Priming ingredients

I am getting round to bottling a home brew version of Shepherds Neame - Spitfire.

The pre-bottling additions calls for:
1 cup, wheat DME
1/4 cup glucose syrup

Wheat DME (4 oz) was also an ingredient of the main brew. Although my local home brew store said it wasn't needed and wouldn't affect the taste of my beer (especially given the 6 lbs of M&F light DME in the recipe)

By the same token they said I could skip the pre-bottling DME and glucose syrup and gave me 5oz of priming sugar.

Based on this website: A Primer on Priming
Assuming 0.8 initial CO2 content and a target of 1.5-1.75, means an extra 0.8-1.2 volumes are needed.
If 0.5oz/gallon = 1 volume then I need aprox 2.5 oz for a 5 gallon mix.

Does this make sense? 2.5oz priming sugar in 5 gallons, or should I use the entire 5oz package?

Thank you!

i'd just use the 5oz bag

Assuming a 5g batch, and drinking at 55F:
According to John Palmer's nomograph (Brewing Classic Styles), 5 oz corn sugar would result in 3.25 volumes CO2
According to Terry Foster (Pale Ale), 5 oz corn sugar would result in about 1.8 volumes CO2
According to me (HBT), the "experts" don't know.
I'm sure you could find some on-line calculators that would give you even more different results.
I think that Palmer is too high, Foster is too low, and that there isn't a linear relationship between the amount of priming sugar and the volumes of CO2. (You need more than double the amount of priming sugar to double the volume of CO2.

-a.

ajf said:

Assuming a 5g batch, and drinking at 55F:
According to John Palmer's nomograph (Brewing Classic Styles), 5 oz corn sugar would result in 3.25 volumes CO2
According to Terry Foster (Pale Ale), 5 oz corn sugar would result in about 1.8 volumes CO2

Click to expand...

I think you might be reading Palmer's nomograph wrong (if it's the same one as on How to Brew). The temperature from the nomograph is the temperature at which the beer is bottled, not served.

Your'e right. That makes it 2.75 instead of 3.25 Still a long way away from the 1.8 that Foster says
I also checked with Promash and some on line calculators, and they all came out about 2.7 volumes.

Perhaps it's just Foster and me that is wrong.

-a.

Does Foster take into account the amount of CO2 in the beer before it is primed? At room temperature, beer has about 0.8 volumes of CO2 just from being at equilibrium with the atmosphere. Maybe Foster's calculations give the amount of CO2 added to the beer with a given amount of priming.

Yes he does, but his assumption is 0.4 - 0.5 volumes. He doesn't however take temperature into account.

-a.

In the end I dutifully weighed out my 3.2g of priming sugar per this web site:
KotMF: Priming Sugar Calculator
Then took a look at an IPA recipe which called for 3/4cup of primer for 5gals. Well my 5oz was less than that, so I added it all.
The good thing about this, my second batch is that even flat without bottle conditioning it tastes pretty good. I think once the hops mellow somewhat it will be awesome. A little cloudy, but I don't feel inclined to go out and pressure filter through a 0.5 micron mesh.