Oops... need some advice on a brewing mistake

Not quite sure how on earth I managed to mess up this bad, but…

I brewed a sort of modified Belgian Blonde recently. My third all-grain batch with my new equipment and second 11 gallon batch. Mashed, sparged, boiled, chilled. Pitched the yeasts the next morning (two buckets, two Belgian yeasts). When the fermentation started to slow, I moved it to a warmer location (next to the boiler) and it’s still finishing. I made a note of the gravity when I pitched the yeast on my paperwork that I printed out from BeerSmith.

Sounds good, right? So what’s the big problem?

Well, the other night a friend asked me about how I changed things around in an attempt at making it more my own. My printout is sitting down near the fermenters and being lazy I pulled it up on BeerSmith…

Somehow, I managed to forget about adding the 3# of Honey to the boil and the 2# of clear candi syrup at flameout…

Should I split the Honey into both fermenters now and add a pound of candi syrup to each? Or is it just flat out too late?

I’d add it now. Better to feed sugar at the end than the beginning, right?

I seem to remember you saying you don’t generally do secondary but this may be a good one to do one. Rack to secondary on top of the syrup and honey and let it ferment out. Should be fine.

I agree, adding a simple sugar after the yeast have worked through the complex sugars.
Kind of like desert at the end of a meal.
I’ve added sugar after fermentation has slowed a number of times, dissolved in boiled water then cooled.

Actually, I do typically secondary. It’s a matter of preference because I’ve skipped the secondary on a few beers and I felt they came out a bit too cloudy compared to beers that I did secondary. So yes, even if it’s only for a week or so, I usually do transfer to a secondary.

I like the idea of racking onto the syrup and honey, but at the same time it’s going to be awhile before I rack it, probably at least another two weeks. Not sure that I want to wait that long to do it in case I forget.

Not so much when to add it but what. Next time if you do the recipe again, try substituting table sugar for the candi syrup. I brew Belgian style beers often and almost only use it. From what I have read the Belgian breweries think we are nuts wasting the money on Candi sugar.

I add sugar the last 15 min or so BTW. Don’t see any harm in adding it after though.

Might have to try that. I had read about using table sugar, but I was under the impression that candi syrup added some flavor that wouldn’t be possible with just plain sugar. Although, now that I think about it, I don’t see the clear candi syrup adding much extra flavor when compared to the dark Belgian I brew that calls for dark candi syrup.

FWIW, I usually try to add sugars, syrups and any extracts that I might use in the last 15 minutes of the boil, been doing that since I started partial mashing.

I use table sugar for my blonde Belgian and dark candi sugar for my darker Belgian more for the color than anything else. I don’t want to go through the trouble of making my own and was wandering about adding an unwanted flavor from dark brown sugar.

Well, I pried open the fermenters and added the honey and clear candi syrup. Had a problem with the candi syrup, it was badly crystalized even supposedly being fresh. Got what I could out of it and into the fermenter though. We’ll see how it goes.