Well, I just finished making a nice amber barleywine from a kit that directed an OG of 1.116, but I also added 2 lbs of corn sugar to it at the beginning of the boil...for personal reasons. BLUF, if you can tell me what my OG/Brix is by adding 2 lbs of corn sugar to a beer that's OG would have been 1.116, you'll save yourself quite the read! All I know is that I sampled the original (5-gal) beer gravity with my refractometer, and it completely maxed out my 30% brix scale!
I've brewed this kit before, per the recipe. I'm primarily trying to prove that I can or cannot taste the difference when adding corn sugar (sucrose) to a brew, at the early stages of the boil. After all, corn sugar should be as close to flavorless as you can get...perhaps not as flavorless as pure dextrose, but still...there's nothing else you could possibly taste in it.
Second, I'm trying to figure out how much fermentable stuff you have to add to a wort before US-05 will actually blow-the-top-off a 6.5 gallon bucket, for a 5-gal batch. Needless to say, I've set this thing up with a blow-off tube, just in case.
Still, I'd bet money that both packets of US-05 won't push any fluid down the tube.
Finally, the kit calls for Red Star Champagne yeast during the secondary fermentation phase, which I've used in two previous batches successfully, but this time I'm going to try Red Star Premier Cuvee (my keyboard doesn't have the second "e" with the slanty thingy on top), as it has a much higher alcohol tolerance/flocculation. I'm doing this mainly because the two previous batches of this barleywine were so flavorful that I couldn't taste the ethanol, and they weren't "dry" enough per my expectations; therefore, this brew's got a lot more room to grow on, if you know what I mean.
***For calculations, the kit's OG, per the recipe, is 1.116. If I were to add 2 lbs of corn sugar to this, what would the OG end up being?***
I measured it with my refractometer, and I stared at a brix scale that was completely blued out, from 0 to 30%. I'm estimating 34% brix with poor-man's math, but I'm sure there's a way to figure out how much 2 lbs of corn sugar adds to any given 5-gallon batch's gravity.
It's times like these that I wish I still had a fragile hydrometer...although for every other beer I've made, refractometry has been the ****! After all, it only takes a few drops of wort/beer to measure the delta in Brix, and the ABV algorithms are pretty much spot-on.
I've brewed this kit before, per the recipe. I'm primarily trying to prove that I can or cannot taste the difference when adding corn sugar (sucrose) to a brew, at the early stages of the boil. After all, corn sugar should be as close to flavorless as you can get...perhaps not as flavorless as pure dextrose, but still...there's nothing else you could possibly taste in it.
Second, I'm trying to figure out how much fermentable stuff you have to add to a wort before US-05 will actually blow-the-top-off a 6.5 gallon bucket, for a 5-gal batch. Needless to say, I've set this thing up with a blow-off tube, just in case.
Still, I'd bet money that both packets of US-05 won't push any fluid down the tube.Finally, the kit calls for Red Star Champagne yeast during the secondary fermentation phase, which I've used in two previous batches successfully, but this time I'm going to try Red Star Premier Cuvee (my keyboard doesn't have the second "e" with the slanty thingy on top), as it has a much higher alcohol tolerance/flocculation. I'm doing this mainly because the two previous batches of this barleywine were so flavorful that I couldn't taste the ethanol, and they weren't "dry" enough per my expectations; therefore, this brew's got a lot more room to grow on, if you know what I mean.
***For calculations, the kit's OG, per the recipe, is 1.116. If I were to add 2 lbs of corn sugar to this, what would the OG end up being?***
I measured it with my refractometer, and I stared at a brix scale that was completely blued out, from 0 to 30%. I'm estimating 34% brix with poor-man's math, but I'm sure there's a way to figure out how much 2 lbs of corn sugar adds to any given 5-gallon batch's gravity.
It's times like these that I wish I still had a fragile hydrometer...although for every other beer I've made, refractometry has been the ****! After all, it only takes a few drops of wort/beer to measure the delta in Brix, and the ABV algorithms are pretty much spot-on.
