Beersmith, Dextrose, and Fermentability

[Helms]

The last IPA that I made finished a little bit sweeter than I would have liked. I have another one planned for the near future and I wanted to add some dextrose to increase the fermentability of the wort.

When I play around with my partial mash recipe and replace a portion of the extract with say one pound of dextrose to hit the same OG, Beersmith and Beer Calculus both show the same projected FG regardless of whether or not the gravity is coming from LME or corn sugar. Is there no way to estimate how dry a beer will finish depending on the percentage of sugar added?

 

[Rip]

Hi Helms - this is a good question, I don't have the proper answer but I've come up with a solution that seems to work for me:

I add all of the grain-based fermentables into my Beersmith recipe (malt, grains & related), choose the appropriate yeast (Beersmith calculates Attenuation based on the chosen yeast)... then note the Estimated FG, write this down. Now add the sugar to your recipe - note how the Estimated FG increased...? What's up with that btw? Anyhow, I just use the Estimated FG from the pre-sugar recipe and add a point or two to the FG based on the type of sugar.

For Example:
Calculated Final Gravity Estimate (from grain/malt syrup additions) = 1.009
Calculated Final Gravity Estimate (after adding 1lb Sugar) = 1.012

Table Sugar adds very little in the way of complex 'unfermentables'. So I just adjust my FG estimate from the pre-sugared recipe... maybe 1.0095 in this example. Now if you're using a sugar with a higher percentage of unfermantables (maybe Molasses or Demerara) - these will contribute a little more to your FG... so maybe 1.010 in this particular case.

Someone please tell me there is an easier way to do this! I see that certain ingredients in Beersmith have something called "Dry Yield" but this only seems to effect the OG contribution. *Doh* WTF?

- Mike

 

[jamest22]

I have encountered this "feature" as well when using sugar to dry out my recipes. Has anyone found an answer or solution built into BeerSmith?

 

[jamest22]

Hey guys. I found a thread on the BeerSmith forum where Brad Smith himself answers this question. The thread is here

Unfortunately, according to Brad it turns out that in BeerSmith simple sugar additions affect the FG just as it was malt sugar. Thats just the way it is. So it sounds like Rip's solution above is the best bet until the can improve that aspect of BeerSmith.