I've been putting off brewing a saison all week, and finally got around to it today. About half way through the boil, I realized I had forgotten to weigh out my sugar, so I open the cabinet and pull out... an empty canister of sugar! After a brief panic, I realized there was a full bag behind the canister, so crisis adverted. It got me thinking though, what could I do if I didn't have a back-up? Hold back some of my top off water, boil it with the sugar and add it later? If so, when? Next day? Wait for fermentation to slow down some? Should I just have run to my neighbors house with my scale? Also got me thinking, does it matter when in the boil I add the sugar, early, middle, late? (I'm probally over thinking that part)
You could have added the sugar at any time, from the beginning of the boil through the end of the (original) fermentation. For recipes with lots of sugar, some people delay the sugar addition until high krausen or later. The idea is that large amounts of simple sugars at the beginning will discourage the yeast from eating the more complex sugars. That hasn't been my experience, but I can't say for sure that it can't happen.
Hasn't been my experience either. Adding sugar during the tail end of fermentation is a common technique in high gravity beers to keep fermentation from slowing and stalling. But in average strength beers with a normal yeast and a healthy pitch, sugar seems to act the same no matter when it is added.
Agreed. Typically I'll add Sugar last 10 minutes of the boil. I may attempt this when I do my Barleywine just to see the outcome though I've never had any real trouble with my attenuation when just adding it to the boil.
