Sugar in Recipe?

[whinton]

Hi,

I'm looking through GW British Real Ale book for an AG recipe for a beer around 5% that I can bottle.
Most of the ones I am favouring say to add White Sugar. I've not used sugar in a brew before and take it that it is added during the boil?

I would appreciate some advice on when to add it and what type of sugar to use.

Thanks in advance.

Wayne.:thumb:

 

[DoctorMick]

I think that book suggests using an invert sugar which can be tricky to get hold of, I think golden syrup is the easiest replacement to use, @MyQul is that right?

Personally, I'd ditch the sugar and just increase the amount of base malt to hit the recipe ABV. If you do decide to use sugar or syrup you'd want to add it to the boil for the last 15 minutes.

 

[Bigjas]

Hi Wayne

I have done some of Grahams brews from that book. I added ordinary cane sugar half way through the boil.

Jas

 

[stevey]

I think he says somewhere in the book that the big brewers add ordinary white sugar (tate and lyle etc) because it's a cheap way of adding ABV. I've brewed a few of his recipes, and always used brewing sugar instead (there never seems to be enough cane sugar in our house). I added it at the end of the boil, but you can add it at anytime before fermentation.

 

[Cwrw666]

I regularly add 500g of white sugar to my AG brews. It doesn't affect the taste at all and means I can get 7 brews from a 25Kg bag of pale malt instead of 6. There again I'm a bit of a tight wad.

 

[MyQul]

As DrM says use golden syrup intead of white sugar (although you can use that if you want) as its partially inverted and gives its own taste to a beer

 

[HebridesRob]

Historic brewing recipes invariably use some kind of sugar. Not just to save malt since the use of sugar can add flavour or make beer more palatable by drying out the beer, especially in stronger beers.

Most sugar you would buy is sucrose. Yeast cannot metabolise sucrose directly so they have to secrete an enzyme, invertase, to break sucrose into it's constituent sugars, glucose and fructose. Many people say that this process can add off tastes to beer so they like to use sugar already broken down (inverted).

Golden syrup and treacle are partially inverted. Brewing sugar from home brew stores is usually pure glucose. Belgian candi sugar and British company Ragus' brewing sugars (only available to pro brewers) are fully inverted and available in various shades and can add colour and extra flavour. I believe that candi sugar is pure white beet sugar inverted, then caramelised to various shades while british brewing sugar is various shades of raw cane sugar that is inverted. I could be wrong, I've spent a lot of time trying to verify this.

If you should wish to, it's possible to invert your own sugar, plenty on this on the internet.

When should you add?
Most people would add at some point during the boil.
Some people say that adding during the boil can cause a stuck fermentation because the yeast will metabolise the easily available sugars first, then "forget" how to convert the more complex sugars. These people think sugar should be added later in fermentation (dissolved, boiled, cooled of course).

links?
http://www.ragus.co.uk/product_category/custom-formulations/
http://barclayperkins.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/brewing-sugar.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invertase
http://ryanbrews.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/candy-syrup-right-way-hint-weve-been.html

More discussion here:
http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=62128

 

[whinton]

Thanks very much for all your help and advice.

I think I might try the Belgium Candi Rocks and see how it goes. Maybe when I get more time I will try making my own!

Much appreciated.

Cheers :drink: