When to add sugar to your beer?

[Nosybear]

I have only ever added sugar as a late boil addition, I have nothing to compare it to. You really don't get any honey flavor from honey, it truly is just an expensive simple sugar.

I've never directly observed a stalled fermentation or failure to complete due to adding simple sugars. The lore is out there so I mention it as a potential risk. To get honey flavor from honey it would have to be a very strongly flavored honey in a very mild flavored beer. It will do nothing for your porter or NEIPA except thin body and increase alcohol. Cheap table sugar will do exactly the same thing.

 

[Group W]

I occasionally use simple sugars as late kettle additions to thin out a beer and have never tasted the honey in my Cream ales. I recently added a pound of maple syrup to a brown ale and doubt if it will add flavor but will bring a bottle to a commercial brewer friend for his opinion. There are forum statements that corn sugar is less harsh than cane sugar. IDK...

 

[AGbrewer]

I occasionally use simple sugars as late kettle additions to thin out a beer and have never tasted the honey in my Cream ales. I recently added a pound of maple syrup to a brown ale and doubt if it will add flavor but will bring a bottle to a commercial brewer friend for his opinion. There are forum statements that corn sugar is less harsh than cane sugar. IDK...

I've noticed a distinct cider flavor every time i use cane sugar in excess of 1/2 pound. Not sure what the deal is, but it is there. I use it for priming when bottling, but that doesn't seem to give the same cider effect.

 

[Nosybear]

I've noticed a distinct cider flavor every time i use cane sugar in excess of 1/2 pound. Not sure what the deal is, but it is there. I use it for priming when bottling, but that doesn't seem to give the same cider effect.

I generally don't use more than 1/2 pound in a 5-gallon batch. I've never noticed a cider flavor from using it, although I've heard the same beer lore. I believe the origins were early in homebrewing when the recipe was a can of extract, four pounds of sugar and whatever yeast and hops they packaged with the kit. Who knew how old the extract was or what yeast was being used - likely Fleischmann's bread yeast! People still complain of cidery flavors from use of sucrose but then, there are those who swear they can taste the honey in a honey porter! I can't categorically say either are wrong but there's nothing in sucrose other than fructose and glucose, neither of which would result in cider-like flavors on their own. It seems low risk so if a recipe calls for corn sugar, I'll replace it with around 90% by weight of sucrose (glucose hydrates while sucrose does not).

 

[Group W]

If the sweet flavor Is desired from honey, brown sugar, etc. one could back sweeten in the keg like with ciders. Just don’t bottle, or kaboom.

 

[AGbrewer]

I generally don't use more than 1/2 pound in a 5-gallon batch. I've never noticed a cider flavor from using it, although I've heard the same beer lore. I believe the origins were early in homebrewing when the recipe was a can of extract, four pounds of sugar and whatever yeast and hops they packaged with the kit. Who knew how old the extract was or what yeast was being used - likely Fleischmann's bread yeast! People still complain of cidery flavors from use of sucrose but then, there are those who swear they can taste the honey in a honey porter! I can't categorically say either are wrong but there's nothing in sucrose other than fructose and glucose, neither of which would result in cider-like flavors on their own. It seems low risk so if a recipe calls for corn sugar, I'll replace it with around 90% by weight of sucrose (glucose hydrates while sucrose does not).

I can understand the skepticism of beer lore. I've got my own skepticism as well. However, it does seem odd that i noticed the cider flavor only when using table sugar in the bill. After several batches of using table sugar ( 2 Tripel, 2 Quad, 1 Stout, and 2 IPA) I started researching the off flavor and stumbled across an article about it. I thought it could be the green apple thing, but again it only reared it's ugly head when using table sugar. I've tried turbinado sugar and got the same result when using more than 1/2 pound.

An alternative reason could be something else in my process that is causing that flavor and it just so happend to coincide with the brews that I mentioned above. Who knows for now. All I know is that I no longer get the flavor when under 1/2 pound. If that is all I have to do to make good beer, I guess I'll stick with it until something else comes along to debunk my theory.

