First time extract brewer here - I brewed today using a kit with 6.75 lbs of extract and 1 lb of corn sugar. I mistakenly added the corn sugar after adding the extract to 3 gallons of water at the start of the boil. I followed the rest of the receipt: first hops for 60 minutes, then aroma hops at the end of the boil. I cooled the wort and transferred it to a 6.5 gal carboy, added tap water to reach 5 gallons, and pitched the liquid yeast. Curious what the impact is of boiling the sugar for 60 minutes instead of the 10 minutes the recipe called for. Thanks.
2 Answers
It shouldn't make a difference, unless you were doing a fairly high gravity beer. The additional solids could affect hop utilization as noted here and reduce the bitterness, but it wouldn't "ruin" your beer either way.
For consistency, if it comes out tasting great you should note in your brew log that you added the sugar at the start of boil, so if you remake the recipe you repeat the same process.
-
Thank you! After a slightly nervous evening, I found vigorous fermentation this morning at ~15 hours after pitching. I'm keeping a detailed log to learn from... Have a great weekend folks.– LawrenceCommented Sep 6, 2015 at 15:33
-
It really makes no difference at all. I always add at the beginning of the boil so I don't forget it later. Commented Sep 6, 2015 at 16:20
-
With long boil (2, 3 hours) it might add caramel flavor to beer. At 4 hours difference is radical - still, that's my experience with my specific beer.– MołotCommented Sep 17, 2015 at 11:54
Glad to hear it turned out well. The only reason to add the sugar towards the end of the boil is to avoid caramelizatiom and maillard reactions. These are more prevalent when using direct heating methods like stove or burner top boils as the heating is concentrated on the kettle.
This is sometimes done intentionally to give a different flavour profile. Keep brew and tasting notes to see if there's a notable difference if you change it next time.
