Brew Day - 7/7/07

[arturobandini]

Going back a long time here Steve I know but can you remember what kind of sugar you added to this? I only ask because I'm curious about this style of beer as the commercial Duvel is one of my favourite beers. All Grain brewing is definitely floating in on the horizon and I'm just trying to swot up basically.

Also what was the sugar used for as I don't see it in many All Grain recipes? Is this particular to Belgian styles?

Cheers

[steve_flack]

The sugar was plain table sugar. You could use dextrose if you wanted but don't bother with those fancy clear candi sugar crystals - they're just table sugar in big lumps. The sugar is there to dry the beer out. Without it a beer of this gravity would be pretty sweet - remember sugar in a beer makes a beer drier not sweeter.

Sugar is used in a lot of the stronger Belgian beers - often in a caramelised form. Some of the dark beers get nearly all of their colour (and a lot of their flavour) from dark candi syrup. It is however not exclusive to Belgian brewing as sugar is used quite extensively in British commercial brewing. Marston's Pedigree uses a fair bit apparently.

[arturobandini]

Thanks for the response Steve and excellent memory there.

I trust this one came out well?

[steve_flack]

I trust this one came out well?

It came out OK. The fermentation slowed quite a bit towards the end and needed quite a bit of rousing to finish. I think I underpitched by quite a bit which probably didn't help. It did finish in the end.