Priming sugar for 20 oz bottles

It has been 3 weeks since I started my last batch and I am pretty sure she is ready to bottle. I've taken my readings and everything looks good.

My only problem now, is how much priming sugar do I add for 20 oz bottles? It's a 2 gallon mr beer batch minus 3 hydrometer readings of volume so it should be about 12 20 oz bottles. I'm not batch priming. How much cane sugar should I add to each bottle?


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Well, I successfully use 1/2 teaspoon in 12oz bottles and get great results. Converting .5 tsp into grams then dividing that into 12oz to get the grams per ounce then multiple by 20 ounces you get .833 tsp so just under a teaspoon per 20oz bottles. So to be cautious in not over carbonating a safe figure would be 3/4 tsp. You can try more, but bottle bombs may occur if not measured accurately. Your best bet is to get some carb tabs and use as directed.


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To avoid over carbonation, I bottle with 4 oz cane sugar for a 5 gallon batch. 2 gallons is 40% of 5 gallons, so 40% of 4 oz is 1.6 ounces. 1.6 divided by 12 bottles is 1/8 ounce, or 3.75 grams per bottle. The 3 hydrometers removed from the 2 gallons would make less than one 20 oz bottle, so I don't believe it would make that much of a difference.

CapnHook said:

To avoid over carbonation, I bottle with 4 oz cane sugar for a 5 gallon batch. 2 gallons is 40% of 5 gallons, so 40% of 4 oz is 1.6 ounces. 1.6 divided by 12 bottles is 1/8 ounce, or 3.75 grams per bottle. The 3 hydrometers removed from the 2 gallons would make less than one 20 oz bottle, so I don't believe it would make that much of a difference.

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Ya, don't add it to the bottle. Add it to the bottling bucket.

Agreed C-Rider, but he said he wasn't going "batch prime". I was going to ask why not, but I hit reply first. So why not batch prime? It's easier, and as long as you gently mix it in the bottling bucket, there's nothing to worry about, and you won't have to weigh 3.75 grams or measure .8333 tsp.

My mr beer guide thing says that a 22 ounce bottle shoukd get 1.5 tsp


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I actually have a pack of carbonation drops. It says two drops per 750ml and my bottles are right about 600 so I think I'm out of luck with those


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What style of beer are you brewing? If you are using Cooper's drops then 2 per 750ml bottle results in a decently high level of carbonation. For a lot of English style beers 1 drop in a 600ml bottle might still be carbonated towards the higher end of the recommended scale.

Or...

See how close you can come to breaking some of the drops in half.

Or...

Figure out how much table sugar to add to each bottle to make up difference.

Or...

Start bulk priming and never worry about bottle sizes again. That's the route I took. (Those drops are wicked expensive where I live)

dkeller12 said:

Well, I successfully use 1/2 teaspoon in 12oz bottles and get great results. Converting .5 tsp into grams then dividing that into 12oz to get the grams per ounce then multiple by 20 ounces you get .833 tsp so just under a teaspoon per 20oz bottles. So to be cautious in not over carbonating a safe figure would be 3/4 tsp. You can try more, but bottle bombs may occur if not measured accurately. Your best bet is to get some carb tabs and use as directed.


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Never, never, never convert from volume to weight, as you are suggesting. Different types of sugar (and even the same sugar from different manufactures), how it's packed down, and other factors make this kind of conversion inaccurate. When it comes to creating pressure in a glass bottle, you don't want to be making any mistakes; always go with weight, it will always be the same.

Also , put the sugar in the bottles first, there are a couple of reasons,
I had a batch that when I added the sugar to full bottles they erupted with over foaming before I could get the caps on. second you can see the sugar in the bottles, that should stop you putting two lots of sugar in the same bottle.
But this not a good process, much better to prime in a bottling bucket !

bottled my Grodziskie to 3.5 volumes (consistent with the style) in typical 12-ozers and not one bomb, so relax, don't worry if you get a few extra grains of sugar into a bottle or 2

also don't understand why not batch prime, but if that's the way you want to go, do it.