Author: Malcolm Frazer

Belgian brewers are known to utilize an appreciable amount of simple sugar in their beer to achieve that signature drinkability, a culmination of several factors making for a beer that’s dry and pleasant to drink despite its high OG. The concept is accepted by many as paramount to a well executed Belgian beer and is covered extensively in Stan Hieronymus’ seminal tome, Brew Like a Monk. Sugar, in all of its various forms, makes appearance not only in high gravity Belgian styles, but many other beers as well. For example, British brewers have quite a history of using it in their beer, and of course more recently, sugar has come to be viewed as a key ingredient in higher OG IPAs, used to increase attenuation and ABV while contributing to lighter body. Sugar is great stuff!

Many recipes haphazardly include sugar on the ingredient list with nary a mention of how it should be used, leading many to simply add it all in one fell swoop. Sometimes it works, but sometimes it doesn’t. After experiencing a few high OG stalls myself, my research for potential solutions led me to a method involving adding sugar to the fermentor in staggered additions. The logic behind this practice is it allows the yeast to progress through the lag and initial growth phases at a lower gravity where the diet consists mainly of familiar malt sugars and nutrients, thereby reducing initial stress on the yeast; once fermentation is kicking along, the sugar is then added incrementally over a period of time. Besides reducing the purported risk of the yeast exhausting itself on a large charge of sugar, rendering it incapable of completing its target mission, it’s been claimed this method can produce less undesirable phenols, esters, and especially fusel alcohols . Made sense to me, so I integrated it into my brewing and never looked back.

Until recently…

I began to wonder if it was the staggered sugar additions that were responsible for my new found attenuation successes, or if perhaps it was due to something else. Is this method I’ve employed for years now actually making a difference?



| PURPOSE |

To evaluate the differences between 2 Belgian Golden Strong Ales of the same exact recipe where one had all of the recipe’s sugar added at the beginning of fermentation and the other received 3 staggered additions.

| METHODS |

For this xBmt, I made an 11 gallon batch of Belgian Golden Strong Ale that would be equally split post-boil between two fermentors.

Belgian Golden Strong Ale

Recipe Details Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV 11 gal 75 min 29.0 IBUs 4.3 SRM 1.078 1.006 9.5 % Actuals 1.079 1.004 9.9 % Fermentables Name Amount % Pilsner (2 Row) Bel 24 lbs 84.96 Aromatic Malt 4 oz 0.88 Cane (Beet) Sugar 4 lbs 14.16 Hops Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha % Magnum 35 g 75 min Boil Pellet 12 Saaz 28 g 30 min Boil Pellet 3.8 Saaz 14 g 1 min Boil Pellet 3.8 Yeast Name Lab Attenuation Temperature Belgian Golden Ale (WLP570) White Labs 76% 68°F - 75°F

In an effort to avoid introducing extraneous variables, I elected not to alter the pitch rate between the batches despite the differences in initial OG. I made a 2 liter starter about 24 hours in advance of my brew day with a targeted yeast cell density appropriate for the OG of the single dose beer.

I then prepared my water and grains the night prior to brewing.

My wife began heating the strike water an 1 hour before I got home from work. Once home, I had my lovely assistant help me mash in. While I’d targeted 148°F/64°C, I failed to compensate for the super cold weather of Western, PA and ended up a bit lower than expected. I wanted this beer to be dry anyway, so we called it good!

I took a pH reading about 15 minutes into the mash and, thanks to the great Bru’n Water Spreadsheet, I was barely a hair under by target of 5.4 pH.

To ensure a very fermentable wort, the low mash temp was paired with a 90 minutes mash length. Family dinner and toddler dancing commenced, then it was time to proceed. I collected the wort and brought it to a vigorous boil, adding hops at the appropriate times.

Despite recent xBmt results suggesting shorter boil lengths don’t seem to produce DMS, I extended the boil to 75 minutes as a security measure, as less modified floor malted Bohemian Pils malt made up a large portion of the grist. Once the boil was complete, I quickly chilled the wort to 62˚F/17˚C thanks to my bitter cold groundwater, evenly split it between two carboys, ensuring each received a similar amount of kettle trub. It was at this point I also took an OG reading.

