Has anyone ever used brown sugar as a primer? I am wondering if it will effect taste? and how long it will take to carb up? I was thinking of using it in a brown ale or a porter.
My buddy that got me into homebrew uses brown sugar for priming. As far as I understand, that's all he uses. I will be bottling my first batch this weekend, so I'm a little hesitant to use anything other than what my recipe calls for. I want to see what it's supposed to taste like before I start screwing with ingredients.
I used brown sugar once to prime a Brown Ale I made. It didn't really make a difference in the taste, but I've been told that what you use to prime the beer won't really lend too much to the overall flavor. Now, I could easily be wrong about that, but personally, I don't recall it making a big difference in the taste. I don't remember how long it took to fully carb as this was before I started taking detailed notes . But as far as I can remember the beer was at a nice level by 3 weeks. Oh, and according to the Midwest catalogue, you'll need 2/3 cup for a five gallon batch if you're bottling and 1/3 cup if you're kegging.