priming sugar

I am out of priming sugar that normally comes with my Brewers best extract kits.
I was wondering, what type of sugar is it?

Can I just go to the store and buy some?

Is there any difference in what you buy at the grocery store (sugarwise) and what comes in the kits normaaly?

My guess its a powdered or granulated corn sugar?
Anyone have a suggestion for what I can look for?

thanks

It's corn sugar.

White table sugar is not as good because it's sucrose. Corn sugar is fructose so it ferments more quickly and cleanly. Another option is to make invert sugar out of table sugar, but if you can get corn sugar, that's definitely easiest.

Cheers

How do you make invert sugar out of table sugar, just out of curiousity? I assume it's more than just turning the bag upside down.

You can always prime with DME as well if you have some extra lying around. I can't remember off the top of my head, but I think its 1 1/4 cups for a 5 gal. batch

Here's a thread on invert sugar:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=592

Read the whole thing because I was wrong on some points in my first post. And while I used lemon that first time, I have since bought citric acid (at the homebrew store) and it's more convenient.

It's really easy to do. I use it in a lot of my beers.

honey 1 cup
maple syrup 1.25 cup
molasses 1 cup (i only recomend using this in dark big beers the flavor is coying and overpowering)
brown sugar 2/3 cup
cane sugar 2/3 cup
d.m.e. 1.25 cup

So I can go to the store and get a large amount of granulated or powder corn sugar and never have to buy priming sugar again?
As long as the recipe calls for it that is?
I havent looked at the sugar aisle latetly, is there any suprises I need to know about. Like I should get raw corn sugar or bleached or anything wierd?
thanks

They dont sell corn sugar at most supermarkets. Look at a health food store for fructose or a hippy store like Whole Foods. Damn Hippies!!

Just out of curiosity, what about corn syrup? Anybody ever use that? And if so, what kind of equivalents are we talking about?

I hate to disagree, but I think "corn sugar" is dextrose (aka glucose). I don't think fructose can yield ethanol.

If I'm wrong, my education has been a waste.

fructose, glucose (dextrose), maltose, sucrose are all fermentable by beer yeast...lactose is not...

I looked up some stuff. Fructose is fruit sugar.
Corn sugar is dextrose.
The kits look like they have dextrose or a mix of dextrose and something else?

eastwood44mag said:

I hate to disagree, but I think "corn sugar" is dextrose (aka glucose). I don't think fructose can yield ethanol.

If I'm wrong, my education has been a waste.

Click to expand...

Nahh, your education was not a waste...but then again, they did teach you that graphite and diamonds are both the same stuff? It is much the same here, with slightly different crystalline structures between sucrose, fructose, dextrose, maltose, lactose...all sugar, but a smidgeon different when looking at how they react under varying conditions, such as fermentation. Thus endeth this afternoon's minor chemistry factoid..oh, and to get back to something near the topic...just put the first batch of beer I ever made (Irish Stout kit from the local HBS) into bottles..and it did taste delightfully delicious...now, can I wait for the conditioning to be done...only time will tell...

John

Xpoc

Next time you order a kit or head to the LHBS pick up a extra 3lbs bag of wheat DME and use that to prime. I use about 9 oz per 5 gallons and it last for a good length of time (about 5 batches), stores well, and it will add a bit of head retention to your brews.

Pumbaa likes Head

Alembic said:

Just out of curiosity, what about corn syrup? Anybody ever use that? And if so, what kind of equivalents are we talking about?

Click to expand...

Corn Syrup is mostly fructose.
I should carbonate just fine.
I use 5 oz just like glucose.
Fructose and Glucose have exactly the same chemical formula, but a slightly different structure.
The same quantities should produce the same amount of CO2.

5oz ~= 150 grams.
So just multiply the # of servings by the # grams of sugar/serving and you can prorate the quantity in the container to get about 5 oz.

I eyeball it with a slightly heavy hand.

Works just fine.


Greyhair

IMHO, Cane sugar is OK for priming.

Think about it. your going to add 5 oz to carbonate 5 gallons of beer.
You already added about 100 oz equivalant of LME, so the percentage of cane sugar is about 5%.

Yeah, it might add a little more esters, but at such a low concentration, I really can't say I've noticed.

But then again, I've got old taste buds.

Greyhair