There are other questions too; what is the batch size, how many lbs. of grain, what is the final OG expected with the malt on hand? I’m not saying that you can’t brew a good beer when you add sugar, but I wouldn’t go more than 10% of the grain bill with sugar and I would increase the temp of the mash to offset the sugar. A barleywine is a great sipping by the fire kind of beer, it takes a lot of malt and a lot of time to get a good barleywine. I suggest considering everything before you brew and don’t skimp on ingredients or in 8 months you’ll be drinking a beer that’s just okay. Just my opinion.
Have you considered dark candi syrup? I brewed an English BW last weekend and added a pound of D-90 because I love that dark raisiny plum flavor coming through. I also added 3.3# of LME along with the 18# MO to save mash space.
When brewing a batch for the first time, my efficiency is more unpredictable than I would like. Sometimes I will use small amounts of table sugar (under 5%) to hit my OG and promote higher attenuation as I like pretty dry beer. I have yet to find any negatives other than not being a good enough brewer to hit my predicted OG with any consistency…
Same here. That said, I do imagine if you were to brew a real light lager (IE 80’s EDME lager kit) with 20% sugar you could potentially get some off flavors since there is nowhere to hide. I’d stick to 10% on the BW. Before I forget, make sure you use a metric $hit ton of yeast on it. I would probably brew a normal gravity ale first and pitch on the cake and then hopefully you don’t become a “my beer stalled” thread.
+2. But even a pale beer like a tripel should be cidery with its simple pils and sugar grist (I use ~ 12% sugar) and it isn’t. IMO the issue was never the sugar addition - it was limited availability of often old, poorly stored yeast and severe underpitching by today’s standards that created the cidery flavors and the ‘conventional wisdom’ about adding sugar to the recipe.
Touche’ Funny… Just what the heck DOES “cidery” mean? Thin or fruity or both? Best term I’ve heard used regarding sugar in Belgian beers is that sugar makes the beer more “digestable”.
Never quite figured out what it meant either. I took it to mean old school fermentation off flavors from subpar/poorly stored ingredients that got blamed on sugar. I never made a beer that that tasted like cider.
Cidery might be one of those descriptors that is not the same for everyone, and therefore maybe not so useful. I’m in the very dry and tart category but would not be confident that if I said cidery others would know that’s what I meant. So I would say “very dry and tart”.
This is for a 5 gallon batch: As of right now I have 17lbs 4oz of grain. I will be adding 0.5lbs of left over DME and 0.25lbs of white sugar and 0.75lbs of raw sugar. The white sugar and DME are just cleaning up leftovers.
Estimated OG is 1.095.
Sounds good to me. I use raw/turbinado sugar from time to time. No particular reason beyond what I have in the pantry. I have always wondered what it does to the mineral content of the wort.