just another beer drinker

Hello all...great site here thats help me quite a bit so far.

Still new at this hobby of mine, I have been doing the 5 gal thing since spring and have done a Honey porter, honey irish stout, coffee bock, honey octoberfest and in the bucket at this time a strawberry-rhubarb ipa.
They have all been pretty good so far and i like using honey to kick them up a notch. I used kits that i modified a bit with the first 4 but for the S-R ipa i grew the fruit and used a light malt extract and crushed pale ale malt grains, fuggles leaf hops and some pellets and the requisit honey. Its got a ruddy brown color and taste pretty good so far. I have had to double rack it as it was cloudier than my prior batches.
Now I'd like to bottle it but dont know what to use for priming, i'd like to use either a malk extract or honey but am afraid of putting too much in creating the infamous "bottle rocket" I could go buy some priming suger but i'd rather not use that if i can avoid it. Do any of you out there know how much honey or malt to use for priming?

thanks in advance,

Steve

That IPA sounds delicious! It will most likely stay a little hazy due to the fruit and hop characteristics, so don't fret too much about the clarity there.

With DME, you will use a little more to prime, but it all depends on the amount of carbonation you want. I don't approach it as a science or anything, but I use 3/4 cup (about 5 oz) of corn sugar, or 1.25 cups (about 5.5 oz) of DME. This gives about 2.5 volumes at about 35 deg. That translates to a nice head w/o being overly foamy. I use a little less for stouts. I don't use DME anymore because it takes a long time to carb and there is a lot more slurry/trub in each bottle. With the DME the yeasts will actually multiply, but with dextrose, they just make a little alc and CO2, then go to sleep - known as the Crabtree effect. It's the reason why you don't use dextrose in a starter. Some have claimed better mouthfeel from DME, but I haven't really found anything spectacular. Smaller bubbles maybe.


I can't speak on the honey, but being almost 100% fermentable it should work.
This guy uses it, and he says to use 3.5 oz (by weight).

I think i will go with the honey as my primer as im hoping to have this beer as a holidays ale and i was scared off with the takes a longer time with dme statement. I started the beer on 24 oct, added the fruit slurry and honey the next day. Racked it to carboy after 2 weeks,strained it back into the bucket last week (as i wanted to clear it up some)and want to bottle it tomorrow. My initail sg before the fruit was 1064 last week it was at 1018 and i havent caught it bubbling so i feel ready to go. This is my first time really winging it but every sip along the way leads me to believe its going to be a good one. I kept good records and my Strawberries and rhubarb will grow each year so im looking to make it my seasonal special.

Steve

Sounds like you're off to a great start, Welcome to the forum

I like to use malt powder 1 1/4 cup to prime. Honey sound like a great idea too. Let us know how much you use and if it worked well.

Happy New Year all!

Well the strawberry-rhubarb ipa was/is a great success. Everybody is raving about it, I'm down to just 6 12oz bottles and 1 22 oz bottle. (and havent even started another batch
Well as far as using honey as a primer--it worked great! i will be using it to prime from now on. I used 6 oz(net weight)dissolved in 1.5 cups of cooled boiled water for a 5 gallon batch and it was drinkable in 2 weeks and poured a great head at a months time. I thank the member who gave me the link to the guy who used honey. (Chillhayze)
so any of you wanting to use honey as a priming suger i say go for it!

next up a honey porter!

MBM

congrats man, I happy to hear that it turned out well for you! BTW that sounds tasty...