How Much Sugar To Use In Double IPA?

[Beatsy]

Hi,

I'm about to brew my first extract double IPA. I have made the recipe myself but I have a nagging feeling that I have added too much sugar.

Recipe:
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/665702/dank-dipa

Basically, I have stipulated that the sugar should be 1kg. Reading up on this, I might be making the base a bit to thin and was thinking of halving to 500g.

Anyone ever used this much sugar with success?

 

[Drunkula]

Well Belgian beers use candi sugar up to 30% sometimes. Lots of recipes using 20% sugar like you and no reported badness.

I'm planning on doing a "Not a kit and a Kilo" experiment in a few weeks where I do an all grain but also with a kilo of sugar, like people do with kits. It's to add extra chip damage to the myth about too much sugar making beer cidery.

 

[Beatsy]

Yeah, the cider myth is what's got me bugging a bit about it. Be cool to see how yours goes. I've got all my ingredients delivered today..might be panicking as its a shed load of hops to use for something that is cidery lol.

 

[DavidDetroit]

That looks fine. You've a good amount of DME. Lot of the DIPAs I've done have around 8lbs of DME or LME, maybe a bit more on the steeping grains and then the sugar which is variable.

 

[Beatsy]

Thanks for looking at it David. I will probably roll with it and see how it goes as-is. cheers

 

[Cwrw666]

I have frequently added 500g of table sugar to all grain brews and they've turned out fine. I think it depends on whether you've got enough malt in there to give adequate flavour and body.
1 can kits that have you adding 1kg sugar simply don't have enough malt to give adequate body. They're much improved by 1) only making them up to 4 gallons instead of 5, and 2) only adding 500g sugar instead of 1 kg.

 

[Beatsy]

Now you have me thinking. I wonder if it may be better swapping 500g of the sugar for more dme.

 

[Brianbrewed]

Double IPA's need simple sugars to help dry them out.

I regularly use simple table sugar in my Cream ales with no ill effect.
I normally shoot for 10%.

 

[rank_frank]

I'm just about to make a historic IPA around 6% abv from the Durden Park recipe book. Adjusting to my equipment and batch size it'll use 5Kg of Pale Malt and 1Kg of sugar too. I made this once before a few years ago and it was really nice. As others have said, IPAs need to finish dry and a good amount of sugar helps, particularly if you are using extract and can't use tricks like low mash temperature.

 

[BeerCat]

You can easily make it into golden syrup or Belgian candi sugar. Have used 25% GS before.

 

[Brianbrewed]

Now you have me thinking. I wonder if it may be better swapping 500g of the sugar for more dme.

The DME will add more body.
A Double IPA still needs to be drinkable at such a high ABV.

I would stick with the simple sugar.