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White Sugar

sugar

Plain white table sugar (sucrose). Ferments completely, adding alcohol and dryness with no flavour, colour or body. The traditional Belgian way to lift gravity without making a beer heavier.

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2 brews

About

Refined cane or beet sugar, pure sucrose. Yeast inverts it to glucose and fructose and ferments it out completely, so it adds alcohol while thinning the body and drying the finish. Belgian brewers use it in pale strong ales and Trappist-style beers for exactly that, and it does the same job as clear candi sugar at a fraction of the price. Sucrose gives slightly more extract per kilogram than dextrose, which is a monohydrate.

Specs

Colour
0 EBC
Extract (FD)
100%

Usage

Add in the last 10–15 minutes of the boil, stirring until dissolved so it does not scorch on the element. Typically 5–20% of the fermentables in Belgian styles; more gives a thinner, hotter beer.

In your brews

Used in 2 brews 2026-11-05 → 2026-11-12
Total used 0.55 kg
Grain bill 4.2% range 3.1–5.3%

Styles brewed

26C Belgian Tripel
1
34A Commercial Specialty Beer
1
Select from the 2 brews using White Sugar to compare →

Used in