Both carboys were placed into my fermentation chamber regulated to 64°F/18˚C. I pumped each full of equal doses of oxygen then split and pitched the yeast starter.

The yeast was apparently ready to work, as obvious signs of fermentation were present barely 24 hours later. Besides developing a kräusen sooner, the single dose batch was also slightly warmer than the staggered dose batch at this point. It was at this point I added the first of 3 doses of sugar, 1/3 the amount added to the single dose batch, to the staggered dose beer.

The staggered dose batch developed a kräusen a few hours later. The next day, about 48 hours post-pitch, I took a hydrometer reading prior to adding the second dose of sugar to see how things were progressing.

I added the third dose of sugar to the staggered batch after another 24 hours then let it go a few more days before signs of active fermentation diminished. The temperature had risen to 68˚F/20˚C at this point, it was time to measure the final gravity.

Likely a non-issue, I was a little surprised to discover the single dose beer had fermented 0.001 SG lower than the staggered, it left me even more interested to see if there would be a perceptible difference in flavor and aroma! I cold crashed the beers, fined them with gelatin, then racked them to kegs.

After a few days on gas, both looked good enough to drink when it came time to present them to tasters!

| RESULTS |

A total of 37 people participated in this xBmt including numerous BJCP judges, professional brewers, experienced homebrewers, and craft beer drinkers. Each participant was blindly served 2 samples of the single dose beer and 1 sample of the staggered dose beer then instructed to identify the one that was different. In order to achieve statistical significance given the sample size, 18 participants (p<0.05) would have had to correctly identify the unique sample. In the end, only 16 tasters (p=0.10) made the accurate selection, indicating the beer made with a single addition of sugar at the beginning of fermentation was not reliably distinguishable from the same beer made with 3 staggered sugar additions during fermentation.

The 16 participants who were accurate on the triangle test were instructed to complete brief comparative evaluation of just the 2 different beers, remaining blind to the variable being investigated. Since the results did not prove statistically significant, this information should be interpreted with caution, as it’s arguably meaningless. Overall preference was evenly split between the samples with 7 and 6 tasters preferring the staggered and single dose batches, respectively, while the other 3 tasters indicated they perceived a difference but had no preference. When asked to select the sample they believed was produced utilizing the staggered dose method, 9 tasters (53%) guessed correctly and the other 7 (47%) did not.

My Impressions: Initially, I was unable to readily distinguish these beers from each other with a performance rate of 50% on my first “blind” triangle trials. However, telling them apart seemed to become easier after some maturation time and as the beers warmed in the glass, with my accuracy on last 3 triangle attempts improving to 100%. I perceived the single dose beer as having an ever so slightly bolder ester profile, though it was still very pleasing, and I felt the intensity of the alcohol sweetness, mouthfeel, and warming created a small but noticeable difference. Ultimately though, without being tipped off as to the variable, it’s possible I wouldn’t have noticed any differences, they were so close.

| DISCUSSION |

The mere fact trusted homebrewing authorities began endorsing the use of staggered sugar additions during fermentation suggests to me there is some utility to the practice, and based on my own anecdotal experience, it does seem to reduce the risk of the dreaded stalled fermentation. Still, I expected these beers to be more different than they were, in terms of both measurable and perceptible qualities. The fact they weren’t leaves me wondering if staggered sugar additions during fermentation isn’t another insurance measure, as there are plenty of anecdotal reports from professionals and homebrewers alike swearing it has helped in their high OG brewing.

While these results ought not be viewed as the final authority on the matter, I’ll admit to feeling more inclined to return to adding all of the sugar in a single dose, not because of any qualitative impact, but out of my desire to reduce the brewing task load- 1 dose is easier than 3. However, I’m left wondering if there’s a point at which staggered additions start to show benefits, maybe a higher OG or certain yeast strains. And yet again, the xBmt idea list continues to expand!

If you have any thoughts on this xBmt, please don’t hesitate to leave them in the comments section below!

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