When to add corn sugar

[Thompson8816]

So I am planning on brewing my first batch of beer this weekend and I need some help figuring out when to add the corn sugar. Do I add it in the beginning or at the end of the boil?? Or to I wait until I bottle it?? Just an FYI I am only brewing a 1 gallon batch IPA. 1 oz centennial hops and 1 oz cascade hops. About 1.25 pounds of crystal crystal grain as we'll with some dry malt. Please any information would be awesome

 

[kh54s10]

Is it a kit? The directions should tell you when to add it. If it doesn't it is probably priming sugar to be used when bottling.

 

[Yooper]

So I am planning on brewing my first batch of beer this weekend and I need some help figuring out when to add the corn sugar. Do I add it in the beginning or at the end of the boil?? Or to I wait until I bottle it?? Just an FYI I am only brewing a 1 gallon batch IPA. 1 oz centennial hops and 1 oz cascade hops. About 1.25 pounds of crystal crystal grain as we'll with some dry malt. Please any information would be awesome

Don't use 1.25 pounds of crystal in a one gallon batch!!!!!! That's about 6 times too much, and the beer will be undrinkable.

Use 2-3 ounces, at most.

 

[Thompson8816]

I got my ingredients from a brewing store. I thought he gave me that much grain but I might be wrong? On the bag of grain he wrote these exact words " 1# 2 row and 1/4# c20 " not sure what that means???

 

[Snowden]

I got my ingredients from a brewing store. I thought he gave me that much grain but I might be wrong? On the bag of grain he wrote these exact words " 1# 2 row and 1/4# c20 " not sure what that means???

Looks like 1 lb of 2-row malt and 0.25 lb of Crystal 20 L, which would be 4 ounces and more in line with Yooper's recommendation.

 

[Thompson8816]

So do I use all the grain he gave me or just measure it out to 2 - 3 ounces and use that?

 

[Yooper]

So do I use all the grain he gave me or just measure it out to 2 - 3 ounces and use that?

No- it's fine. You said '1.25 crystal malt' which is a whole different thing that what he gave you. What he gave you, 1 pound of two-row and .25 pound crystal 20L, is great.

 

[Thompson8816]

Ok sweet! So when would you think adding the corn sugar is best? At the beginning of the boil or at the end of it?? I really appreciate all of the feed back guys

 

[Yooper]

Ok sweet! So when would you think adding the corn sugar is best? At the beginning of the boil or at the end of it?? I really appreciate all of the feed back guys

Can you post the actual recipe? At this point, we've been guessing what is in there, and it would help us a lot to know how much extract, how much grain, and what kind and the hopping schedule, as well as the amount of the sugar supposed to go into the boil, in order to give good advice.

 

[Thompson8816]

1 # gold/light DME
1 # 2 row
.25 # C2O
1 oz centennial
1 oz cascade
Safale us-05 yeast
I still have to go out and get my corn sugar though

 

[Yooper]

1 # gold/light DME
1 # 2 row
.25 # C2O
1 oz centennial
1 oz cascade
Safale us-05 yeast
I still have to go out and get my corn sugar though

Assuming you hold the grains at 150-155 for 45-60 minutes in .5 gallon of water, and then rinse (sparge) by pouring water over it up to your boil volume, you shouldn't need the corn sugar in the brew. Does your recipe suggest you need it? Without it, you should have about 1.075 OG, and don't need it. You will need some for bottling, about 1 ounce by weight if you end up with a finished gallon, .75 oz for .75 gallon.

 

[Thompson8816]

The recipe he gave me is for a 5 gal batch so I've been asking around for the right amount of water and other ingredients to use. In the recipe it says to bottle the beer with 3/4 cup corn sugar boiled in 1 pint water, cooled, then added to the bottom of your bottling bucket. The only thing is that I'm not planning on using a bucket at all. I was planning on using a siphon to bottle the beer straight out of the 1 gallon carboi after it was finished fermenting

 

[Yooper]

The recipe he gave me is for a 5 gal batch so I've been asking around for the right amount of water and other ingredients to use. In the recipe it says to bottle the beer with 3/4 cup corn sugar boiled in 1 pint water, cooled, then added to the bottom of your bottling bucket. The only thing is that I'm not planning on using a bucket at all. I was planning on using a siphon to bottle the beer straight out of the 1 gallon carboi after it was finished fermenting

Well, there is a reason that brewers use a bottling bucket. They rack (siphon) the beer off of the trub, sometimes a substantial amount, as well as to mix in the priming solution.

If you want to skip that, it takes careful siphoning to fill the bottles to avoid the trub. If that is the case, and you are choosing to avoid racking off of the trub and using a bottling bucket, I would NOT use corn sugar- I'd try those 'carb tabs' and add those to the bottle, or calculate the correct amount of corn sugar to use per bottle (probably under 5 grams), but I've never done that with corn sugar. I've used carb tabs when doing it that way.

