Calculate alcohol content when adding sugars after primary fermentation has started

[JFF]

Hello,

Some recipes call for adding sugars (candi sugar, maple syrup...) after primary fermentation has started. I guess this is to avoid having to deal with the problems associated with very high initial specific gravities.

Would it be possible to add in the logs entries associated with specific gravity going up when adding those sugars so that total alcohol content can be correctly calculated please?

Thanks

JF

 

[Yooper]

I am not sure how we'd do that in the recipe builder, except as in the fermentables area. Do you have an idea on how you would like to enter it? As a fermentable, but in secondary, for example?

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

It doesn't matter when you add the sugar its going to ferment the same regardless, even more so later because its not evaporating

 

[btbnl]

I'd also like to see this feature added. I've been using late additions of simple sugars with some of my bigger beers (the theory being that otherwise the yeast will gorge on the simple sugars and do less well on the more complex ones - kind of like only giving kids dessert after dinner).

It would be very useful to have the OG numbers calculated pre-addition for brew-day efficiency calculations, and then updated post-addition for refractometer alcohol corrections.

I am not sure how we'd do that in the recipe builder, except as in the fermentables area. Do you have an idea on how you would like to enter it? As a fermentable, but in secondary, for example?

I think you're right - it would be included as a fermentable but marked as a special (secondary, super-late, post-ferment, ... ) addition.

 

[Yooper]

So, the "late addition" option wouldn't work for you?

 

[Nosybear]

So, the "late addition" option wouldn't work for you?

Gives weird results for efficiencies. Otherwise, works fine.

 

[Hobbes]

The late addition would work well... maybe a toggle for adding post-boil or during/after fermentation so it includes the sugar in the ABV calcs but you can still use/see the original OG. For example, making my dubbel I want to know what efficiency I hit during mash/boil/post based on grain weight without the sugar. However, I need to know the final ABV that includes the sugar for packaging/labeling. I may not care too much about actual OG that includes the sugar, since it's being added during fermentation.

 

[btbnl]

So, the "late addition" option wouldn't work for you?

Only if "late" could also distinguish between in the boil and in the fermentor.

I had the problem again this weekend with a beer that will have a secondary fermentation on 6lb of cherries. I have to include the fruit in the fermentables bill to get the right gravities/ABV, but it then horribly messes up the volume calculations.

 

[Yooper]

We've pushed this update to the forefront, and hopefully have a fix coming out in the near future. I'm sorry that we don't have a good solution right at this moment, but I will keep you posted when we do have it ready.

 

[btbnl]

We've pushed this update to the forefront, and hopefully have a fix coming out in the near future. I'm sorry that we don't have a good solution right at this moment, but I will keep you posted when we do have it ready.

Awesome - thanks!

 

[JakeDog]

Yes. Thanks for making this a priority. This has been the biggest issue for me when adding post-primary-fermentation fermentables/fruit. If they're not listed in the FERMENTABLES section, they're not factored into the brew day calculations (such as efficiencies, OG, etc), but of course they need to be accounted for when calculating ABV.

As it stands right now, I have to exclude these post-fermentation fermentables from the FERMENTABLES section to have it accurately calculate the pre-boil gravity and post-boil OG numbers. After fermentation, I have to manually add the gravity points per gallon of those fermentables back to the OG, then use this new OG to manually calculate the ABV. I'd love for the OG calculations to include this automatically.