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Hi All, first post here.

I have just started a Belgian Strong Ale made with a Brewmasters kit, plus a 1.5 kilo can of light malt, a kilo of dextrose, a hundred grams of steeped grain and increased the hopping by five grams of cascade for 60 minutes and five grams of cascade at 30 minutes. Hope this will be enough to compensate for the extra sweetness I have added, if not will I have to do another boil? The wert was topped to 24 liters. Big question is that I made some dark candy toffee and plan to add half a kilogram from around day three of the primary fermentation. This is going to be STRONG by design - I think about 8%. Some early tests showed that small bits of hardedned toffee will melt in water within 1/2 hour so I am thinking of throwing some sizeable chunks into the fermenter so I dont have to damage my blender and crush it up. Also, if I can get a few bits of the toffee, I think I will add some at day three, day four, then day five, and then transfer to a secondary frermenter at day six. Does this sound like a good plan of attack ?

Renegade,

You will need a lot more than 2 5gm hop infusions to counteract the sweetness.I would suggest 15gm at 60 min, 15gm at 45 min, 15gm at 30 min and 15gm at flameout.

Ah ok. Are you taking into account the IBU of the can itself ? (Brewmaster Belgian Ale - a Rebranded Muntons).

I had better add some more hop tea very very soon (like tonight !)

edit - - - I have worked out that my hop additions add 5.5 IBU (per Beersmith, hope Im using it properly), and have also found out that the kit IBU is 17-23, although I dont know what volume this is meansureed against nor how to compensate this figure with the fermentable sugar additions. So I'm pretty lost as to how much bitterness & flavour I should be adding at this point - and Im already into day two of the fermentation.

If i dont get an answer tonight, I'll aim to add another 10 IBU to the bittering stage

IIRC Belgian Strong Ales are relatively low on IBUs anyway, some Saaz dry might be nice when you add the toffee.

Thanks Kev. I have made what I think to be some correct hop adjustments and by all accounts it should come out at around 25 IBU.

While on the subject, I want to feed the brew some candi sugar that I blended to a powder over a few days, and wonder if its a good idea to tap off a litre of the wort into a sanitised bucket, mix in the powder and throw back into the mix, or if its a better idea to sprinkle the powder straight in and give it a stir each time.

Renegade wrote:Thanks Kev. I have made what I think to be some correct hop adjustments and by all accounts it should come out at around 25 IBU.

While on the subject, I want to feed the brew some candi sugar that I blended to a powder over a few days, and wonder if its a good idea to tap off a litre of the wort into a sanitised bucket, mix in the powder and throw back into the mix, or if its a better idea to sprinkle the powder straight in and give it a stir each time.

Best idea is to use some of the wort, try not to aerate it though.

OK, so Ive hopped up the wort a bit more, I have added the candi sugar after dissolving into a liter of hot wort, and hoping for the best. This ones going to be racked and then bottled in a couple of weeks then left for 3 months to bottle mature if I can wait that long.

Theres some concern about the rate of fermentation. After four days the gravity is dropping, its was OG of 1.065, went down to about 1.035 now its back up to 1.045 after the candi addition. Sounds good but its unusual that the surface is not foaming like all the other beers I have done, its only a very weak foam, and actually today most of the surface is just fine bubbles. The airlock's started bubbling regularly again overnight since the candi was added which tells me that its still working away but the lack of a huge foaming activity is concerning. This is the first time I have used a specialty liquid yeast (its an ale yeast), all other times has been either kit yeast or the safale range. So is this to be expected with better yeasts ?

Different yeasts work at different rates and patterns.

Some take off really quickly, slow down, and settle to a steady long haul.
Others will work quickly all the way through, others steady all the way through, etc etc.

The amount of kraeusen varies between yeasts and wort composition. Differences are nothing to be concerned about. Some are very demonstrative, others are not.

and not all ale yeasts are top fermenting, i think