Very confused about bottle priming!

Hey Everyone,

I've looked all over this board, and it seems the more I read, the more confused I become. I just started reading about things like the bottle priming calculator on tastybrew.com, which is confusing me even more. For my first two brews, I've used extract kits from NB. Both kits say to use 2/3 cup of corn sugar when bottling, which if I am correct is about 5.3oz. Here's the problem, if I plug a German Hefeweizen (my first brew)into the calculator (5 gallons/68 degrees) it says to use 8.5 oz. That seems very high, doesn't it? A Belgian White shows 4oz.

I'm ready to bottle a Tripel IPA this week and the kits says to use 2/3 cup plus 1 or 2 oz. So...what's the best way to go? Buy a scale and use the calculator, or just follow kit instructions.

Thanks!

Buy a scale and use the calculator. Its much more accurate and you'll see much more appropriately carbonated beers.

I don't know the math for conversion, but the ounces in the measuring cup is fluid ounces and I bet the ounces in the calculator is ounces by weight.

Try weighing the stuff you have in the measuring cup and see if it's close to what you need.

Thanks guys!

However....8.5 oz for a Hefe? Wouldn't that cause bottle bombs?

8.5 oz in a 5 gallon batch seems a bit much. and by a bit I mean a lot.

The reason that some styles are calling for more sugar than others is because some styles call for more carbonation than other styles. Example- a heff will be more fizzy than a cask style ale.

Yeah, that seems like quite a bit. If you choose to follow those instructions I would leave a little more headspace than usual, and talk that neighbor you don't like to open the first one... just in case

DeafSmith said:

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter11-4.html

Click to expand...

The chart helps me with some quaestions I have had as well....however, when going from primary to secondary to bottling bucket Im looking a 4.5 gallons or a little less. How would you adjust the chart with lesser volume of beer?

4.5 oz = 3/4 cup = perfect carb levels for the average beer (5 gal). obviously go up or downa bit from there.

Not to hijack the thread or anything, but I've got a somewhat related question that I didn't think deserved its own: If you're replacing corn sugar (or some other sugar) with DME, do you use the same amount? I'm have a recipe that says to use either 1/2 cup of corn sugar or 1 cup of DME, and I figured since it called for 4.5 lbs of DME in the boil and I have 5 lbs I would just use the excess for priming, and, as this is my first batch, I'd like to minimize the problems.

I'm not sure of the exact conversion (look it up on HBT) but yes, if you use DME instead of sugar you'll use more since it is less fermentable.

B

http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator/carbonation.html

for how much corn sugar/table sugar/dme/honey to use.

And weight is key, my scale was the best $25 I've ever spent, now I can buy grains, hops, corn sugar, and extract in any quantity I need to and split it up.

JonM said:

Try weighing the stuff you have in the measuring cup and see if it's close to what you need.

Click to expand...

And be sure to factor in the weight of the cup if need be.

Just bottled a hefe (2.5g) and beersmith calculator called for 4.3oz corn sugar at 68deg for a 4.0 carb val. I've heard both good and bad things on this amount hope I don't have bombs?