highest temperature the beer has encountered since fermentation stopped. Your beer will discard excess CO2 as it cannot hold it.