When do I take an SG reading when the recipe has sugar additive

[johnodon]

Doing a Pumpkin Ale today and not sure when I should take my pre-boil reading...before or after the addition of 1 lb of brown sugar.

Actually, the instructions were a little iffy. Do I add the sugar as I ramp up to boil temps or do I add it at 60 min?

TIA!

John

 

[Pappers_]

It depends upon why you are taking the pre-boil reading. If you are using it check your mash efficiency, then take the reading before adding the sugar. If you are using it calculate how much you need to boil off to hit an OG target, then you'll need to add the sugar first. For what its worth, I almost never take a preboil reading. But I am also somewhat casual in my brewing approach.

As to when you add sugar, I usually add sugar at the very end of the boil, say 5 or 10 minutes. This minimizes the possibility of carmelization, although you do need to be careful not to burn the sugar on the bottom of your brew pot when you add it.

 

[pericles]

One of the problems with adding simple sugar is that yeast consume it more easily than maltose. If you put the yeast in a solution with a lot of simple sugars - and a pound is definitely a lot - they'll eat that first, and then subsequent generations of sister-cells can quickly lose the ability to consume maltose. In other words, adding a lot of sugar to the wort can result in incomplete fermentation.

What I like to do, whenever I'm adding more than just a few ounces of simple sugar, is to reserve the sugar until after I've pitched the yeast and the ferment reaches high krausen. Then I add the sugar to cooled boiled water to make a simple syrup, and pitch that. I've had good luck with the technique, which was recommended by Jamil; my last Golden Strong fermented down from 1.075 to 1.000.

 

[ayoungrad]

I add any sugar at the end of the boil (flame out). I have heard of people following pericles's advice but I have not done this. I typically get above average attenuation by adding sugar at flame out, including on my recent barleywine which is still in primary (1.100 to 1.018 (82% AA) and counting) and the recipe had 1.5 pounds of corn sugar.

 

[ayoungrad]

my last Golden Strong fermented down from 1.075 to 1.000.

Is this a typo? If not, your FG is a bit low. And your AA is 100%?

 

[Changeduser123]

I am still figuring this out, but for some reason the software that I use includes any sugar added to the boil in the pre-boil gravity. This is not very convenient as I like to use this value as my target gravity during the mash.

Now for the sugar addition, it depends on your recipe. As some stated above, for Belgian style beers, strong ABV, it is recommended to add the sugar (usually 1 or 2 pounds for a 5g batch) during the fermentation, at high kreusen, a pound per day, boiled in water first. This is done for 2 reasons (that I can think of):
* you do not want to stress the yeast by giving it too much sugar to chew on at once.
* it will help dry out the beer and get a lower FG as you would if you added the sugar pre-boil.

Now, for a regular ale, when the recipe calls for some sugar during the boil, I add it before having a full boil, I bring the wort back to a rolling boil, and this is when I start my timer. I do not want to add it at the same time as the first hop addition, as it might stop the rolling boil.