I've been brewing Belgians and adding table sugar to create dry beers and up the ABV. Or increase "digestibility" as the Belgians say! Works like a charm.
The one thing that always throws me, though, is that sugar seems to really enhance attenuation. I'm trying to figure out HOW much it accelerates attenuation, because I keep missing my FG numbers.
My recipes in Brewer's Friend will predict an FG of say, 1.012, but my beers keep finishing at 1.003. They taste great, and more ABV is fine, but we all know how great it is to hit your numbers. And understand how to predict them.
Adding a pound of sugar to a 6 gallon batch ups my OG around 8 or 9 points I've found. Interestingly, it also seems like my calculations in Brewer's Friend miss the FG by about the same amount when I use sugar.
Is it too easy to predict that whatever gravity points get added by the sugar, they take away approximately the same points when calculating FG? Since sugar is 100% fermentable?
So, while Brewer's Friend may predict an FG of 1.012, I should reduce that prediction by the same amount of gravity the sugar added?
I know what I CAN do is adjust the attenuation prediction in the recipe. If I put in a custom 95% attenuation, I can get a lot closer to the actual FG's I'm getting.
But is there some rule of thumb to predict how various sugars can impact FG's? The Brewer's Friend Recipe calculator does not seem to automatically take that into account...
The one thing that always throws me, though, is that sugar seems to really enhance attenuation. I'm trying to figure out HOW much it accelerates attenuation, because I keep missing my FG numbers.
My recipes in Brewer's Friend will predict an FG of say, 1.012, but my beers keep finishing at 1.003. They taste great, and more ABV is fine, but we all know how great it is to hit your numbers. And understand how to predict them.
Adding a pound of sugar to a 6 gallon batch ups my OG around 8 or 9 points I've found. Interestingly, it also seems like my calculations in Brewer's Friend miss the FG by about the same amount when I use sugar.
Is it too easy to predict that whatever gravity points get added by the sugar, they take away approximately the same points when calculating FG? Since sugar is 100% fermentable?
So, while Brewer's Friend may predict an FG of 1.012, I should reduce that prediction by the same amount of gravity the sugar added?
I know what I CAN do is adjust the attenuation prediction in the recipe. If I put in a custom 95% attenuation, I can get a lot closer to the actual FG's I'm getting.
But is there some rule of thumb to predict how various sugars can impact FG's? The Brewer's Friend Recipe calculator does not seem to automatically take that into account...