I forgot to add sugar to the kettle in a Belgian golden strong ale, so I’m adding the 3 lb in two doses to the fermenter. In the first dose, I added 1.5 lb of sugar to a small amount of water heated to around 180 for 12 minutes. I really don’t want to add more water. The fermenter is close to full, and the amount of water needed to dissolve the sugar is significant. Could I dry pasteurize it in a pot in the oven at 180 F? Anyone ever do this? Sugar melts a good bit higher than this temperature doesn’t it?
you need to get the sugar into a liquid state before adding to the fermenter. heating it dry to melting will just give you caramelized sugar.
as for water needs, you should be able to dissolve a 1.5 of sugar in about a cup of water. if you don’t want more water, pull some beer from the fermenter and use it to dissolve
Stuff can’t live on sugar so theres no need to heat it. Ever seen mold growing on sugar? Microbes that land on sugar get the liquid sucked out of them.
You could heat it if you wanted though. The melting point of sucrose is 367F so you could easily do 200F for fifteen minutes and get what you are after.
Drew’s correct. If you add dry sugar to your fermenter it will likely just sink to the bottom. Without a lot of stirring you will never get it into suspension.
Not necessarily. The things that can survive the harsh conditions in sugar (and survive is not the same as grow) can often withstand 200F as well. An autoclave runs at 250F, plus moisture, plus pressure, for a 30 min cycle to be considered sterile. IMO, heating dry sugar to 200F is a waste of time.
I have poured store-bought granulated sugar directly into a fermenter at high kreusen and it successfully fermented it all. I did not have equal success with liquid sugar as there was some dark sweet liquid left on the bottom after transfer.
I wouldn’t do it, since at this point it is beer and heating beer seems like a bad idea - if space is an issue I would dissolve the sugar in as little water as possible, remove (and dispose of) as much wort as needed to make room, and add the sugar liquid. Or I’d just skip it and take what I got.
You could also add it dry, as Jeff suggests. It won’t be sterile, but the low pH and nutrients with the high alcohol of a BGS should inhibit quite a lot of things.
Wow, lots of perspectives to ponder. ;D But it did get me thinking!
I have heard that honey is pretty resistance to nasties because the high osmotic pressure it exerts on them. I don’t know if that would translate well to dry sugar, but probably wet sugar. Perhaps if I made a really thick solution with sugar and partially fermented wort and let it sit for a few minutes, at room temp, that would be enough to make the solution pretty inhospitable to life. Then add that to the fermenter. No heating required.
That would prevent diluting the wort any more.
It would minimize the chance of infection, if sugar even presents such a risk.
It would dissolve the sugar…whether that’s a concern or not.
I wasn’t suggesting it would sterilize the sugar, but it would kill some microbes on that stray dust particle. Boiling is simply heating to 212F, using your logic one would worry about that not being good enough. I also said it would make the guy feel better about dumping it in his fermentor. We all have to feel OK about our process.
Its possible a high osmotic pressure solution would eventually kill microbes, I don’t think it would very effective in the short term. IT might raisin them up is all.
I agree with Denny. Throw in the sugar and swirl the carboy every so often .
Does the sugar production process involve any heating? Maybe it is somewhat sterile to begin with. It certainly doesn’t seem to contain much organic matter other than sucrose. Unless theres a hole in the corner of the sack and mouse turds nearby.
Well, nothing grows in dry sugar or strong sugar solutions because of the low water activity. The sugar’s too concentrated for anything to grow on it. (This is also why candying things like fruit and ginger works for preservation.) That doesn’t mean it’s sterile, which is why you wanted to heat it in the beginning. Unfortunately, sterilizing dry requires hotter temps than sterilizing with moisture, so heating your dry sugar to 200F probably wouldn’t be sufficient for sterilization.
However, you just need things to be sanitary; sterility is unnecessary. (I’m still working on this distinction myself, so I get the “sterilize everything” mentality. I still want gnotobiotic beer in my fermenter!) If the experts say you can dump in dry sugar, I’d believe them. Just pour it slowly and stir as you go so you don’t get a big mass of sugar on the bottom of your fermenter.
I understand that dry sugar may not be a breeding ground for bacteria, but neither is a clean spoon, and yet I sanitize it before dipping it into wort! Thus, I pondered sanitizing sugar.
Also, I know that you can dry pasteurize at less than 200 F. I visited a plant that dries egg whites into powder then dry pasteurizes them. I remember the temperature was 160 F because I spent two minutes in the room and decided I didn’t want to experience a temperature hotter than 160 ever again. A brief internet search confirms it does take longer–perhaps two hours–to dry pasteurize at this temperature.
My original concern was whether 160 - 180 F would alter the sugar…carmelize it or something. But it sounds like a few people have just dumped it in with no worries. Maybe I’ll give that a try.
Pour it in. I have done it many many times. That’s how I come up with my 7% lawnmower beer. Never once has it infected the batch.
Use the 1/2-at-a-time method. If you are adding 1.5 lb total then pour in 0.75 today, 1/2 of the 0.75 that’s left the next day or so, 1/2 of the left over the next day, then the rest. An old wine makers trick.
There is a big difference with boiling because it is a liquid. You can pasteurize or sterilize at lower temps or shorter times in a moist/wet environment than in a dry one. I agree we should feel good about our processes, but it should be for sound reasons. You can feel good about boiling it in a little water, and from some peoples’ experience you can feel good about dumping it in dry.
Honey is inhospitable for growth and will kill a lot of organisms, but spores will survive just fine until it is diluted enough for them to grow. That said, I never pasteurize my honey for beer or mead making, just add it and let the low pH and high alcohol kill anything that wants to grow.
In addition to what others have said, if the beer has hit high krausen (i.e., big old cap of foam on top and airlock bubbling like mad) the ABV in your beer will have probably gotten up to the point that the alcohol will also help to kill many of the bugs on the sugar.
While the sugar won’t dissolve immediately, it will dissolve over a period of a couple of weeks.
I can’t say exactly how it will affect your ferment, however. The sudden influx of sugar might restart fermentation, or it might shock the yeast and give you attenuation problems. In the latter case, you might need to pitch more yeast or rouse the existing yeast.
There’s also the option of Not Messing With It. Your tripel might come in a little low in alcohol and a bit chewy for the style, but so what? As long as it tastes good, it is good.