Priming question

I'm going to be bottling my first batch in a few days, and I have a question: Can I use bottled corn syrup to prime with, or do I have to go find granulated corn sugar? I'm not sure if the additional ingredients in the syrup will impact flavour significantly, or if the processing given to it will affect fermentability ....

Thanks!

If the situation is that you don't have priming sugar available and want to use something from the grocery store, keep in mind you can use table sugar too...I have no idea what you ratio of corn syrup would be but you prb want to avoid the flavored version if you go that route.

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I'm at work right now so I can't fully help you, but...

Find a copy of John Palmer's How To Brew...it's on-line...there's a chart in there with that infomation.

The answer really is that you can prime with anything that is in any way fermentable. Unless you are trying to alter the flavor at bottling, why use something other than sugar or malt extract?

I'm from WV, so there are NO homebrew shops near here... which means ordering my ingredients online (then waiting those excruciating few days)... I've read that ordinary sucrose (table sugar) has the potential to give off flavours, though maybe not in the amounts used for priming, where as dextrose won't change flavour at all... the corn syrup I have contains both high fructose corn syrup as well as a small amount of vanilla, which is what I was concerned about... and I can't seem to find corn sugar anywhere around here....

But I solved my problem: I ordered a 4# bag of it just for bottling, along with the yeast to make a variation of EdWort's Apfelwein and a few other odds and ends...

thanks for your help!

Good deal, ..I am pretty sure that table sugar is corn sugar though. I would definitely be worried about vanilla adding flavor, but who knows, it might be good! I have bottled with table sugar, dextrose, DME, brown sugar, I even bottled with Hershey's Kisses one time and it turned out great. Unless you are making a "clone" or an exact duplicate of a beer(in which case you are almost certain to be dis-apointed even if you end up with a great beer) you should not be so worried. Who knows? Maybe corn syrup was the absolute best primer for a certain style. You never know unless you try.

Table sugar and corn sugar aren't the same. Table sugar=sucrose from sugar cane, corn sugar=dextrose from corn. Sucrose may give some off flavors, but if you don't have corn sugar, it's probably not to bad to prime with since you'll only be using a little bit.

I did use table sugar once for priming when I was in a bind. It was only 1/4 cup in a 2.25 gallon batch for my Party Pig and the beer definately had a cider flavor. I had to convince myself I was drinking apple ale just to stand it. So, to my unhappy surprise, even a small amount of table sugar for priming WILL give off flavors.

veggiess said:

I did use table sugar once for priming when I was in a bind. It was only 1/4 cup in a 2.25 gallon batch for my Party Pig and the beer definately had a cider flavor. I had to convince myself I was drinking apple ale just to stand it. So, to my unhappy surprise, even a small amount of table sugar for priming WILL give off flavors.

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That's assuming that the cider taste was caused by the table sugar. It could have been caused by something else.

-a.