A question of bottling

Hi
I'm new here and I'm new at brewing. I have made 4 ales so far. All 4 ended up being very tasty.
Now I have a cascade pale ale in secondary that was dry hopped.

My question is this: I was told by the homebrew store owner in town here that I can prime my bottles with 3/4cup extract per 5gal. Is this true? I'll be bottling this weekend and i have 3/4cup extract in the fridge. All my previous brews i primed with dextrose and they all came out a little bit weaker than the samples i tried throughout fermentation. Will liquid extract prime the bottles enough or do i need to try something else?

I also heard you can prime with some saved wort(pre-pitched). Is this true? If so, what is the process of saving the wort and how much do i use for 5gallons?

Thanks

You can prime with dried malt extract so I don't see why you couldn't use liquid extract by just adding a bit of water and boiling it for 15 minutes. I have used DME once and although it worked it did seem to take longer to get to the same carbonation level as corn sugar. Approximately 2 weeks longer if I remember right.
What do you mean when you say the beer you primed with came out weaker? How much liquid did you add?

Priming with 3/4 cup dextrose is equivalent to using 1.25 cup DME (dry). I have never used LME (liquid) for this, but it would be possible. You would need more than 1.25 cup, maybe 1.5... someone else could probably be more precise.

Unfermented wort used for priming is called gyle. You could save some in a sanitized mason jar in the fridge. I would also be intrested in the amount needed to prime 5 gallons.

- magno

Yes, you can prime with DME. I might take a little longer, but it works fine.

You could also do it with wort, because all wort is is DME boiled in water, right? OK maybe with some hops, but.....you can prime with any fermentable sugar. The problem is ease of measurement. That's why most people either prime with corn sugar or DME.

Best of luck, and welcome to the forum!

Damn, I type slow!

I use both, 3/4 cup dextrose and 1/4 cup DME. Works fine but I do add a week to the wait to make sure the DME is consumed.

I like the effects of bottle conditioning with DME a lot better than with priming sugar (that statement may open up a whole debate that has been played out on this board before). I think that it makes "tighter" bubbles and a "softer" head. . . if those adjectives make any sense.