National Homebrew Club Ireland

Brewing Discussions => All Grain Brewing => Topic started by: barkar on April 25, 2014, 03:56:29 PM

Title: Back sweetening a beer that finished too low
Post by: barkar on April 25, 2014, 03:56:29 PM
What is the best way to back sweeten a beer already fermented down to 1.004
I want to add some sweetener/syrup but i dont want to get an increase in abv  ;)

a)  I was considering sweetening , transfer to keg and force carb - at what psi does yeast die off at ?
b) I was considering transferring to another vessel and fining/crash cool then adding sweetenner

Has anyone used xlyitol ?
Title: Re: Back sweetening a beer that finished too low
Post by: Eoin on April 25, 2014, 04:19:53 PM
Xylitol and diarrhea

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17484374

eh knock yourself out :)

I think that a good option would be to use some maltodextrin as it's non-fermentable, but do some research on this, not sure of side effects.
Title: Re: Back sweetening a beer that finished too low
Post by: barkar on April 25, 2014, 04:34:40 PM
Ok so xlitol is out , i went in looking for lactose in the health food shop and was presented with xlitol as a natural sweetenner , wasnt told of the side effects :o

Although it seems to be used quite a bit on the american forums to back sweeten cider

would prefer to sweeten using fermentables knowing yeast is dead
Title: Re: Back sweetening a beer that finished too low
Post by: Eoin on April 25, 2014, 05:09:40 PM
Filtering is really the only practical way with beer to ensure there is no yeast.
Title: Re: Back sweetening a beer that finished too low
Post by: Chris on April 25, 2014, 06:30:27 PM
I've used xylitol with no bother to sweeten cider.
Title: Re: Back sweetening a beer that finished too low
Post by: barkar on April 25, 2014, 08:11:37 PM
I thought at a certain point of pressure  yeast dies , heard of pasteurising but I am sure that would be to the detriment of flavour
Title: Re: Back sweetening a beer that finished too low
Post by: Garry on April 25, 2014, 08:15:47 PM
If you keg it and leave the temperature below 17dC, the yeast should stay dormant, shouldn't it? I assume it's not lager yeast.
Title: Re: Back sweetening a beer that finished too low
Post by: barkar on April 25, 2014, 08:41:17 PM
No, us05.  , probably need to crash cool and transfer off trub
Title: Re: Back sweetening a beer that finished too low
Post by: UpsidedownA (Andrew) on April 27, 2014, 08:44:30 AM
Quote from: Garry on April 25, 2014, 08:15:47 PM
If you keg it and leave the temperature below 17dC, the yeast should stay dormant, shouldn't it? I assume it's not lager yeast.
No. Ale yeast will still operate below this temperature, just more slowly.
Title: Re: Back sweetening a beer that finished too low
Post by: Greg2013 on April 27, 2014, 10:43:24 AM
If you were force carbing in the keg could you just pasteurise some honey and chuck that in to back sweeten, the crash chill and force carb as normal ? ???
Title: Re: Back sweetening a beer that finished too low
Post by: barkar on April 27, 2014, 10:49:59 AM
would pressure kill it off ? say 30 psi, problem is i want to put in more fruit so effectively force carb to kill off yeast then uncarb and add fruit , suppose i could just add crushed fruit then siphon off pretty quickly and force carb , keg and bottle ???
Title: Re: Back sweetening a beer that finished too low
Post by: Eoin on April 27, 2014, 10:54:59 AM
Quote from: barkar on April 27, 2014, 10:49:59 AM
would pressure kill it off ? say 30 psi, problem is i want to put in more fruit so effectively force carb to kill off yeast then uncarb and add fruit , suppose i could just add crushed fruit then siphon off pretty quickly and force carb , keg and bottle ???


You normally want fruit to ferment a little in the beer.