 

[Nosybear]

I can understand the skepticism of beer lore. I've got my own skepticism as well. However, it does seem odd that i noticed the cider flavor only when using table sugar in the bill. After several batches of using table sugar ( 2 Tripel, 2 Quad, 1 Stout, and 2 IPA) I started researching the off flavor and stumbled across an article about it. I thought it could be the green apple thing, but again it only reared it's ugly head when using table sugar. I've tried turbinado sugar and got the same result when using more than 1/2 pound.

An alternative reason could be something else in my process that is causing that flavor and it just so happend to coincide with the brews that I mentioned above. Who knows for now. All I know is that I no longer get the flavor when under 1/2 pound. If that is all I have to do to make good beer, I guess I'll stick with it until something else comes along to debunk my theory.

Here's an idea as to why using sucrose COULD cause apple flavors - acetaldehyde - if added to the boil. It's the tired yeast thing. Yeast prefer sucrose over all other sugars and will take it up first. If they adapt to a high-sucrose or other simple sugar environment, they may not be able to clean up after themselves, leaving the acetaldehyde and its bruised green apple flavor behind. Beer is a complex system, wort affects fermentation. I may never have had the green apple/cider flavor because I generally limit the amount of sucrose I put in the boil, preferring to add at high krauesen. Turbinado is sucrose as well so it would cause the problem. Experiment: Try instead adding the sugar at high krauesen and see if you get the cider flavors. Or, as you said, don't try to fix what isn't broken.

 

[AGbrewer]

Here's an idea as to why using sucrose COULD cause apple flavors - acetaldehyde - if added to the boil. It's the tired yeast thing. Yeast prefer sucrose over all other sugars and will take it up first. If they adapt to a high-sucrose or other simple sugar environment, they may not be able to clean up after themselves, leaving the acetaldehyde and its bruised green apple flavor behind. Beer is a complex system, wort affects fermentation. I may never have had the green apple/cider flavor because I generally limit the amount of sucrose I put in the boil, preferring to add at high krauesen. Turbinado is sucrose as well so it would cause the problem. Experiment: Try instead adding the sugar at high krauesen and see if you get the cider flavors. Or, as you said, don't try to fix what isn't broken.

You make a good point, however, I've used it at high krausen a couple times and still got the flavor. I may still try to do the high krausen thing a few times. I haven't added sugar in quite some time, so maybe it was something with my process. Yep, time to try another belgian tripel or a quad!

 

[Mark Farrall]

Another tangent...

I've never experienced a "Saison Stall". Not that I brew a ton of them, but every one has gone the distance for me with no problem. Curious if you have experienced this firsthand and if so, what yeast did you use? I've only ever used 3711 and Belle Saison.

I haven't had much of a problem with stalling in my saisons. I'm guessing that many of the 'solutions' are correlated to the actual issue, but no one has real evidence of what it actually is.

One of the big proponents of the foil lid/open fermentation solution, Drew Beechum, was recently talking about how it may be more related to the diastaticus expression in some of the strains. It's looking that diastaticus strains are very like Brett in that they like/need oxygen. So maybe the strains with the highly expressive diastaticus genes are the ones that suffer from the stall. While he used to be convinced that it was back pressure from the airlock, it may be more that open fermentation provides the oxygen that allows them avoid the stall.

 

[Nosybear]

3724 is the notorious staller. What I noticed the last time is that the yeast never actually stopped, instead, it just got very slow, taking about a point or so every couple of days off the remaining sugars. Benefit of using a refractometer and correction - I could monitor it frequently without losing all my beer. First time I used it, it stalled and I freaked out, tried everything, even the garage in summer. The other thing I noticed is after a few days, gut the airlock and crimp some aluminum foil over it to keep baddies out. I've read and experienced that the yeast is very sensitive to pressure.