Brown Sugar

I am in the process of fermenting a Porter right now. I have been reading up on how you can carbonate with brown sugar and was thinking of trying to do that with this porter batch. Would this be a good idea? Also if I could do this how much brown sugar would you recommend using would it be three fourths of cup just the same as priming sugar? Also would I prepare it the same as I would the priming sugar? Thank you for the help and advice.

Personally I wouldn't bother using it. Priming for me is one of those things that need to be consistent. Find a method that works and stick with it.

Yeeaah man....Thanks Gary

I wouldn't- I do not like the taste of fermented brown sugar. It leaves an unpleasant (not sweet) molasses taste behind.

Don't do it run!!!!

gdenmark said:

I am in the process of fermenting a Porter right now. I have been reading up on how you can carbonate with brown sugar and was thinking of trying to do that with this porter batch. Would this be a good idea? Also if I could do this how much brown sugar would you recommend using would it be three fourths of cup just the same as priming sugar? Also would I prepare it the same as I would the priming sugar? Thank you for the help and advice.

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Before experimenting with different kind of priming sugars, invest in a scale. Volume is a very poor way to measure your priming sugar, and is rather inconsistent.

That's pretty good advice, a cheap kitchen scale that fairly accurately measures in fractions of an ounce can be had for less than $20 thanks to teh interwebs.

I use it for Porters and traditional IPAs. I like it. Treat it the same as table sugar. Use scales rather than volume measurements. While corn sugar and table sugar tend to be fairly consistent with volume measures, different brown sugars seem to have different volumes for the same weight; they have different grain sizes and the molasses absorbs water and it can stick together.

1 oz to 1 gallon will give you about 3 volumes of CO2, which is on the high side for most beers. I like a lot of carbonation and generally go with 5.5 ozs of either brown or table sugar for 6.5 gallons.

Use the same way as priming sugar; dissolve in water, bring to boil and then mix with wort in bottling bucket.