Dextrose vs Sugar at priming

Greetings everyone - virgin brewer here! I'm onto my second batch and having great fun! I've been working from a kit. The first time the recipe required added sugar and again at priming but the beer was not flash. This time the kit (a pilsner "Stella" style) has a converter in it (replacing the sugar) and I have added extra hops. I'm going to rack to secondary at 1020 and bottle at 1008. Should I use detrose (which I have) or standard table sugar at priming. What difference in carbination and flavor can I expect? If my recipe calls for sugar is the swap to dextrose 1:1? My biggst concern is avoiding any unplaned detonations! Cheers.

One of the biggest problems I had with my first batch was using table sugar instead of dextrose. Dextrose has a neutral flavor for beer when fermented into carbonation. Table sugar tastes like cider or sweet apples. I threw out about half my very first batch because of the table sugar and the flavor it added to finished beer. Use the same amount the chart calls for per bottle or 3/4 cup for the whole batch.

Honestly I don't think it matters much at priming. I think the 'cidery' effect only comes when you use sugar as a primary fermentable in the wort.

If I were you, I'd use DME (1.25 cups per 5 gallons). I used to use DME, then switched to corn sugar because it's cheaper. I don't like the carbonation from corn sugar as much. It seems a little more harsh, whereas the DME gives you silkier, smaller bubbles.

Hi Kiwi, I'm an expat kiwi living New Jersey. I'm only on my 8th batch, but I can definitely recommend that you keep sugar to a minimum - only use it for priming. Malt tastes far better.

Use dextrose, table sugar is a bad idea. Use 3/4 to 1 cup of dextrose depending on how much carbonation you want... or, like Evan suggested use 1.25-1.5 cup of Dry malt extract (DME). I recommend DME, won't really effect the flavor of your beer at all.

table sugar is hard to digest for yeast...unless you break the bond holding the two molecules together by boiling it. Alton Brown reccomends 5 minutes of boil for 3/4 cups of sugar (no more!) and the sugar should be broken down enough to feed the yeast. his strong point is the chemistry of things after all.

Has anyone experienced the krausen effect described by Palmer in priming with DME?

"Be aware that malt extract will generate break material when boiled, and that the fermentation of malt extract for priming purposes will often generate a krausen/protein ring around the waterline in the bottle, just like it does in your fermenter."

Yes, that happens sometimes. It's not too bad, but I have noticed it occasionally when I used DME to prime. I almost always use corn sugar to prime- easy, cheap, and good carbonation. Regardless of what most people say, you can't tell which beer has been carbonated with corn sugar vs. DME. I've had perfect carbonation with both.

meh, i've definitely had some corn sugar affect my beer. don't bother with the stuff anymore.

Thanks a lot for the prompt advice guys, your help is appreciated!

Hi guys
I'm planning ahead with my bottle priming. I can see people have recommended Brewersfriend's Online calculator.
Ive found another mobile app called Wort that gives me a + 90 g difference in the required DME for a 2.0 CO2 volume for the same cider (in my case) volume.
Which one is more reliable?
Thank you

I'm fairly new to homebrewing and have used both the app and webpage you mentioned above. Because it's a known quantity and used and trusted by many homebrewers already, I'd be more apt to trust Brewer's Friend. Underpriming is much less egregious an error than overpriming.

As a sanity check, however, make sure you entered the same volume and temperatures for both. 90g is about 3.2oz... Seems like a big difference to me.

I have only used corn sugar for priming so I can't tell you the differences. I would say that what differences there are would be very subtle. Unless you did a side by side, most people probably could not tell the difference.

For the 90 gram difference in the calculators, Check your numbers entered. I think that is a LOT. I suspect the information entered has an error in one of them.

When in doubt, always use less sugar. Gushers and bombs are not fun.

Also, don't use DME for priming. And for cider? No way. Just use regular table sugar. Results are more consistent in general, and more consistent for cider especially.

Hi No input error there. Same volume, same temperature and it gives me a 90 g difference.

@dmtaylor

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Why shouldn't I use DME for cider? It tastes neutral. Have you had poor experience with DME?

I've used Dextrose +Maltodextrin in the past, but never table sugar, so I can't compare it.

I'm thinking he might have been referring to the complex sugars found in DME versus the simple sugars in apple juice. Yeast may have gotten a bit lazy and give you a difficult time with fermenting the DME. If that happens, you may end up with no carbonation at all.

If you've done it before without issue, you may not have a problem. Only thing you'd have to worry with then is the amount you decide to use.

Let us know how it goes.

My cider has fully fermented after 10 days. OG 1.050, FG 1.002, ABV=6.4%
Time to rack it and let it mature.
Probably I'll add some black tea but not much, as it already has enough astringence. I can feel the back of my cheeks contracting. Should I leave the tea out altogether?

I prime with table sugar (2.5g sugar cubes to be exact) and never noticed any weird flavors. The bottles seem to carb up just fine too.