Corn sugar? Corn syrup?

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bingkean

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Hi, I have heard that corn sugar is the best choice for priming sugar when bottling. I know that corn sugar and high fructose corn syrup are two different things, but there is a corn syrup that would work for priming sugar right? It just seems to me like it would really dissolve into water quite easily.
 
Corn sugar dissolves pretty easily, too. Dump it in and stir it.

EDIT: I was too cheap with my words. I meant it dissolves easily in water (for boiling!)
 
Dump it in and stir it.

Neither of those are optimal methods for priming your beer, unless you like liquid cardboard or possibly infected beer.

The easiest way is to boil your priming sugar in two cups of water, let it cool and add it to the bottling bucket while racking, letting the motion of the beer as it rises in the bucket mix the beer and the priming solution.

I don't know that corn syrup wouldn't work as a priming material, but you would need to know the sugar content in the volume of syrup to calculate how much to use. AND you would also need to boil it in some water.

Boiling not only dillutes the sugar, but it also most importantly sanitizes it.

If you stir you run the risk of adding unwanted oxygen to the beer, which could cause oxydation and leave you with a wet cardboard taste, which I try to avoid, by letting the Coriolis effect take effect.

There are some great tips for bottling here, https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/bottling-tips-homebrewer-94812/
 
Store-bought corn syrup, such as Karo, contains other unwanted ingredients such as preservatives. I can't remember offhand what they are, but the label will tell you. Best to just use the corn sugar, as Revvy said.
 
Revvy said "If you stir you run the risk of adding unwanted oxygen to the beer, which could cause oxydation and leave you with a wet cardboard taste, which I try to avoid, by letting the Coriolis effect take effect".


ya but do you fill with your left hand when in the southern hemisphere?
 
If you are just looking for something easily available, plain old table sugar works fine for priming. Like corn sugar though, you need to boil it first and then rack on top of it in the bottling bucket.
 
Everyone has probably noticed that the corn syrup industry is under some pretty heavy fire lately. I've heard they are trying to change the name from "corn syrup" to "corn sugar" as a result. That is really going to F with us isn't it.
 
Everyone has probably noticed that the corn syrup industry is under some pretty heavy fire lately. I've heard they are trying to change the name from "corn syrup" to "corn sugar" as a result. That is really going to F with us isn't it.

Yeah I've been thinking the same thing. It sucks. As one of those folks who buys "bootleg" mexican coke with REAL sugar, I hate how "High Fructose corn syrup" has taken over the market place, and now they want to make it all sound so nice and "organic."
 
Yeah I've even been buying the new corn syrup free ketchups. You ever buy those Jarritos sodas? Those are really good too. I developed a real hatred for corn syrup after watching the documentary "King Corn."
 
Yeah I've even been buying the new corn syrup free ketchups. You ever buy those Jarritos sodas? Those are really good too. I developed a real hatred for corn syrup after watching the documentary "King Corn."

Jarritos rule!!! And now those are even carried at Meijer's and chain groceries.
 
Revvy, make up your mind!

Neither of those are optimal methods for priming your beer, unless you like liquid cardboard or possibly infected beer.



It takes a lot of splashing to do any damage, someone on basic brewing years ago, (Palmer, or Chris Colby of BYO) said that in order to truly provide enough O2 to oxydize our beers it would take pumping an entire one of our red oxygen bottle/airstones into our beer AFTER fermentation is complete.

Most of the splashing intentional or accidental that we do in the course of our brewing will not harm it...

Which one is it?
 
Revvy, make up your mind!







Which one is it?

Well I consider stirring the beer to mix the sugar to be NOT IN THE NORMAL COURSE OF BREWING, nor an accident like a racking splash, but something deliberate that could harm you beer. No mind needs to be made up I don't see anything contradictory in what I said. ;)

We're not talking about a panicked noob giving his autosiphon an extra pump and starting an is my beer ruined panic thread.
 
Hmm, thanks for the information. I actually read the first couple of pages of that bottling thread before I posted here. There is a lot of great info there too. However, I did not see much about my question.

A couple of you had a little info on sugar, but I don't understand what the difference is in the dry corn sugar yet. What if that thing about the preservatives messing with beer may be lies spread by home brew supply stores to get you to shop there? Just kidding, but I really don't know about the stuff messing with the beer.

I actually talked with a guy at a major macro beer manufacturer, and he said they use karo in their beer. I think he was talking about the fermenting stage. I hate their beer, but I think they have to be even more careful about messing with the taste of their light beer than I would care to be while making flavorful beers that can even hide mistakes sometimes.

What is the real difference in corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, corn sugar, and table sugar from the standpoint of brewing? Does anyone know?

On a side note, I did some research online, and noticed the thing about the corn industry or whoever trying to make their ingredients have prettier names. It really screwed with my research, and I do think it will mess with brewers in the future (it already has as we all know about it).

I also saw that documentary. It sucks that big businesses look for cheaper sweetener alternatives, but I'm not sure what to do about that. I like those Mexican sodas too. American ones used to be like that.
 
Now I'm conflicted - I can either stir (gently) my priming sugar/water solution in my bottling bucket and risk oxidation, or rely on the natural swirling action to mix my solution while racking but risk under/over carbing my bottles. :drunk:
 
Now I'm conflicted - I can either stir (gently) my priming sugar/water solution in my bottling bucket and risk oxidation, or rely on the natural swirling action to mix my solution while racking but risk under/over carbing my bottles. :drunk:

Well, I've never gotten over/undercarbed bottles by letting it naturally mix by my method...If I did, then I wouldn't be using OR advocating it would I? My experience has been that 2 cups of sugar water mixes quite evenly when added to the bottom of a bottling bucket and letting my beer rack on to it, or even better adding half to the bottom and the other half when the beer reaches half the bottling bucket.


But you KNOW how some folks are, GENTLY may not be in their vocabulary. Like the guy on here that once dumped a tablespoon or teaspoon of olive oil into his wort because upon reading on here the olive oil aeration threads, and despite the discussion about it being a scant drop, in his mind thought that "if one drop is good more will be better." Some folks will take "stirring" to mean "beat it into a bloody froth." Hence my recommendation is NOT to stir..

So I gave my advice, if yours is different, give it....*shrug* There's many ways to skin a cat. And I've said it over and over, "ask 10 homebrewers the same question and you'll get 12 different answers, and they ALL will be right."

I mean are you feeling especially trollish right now?:confused:
 
Corn syrup contains polysaccharides...or starch...of corn sugar. Yeast does not ferment starches...however, there is still enzymes from the malt that will break down the starches, so it seems to me that corn syrup may work. Try it out and let us know.
 
In my experience when bottling with corn syrup, it definately carbonated my beer but didn't carbonate it enough. I used northern brewers priming sugar calculator and the measurements were off. I gave it a shot because it was cheaper but corn sugar really isn't expensive; I would definately recommend corn sugar over the alternative.
 
Also one more thing,

I have been bottling beer for some time and I stir my beer while adding boiled sterilized corn sugar in water. I lightly stir the beer after adding the solution. I have aged beer for 4 months and have had NO CARDBOARD FLAVOR. If you lightly stir the solution, you most likely won't get any off flavors. BREW ON!
 
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