Is SG reading accurate with undissolved sugar?

[jat147]

Greetings,

I'm becoming a bit of a fan of the Brewferm range and have taken their advice on using candi sugar in place of granulated. It does give a lovely addition to the flavour, but I have a nagging doubt.
Upon adding the candi sugar to the FV, it sits on the bottom in a big lump - even when covered in boiling water and treated to a vigourous stir.
The yeast does manage to break it all down before fermenting has finished, but....
if it isn't dissolved into the wort like a granular sugar would be, how accurate is the hydrometer reading going to be?
The hydrometer works by reading the sugar in suspension - with most of the candi sugar locked into a ball at the base of the FV - surely the reading will be wrong? right?
A bit confused

Any ideas?
thanks, James

[OldSpeckledBadger]

Any undissolved fermentables won't register on the hydrometer's OG reading. Mind you, I never take an OG reading anyway.

[arturobandini]

Are you talking about Kit Brewferm beers? Don't bother with Candi unless you're using the Dark. Granulated Cane Sugar is best for these beers but if you really want to use the Candi Sugar crystals then melt them in a pan with the can rinsings and dissolve them thoroughly before chucking into the FV.

[jat147]

Yeah sorry, I didn't mention they're kits.

Don't bother with Candi unless you're using the Dark

Do you mean dark Candi sugar? I have used that in place of granular for my Abdij.
But as for Candi crystals - thats the reason for the post, they're not crystals in the first place, and always form the syrup ball in the wort.

I understand that undissolved sugar will not affect the hydrometer reading - as Badger said..... so how do you get the OG? can you?

[arturobandini]

Dark Candi will add some colour and flavour but the light candi is really not worth the effort. Add your Candi to a pan, rinse the can with hot water and tip this into the pan, heat this up stirring as you go (sterilised spoon if you're not boiling it) until fully dissolved. Add the contents of the pan to the canned extract in the fv and stir it up whilst adding the rest of your cold water to make up the kit volume.

[vacant]

If the sugar is totally fermentable, then half the weight gets converted to alcohol.

As the density of alcohol is about 0.8, you can work out the volume of alcohol you are adding.

Density=Mass/Volume so V=M/D, e.g. 100g sugar goes to 50g mass alcohol, 50/0.8=75ml volume, adding 75ml to 23l increase ABV by about 0.33%