 

[Thompson8816]

I think I'll go with the carb tabs to be on the safe side. What's a good way to make an IPA with the ingredients I have and make sure it's a nice, strong bitter beer? I wanna try and make my home brew IPA resemble terrapin or maybe even a bells two hearted ale

 

[BansheeRider]

I think I'll go with the carb tabs to be on the safe side. What's a good way to make an IPA with the ingredients I have and make sure it's a nice, strong bitter beer? I wanna try and make my home brew IPA resemble terrapin or maybe even a bells two hearted ale

You would benefit from a brewing computer program such as BeerSmith or a free online recipe calculator. You can adjust the recipe to fit what you want to make.

If you want to make a clone of Bell's Two Hearted IPA here's a good recipe. It uses Centennial hops for bittering and flavor with a bit of Cascade for aroma for dry hopping. If you get BeerSmith you can easily scale this recipe down to a 1 gallon batch. You can even change it to a PM or extract recipe if you wanted.....

BTW: I give you props on attempting a PM recipe as your first beer :rockin:

9 lbs 8.8 oz Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 1
1 lbs 9.5 oz Vienna Malt (Weyermann) (3.0 SRM) Grain 2
6.4 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 3
6.4 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM) Grain 4
0.7 oz Centennial [10.3%] - Boil 60 min Hops 5
0.4 oz Centennial [10.3%] - Boil 45 min Hops 6
0.4 oz Centennial [10.3%] - Boil 30 min Hops 7
0.7 oz Centennial [10.3%] - Boil 15 min Hops 8
1.00 Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 10 min) Misc 9
0.5 oz Centennial [10.3%] - Boil 0 min Hops 10
1 pkgs Denny's Favorite 50 (Wyeast #WY1450) Yeast 11
1.0 oz Cascade [5.5%] - Dry Hop 14 days Hops 12
1.0 oz Centennial [10.0%] - Dry Hop 14 days Hops 13

 

[Thompson8816]

So I definetly need to get some more centennial hops then!! I just read what dry hopping was and I also really need to do that... Huge on hops! When you're finished with fermenting, do you just pour the fermented beer in a clean sanitized bucket or is there a special way to do that, like using a siphon??

 

[BeerFireBrew]

When it's done fermenting in my primary, I transfer it to a secondary glass carboy using an auto siphon. In the past , i would boil a muslin bag, toss in the hops in the muslin bag, then toss the muslin bag full of hops into the secondary for dry hopping. Now, I don't even bother using the muslin bag, I just throw in the hop pellets. I haven't used cones yet. The pellets tend to break up and fall to the bottom but some remained at the top. After dry hopping, I would siphon the brew into a clean and sanitized bottling bucket. Pouring the brew into the bottling bucket will significantly increase your chances of mixing oxygen into the brew. Oxygen is not good for the beer at this point, especially on the acids of the hops. Try to be extra careful to avoid the trub/settlement at the bottom of the secondary when transferring to your bottling bucket. Don't worry about leaving some behind. Best of luck. Have fun!

 

[Yooper]

So I definetly need to get some more centennial hops then!! I just read what dry hopping was and I also really need to do that... Huge on hops! When you're finished with fermenting, do you just pour the fermented beer in a clean sanitized bucket or is there a special way to do that, like using a siphon??

You have to siphon the beer, it's called 'racking'. Pouring or splashing will ruin the beer by oxidizing it.

You want to siphon "quietly", minimizing oxygen contact and exposure and bottle with a bottling wand.

 

[rlmiller10]

I would recommend you do a google search for John Palmer "How to Brew". The book is online and reading it will answer most your questions.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[Thompson8816]

Ok so how about if I did this. I have one of those Mr. Beer fermenting jugs with the spicket on it. could I ''quietly'' siphon the fermented beer into that and then dry hop it in there? I'm guessing I would have to try to keep the top opening covered that way air couldnt get into it??

 

[jsun]

You can just add your dry hops into your primary fermenter. Don't worry about siphoning until bottling.

 

[BeerFireBrew]

As jsun stated, you do not need to transfer to a secondary. You can just throw your hops in the primary. If you do, you may need to add a little more to get desired hop aroma. However, I was fermenting 3 gallons in a 6.5 gallons carboy. I've seen multiple sources on web stating to transfer to an appropriate size carboy, in order to minimize the amount of oxygen in the carboy during dry hopping = keeping the head space as small as possible. During fermentation a protective lay of gasses is created and this layer protects the wort from oxygen. Once the stopper is removed, the gases escape and is mostly replaced by oxygen. I felt I had way too much head space for dry hopping in my 6.5 gallon primary, especially if I am transferring only 2.5 gallons to avoid trub. Keep in mind, transferring it to a secondary may still cause exposure to transfer oxidation issues. See, isn't brewing fun! You can gain 100's of insights on how to do a particular thing, but then you get to do it the way YOU want to! Worst that can happen is you make another batch, with alterations.

Here is an article about dry hopping from BYO.
https://byo.com/hops/item/569-dry-hopping-techniques