Which one of you cabbage heads feeds their Belgian the candy sugar throughout fermentation? I need the scoop to pass along to another brewer.

what is the process? a fellow brewer has an issue with knocking out his yeast early with a 1.100 grav beer and I told her it might be helpful to feed it the sugar in stages,

azscoob said:

what is the process? a fellow brewer has an issue with knocking out his yeast early with a 1.100 grav beer and I told her it might be helpful to feed it the sugar in stages,

i usually do it this way.

Start with an all malt base, the malt sugars are the hardest to ferment so you want the yeast to work on them first while they are good and strong
The malt base should be no more than .085 or .090, for a really big beer. I usually go fora something in the range of .076-.080.
Transfer this to the primary and pitch like normal. A good healthy pitch will keep the ester production at a reasonable amount. Let it ferment for a couple days, usually on day 3 or 4 when high krausen has subsided, but the yeast is still active, i give it a "sugar dose" best way to do this is to boil some water (just enough to dissolve the sugar into syrup), add the sugar, fully dissolve it, then turn of the heat. let this cool for a bit, get it down below 140 degrees, then pour it slowly into the fermenter.

I do the sugar adds, 2-3 times for the quad. Each time bumping the "estimated OG" by 6-10points. The smaller the bump the cleaner the finished product. I also wait a bit longer between each addition. I use gravity readings to tell me when to add the next dose, basically once the gravity has dropped back down close to a final gravity + a few points, thats when it's time. The first one is three days, second is usually a week to two and third can be 3-4 weeks.

Also, I rack between the first and second sugar addition. I believe it yields a cleaner result, because only the stronger, more active yeast gets transferred to the secondary. This is also the point at which I may add a supergravity yeast. It depends on how the yeast seems to be handling the whole ordeal. I almost always have to add super gravity if my ABV is going to be above 14%.

It doesn't have to be precise, just think of it as goosing the yeast as they are winding down to get them riled up again.

Key is to start out with all of the malt sugars in the beginning and only add the simple sugars toward the end. That is what gets the complete fermentation to finish out nice. Don't rush it. I've had one batch done this way take 4 months to reach final gravity. But it did finish out eventually.

I have passed along the info! Thanks lake!

Lakewood said:

Any time.

Talking about it makes me want to brew my 14-16% ABV Quad-fermentation "House Special Reserve"

Maybe I can sneak in a batch soon.

Holy crap I want to taste that. I bet it's epic.