Beer Still Brewing

[JonC555]

Hello everyone, new here. I usually just google everything because 99% of all questions have already been asked and I don't like wasting people's time. However I cannot find anything on this and have been searching for days so I thought I'd ask the experts.
I'm not too sure if this is really a beginner question or not, I probably have done 30 or so brews in the last 4 years but I decided to play it safe so I apologize in advance if this doesn't belong here.

Anyway, on to my question.
I started a beer last Tuesday with a Coopers Stout homebrew kit and I threw in some brewed espresso and cocoa powder for flavour. I also added about 1kg of sugar right into the wort too.
I had an extremely aggressive fermentation pitched with beer yeast, so much so it poured out through my airlock. After 2 days it pretty much died down completely and I pitched some EC1118 and have been feeding the beer about half a kg of sugar every morning since. I'm slightly worried because I haven't had any Krausen form again since pitching the EC1118 and I'm not sure if that's normal or not. Is an aggressive fermentation supposed to happen only once? When I do add my sugar to the beer it reacts quite violently and I have to add it slow or it will fizz out of the carboy, I'm not 100% sure what that means and again, I couldn't find anything on it. I'm just worried that the EC1118 is a dud and I've just been dumping sugar that hasn't been fermented into my beer.
Thanks to anyone who reads this, I apologize for the long post and look forward to some expert knowledge on the matter.

Also I know I'm probably going to get crucified for adding sugar to my beer, but it's a personal preference. I have always liked the taste of really strong beer, and have been a huge Guinness fan so I thought I'd try mixing the two.

 

[schmurf]

Wouldn't it be better to make sure you hit your wanted OG before fermentation starts? You will have hard time to know what strength your finished beer will have this way.

 

[McKnuckle]

Assuming the beer is kept at fermentation temps (i.e. not cold) and the ABV is still within the yeast's tolerance (18%!), you'll have a rather hard time hiding sugar from it. EC118 is a wine yeast so perhaps it does not form a krausen. Use a hydrometer and take a gravity reading at some point to remove all doubt.

 

[JonC555]

Wouldn't it be better to make sure you hit your wanted OG before fermentation starts? You will have hard time to know what strength your finished beer will have this way.

I actually went out and bought a hydrometer last week, but it turned out the guy at the homebrew store sold me the one meant for spirits and not beer, so until I get out to the store again I can't really get any accurate readings.
The reason I've been adding sugar incrementally is because I've read that you can reach the upper limits of your yeast's tolerance by doing that. Something to do with not overloading it with sugar and not stressing the yeast, I'm not 100% on the science behind it.

Assuming the beer is kept at fermentation temps (i.e. not cold) and the ABV is still within the yeast's tolerance (18%!), you'll have a rather hard time hiding sugar from it. EC118 is a wine yeast so perhaps it does not form a krausen. Use a hydrometer and take a gravity reading at some point to remove all doubt.

The beer is definitely warm. I've been keeping it in the warmest room in my house underneath a blanket. Last time I took a temperature reading it was about 20C.
I actually did do a couple batches with the EC1118 without using beer yeast and still got a small amount of krausen, not nearly as much as with using straight beer yeast but I still did get a small amount. Perhaps I'm not adding significant enough amounts of sugar for the EC1118 to form any sort of krausen?

Thanks for the response guys. I'll have to pick up a real beer hydrometer next time I'm at the store.

 

[JonC555]

So an update if anyone is still following this, I took a hydrometer reading. Took me a little bit to figure it out.
Unfortunately I don't have an OG reading because I didn't have one before, but right now its reading about 1.04. I imagine that means the yeast are doing their job because I probably used around 4kg of sugar in there on top of the can of extract.
I did pitch some more yeast when I took the gravity reading just in case, but there was no difference in activity after pitching.

 

[deadwolfbones]

Do you mean 1.040 or 1.004? The former would point to a very sweet beer with a lot of unfermentable sugar, while the latter would be very dry (more what you'd expect from a beer with 4kg of sugar in it).

 

[kh54s10]

When you are adding sugar you are adding nucleation points for the co2 that is in the beer. Hence the foaming.

The reason I've been adding sugar incrementally is because I've read that you can reach the upper limits of your yeast's tolerance by doing that. Something to do with not overloading it with sugar and not stressing the yeast, I'm not 100% on the science behind it.

I believe this is wrong. The yeast will not be stressed by having the sugars in there in the beginning, unless to extremes. And incrementally they will get stressed when you approach the limit.

The wine yeast will react differently than beer yeasts.

I would be really surprised that you have 1.040 and not 1.004. What you have as ingredients would not leave that much unfermentable sugars.

I would suggest you get a good recipe that has the "really strong" that you are looking for. Just adding sugar thins out and dries out the beer. Better to use a good recipe that doesn't rely on added sugar, unless the style requires it. And that is not usually table sugar.

 

[JonC555]

Yeah I double checked and 1.04 was the measurement I got from it yesterday, I think it might because I added sugar to it the day before I took the measurement and the yeast are still fermenting. I'm going to take another measurement next Tuesday to see if that changes at all.

I tried to find the article on the incremental sugar additions but couldn't find it but I'll have to do some more research on it. Do you think I will be fine just adding all of the sugar right away in that case?

I would use better ingredients but I am a little strapped for cash right now and table sugar is super cheap. I'm also Canadian so homebrewing for me is not only a hobby but an attempt to save money on beer (beer is EXTREMELY expensive). Do you suppose I could just double up on LME or is that now how it works?

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

I tried to find the article on the incremental sugar additions but couldn't find it but I'll have to do some more research on it.

http://beerandwinejournal.com/feeding-1/ may be close to what you're looking for.

The book "Microbrewed Adventures" has a recipe and process for Sam Adams "Triple Bock" (~ 18% ABV). Also, IIRC, both Zymurgy magazine and BYO magazine have published articles on making really big IPAs (~ 12 - 14%) by incrementally adding fermentables to the beer.