Yet another priming sugar thread

[GrittyGrizzler]

I bottled my first batch yesterday, a 2.5 gallon (2.1 yield) batch of IPA. Regarding priming sugar, Palmer's book says: "boil 3/4 cup of corn sugar (4 oz by weight), or 2/3 cup of white sugar ..." Since I was bottling a 2.5 gallon batch, I used 1/3 cup of pure cane sugar. This does not seem to be out of bounds with regards to standard practices. I understand that weight is preferred to volume for priming sugar measurement, and I was curious what effect variations in volume-weight relationships due to granularity, settling and moisture differences might have had on how much sugar I put into my brew.

The "internet average" weight of 1 tbsp of white sugar is 12.55 grams. At this conversion factor, Palmer's recommended 2/3 cup per 5 gallon batch would be 4.7 oz, and for my half-batch I should expect to measure about 2.35 oz of cane sugar. At this weight, BeerSmith calculates 3.1 vols of CO2, which is definitely high for an IPA, and exceeds the mark that the Northern Brewer guide to advanced bottle conditioning recommends as a safe maximum for 12 oz bottles.

I measured 1/3 cup of the same cane sugar I primed with and weighed it on a postal scale, after repeating this 5 times I can say with 95% confidence that 1/3 cup of my pure cane sugar weighs 3.3+/-0.1 oz. Clearly, I've got some heavy sugar. BeerSmith calculates almost 4.1 vols of CO2 for this amount of priming sugar. I'm new, but this sounds like the making of bottle bombs.

I'm guessing my options are: 1) crack open the bottles and go back into the fermentor for a few days, reprime, rebottle or 2) crack open the bottles to release CO2 after some unspecified amount of time, then recap, or 3) check the carb level in about 5 days and move bottles into fridge if carbonated enough.

Option 1 seems like the safest bet, but risks oxygenation, contamination, and makes wasted caps, effort and additional cleaning. Option 2 seems like a complete crapshoot with respect to what final carbonation is achieved. Option 3 seems most in the spirit of RDWHHB and requires the least amount of additional materials, time and effort, but is also the most likely to yield bottles that blow up in faces. How much will the refrigeration slow the carbonation process?

To summarize, I'd like some thoughts/comments on what to do with my beer. Additionally, I'd like to provoke some discussion regarding variability in weight-volume relationships for priming sugar. Plenty of home brewers only use volumetric measurements, and it seems to me that this introduces high uncertainty regarding the amount of sugar that actually gets bottled. I used an average product (Wal-Mart brand cane sugar out of a 5 lb bag) in average conditions (dry, room temperature storage), repeated measurements, and still exceeded the average weight/volume factor by an appreciable amount (over +1 oz at 1/3 cup volume). Factors such as humidity and granularity affect the density of cane sugar in intuitive ways, but what is the range of conditions that brewers can expect to encounter? Cane sugar absorbs moisture, but how much? Furthermore, if a change in density is the result of moisture absorption, and not decreased porosity (greater settling, finer grains), then are brewers still better served using weight measurements? After all, 3 oz of dry sugar that has absorbed 0.25 oz of moisture weighs 3.25 oz, but only has 3 oz of fermentable sugar.

 

[HBCBrewmaster]

What if you check one bottle evry 2-3 days when you are close to being carbonated. When you feel the carbonation is right for the beer, refrigerate all but 2-3 bottles. The refrigeration should arrest the fermentation in the bottles and the few beers you set asside will allow you to monitor the carbonation levels. If you drink one evry few weeks you'll get an idea of how much carbonation that ammount of priming sugar makes and then back off the next time arround. 2.5 gallons is only about a case so I'm guessing it won't take long to drink the batch. If it were me I would definitely not dump the beer back into a fermenter and then try to re bottle later. I just think that is asking for problems.

That's my 2 cents

 

[HBCBrewmaster]

In Papazians Joy Of Homebrewing he uses a formula for Krautzening (adding unfermented wort to bottle condition)

Krausen formula: (12 x Gallons of wort)/[(OG-1) x 1000]= quarts of wert needed

What I find interresting about this formula is that mathematically, it dictates useing less sugar to condition a higher OG brew. Why? And if there is a good reason for this then why wouldnt the same principle aply to using cane sugar or corn sugar? Could it be that he has just dramatically simplified the math of a much more complicated process for the home brewer?

 

[GrittyGrizzler]

Thanks for the advice, Dschuetz. I have no idea what's going on with that formula either, definitely counterintuitive.

I put my beers in a plastic container with a lid, and I'm just going to monitor them and see how it goes.

The most interesting thing to me was the difference in how much my sugar weighed vs the reported averages on the internet. Everything is normal about my sugar, i.e., I wouldn't expect it to be more or less granular than any other type.

If the reason for the increased weight is hygroscopic action by the sugar, then that significantly complicates the conventional wisdom which claims that weighing sugar is more accurate than a volumetric measurement. After all, as sugar absorbs water, its weight increases much more rapidly than its volume.

Then again, maybe I just have heavy sugar, or a screwed up scale.

 

[wyzazz]

I'd uncap the bottles and put sanitized foil over the top and let that priming sugar ferment out, then use carb tabs or carb drops to re-prime them and cap. That's your safest option IMHO. If you put them in the fridge with residual sugar in there, I'd be willing to bet that they taste sweet.

 

[HBCBrewmaster]

Then again, maybe I just have heavy sugar, or a screwed up scale.[/QUOTE]

Well I've never been fond of postal scales especially if they are those old kind with the spring action. I bought a very small Escalli digital scale for about 25.00 at the HBS and It works very nicely. It also gets a lot of use in the kitchen.

 

[quanty]

I know this is old,

but how did your brew turn out?

I'm in a similar situation right now. My LHBS instructions recommended 3/4 to 1 cup of corn sugar. I added slightly shy of 1 cup. Later, i decided weigh out 1 cup and see if the weight corresponded to what i had googled (1 cup = 4 oz), but mine weighed 5 oz. To top it off, after filling all my bottles i only have 4.5 gallons, not 5. So, im hoping this works out ok!

 

[arath]

I know this is old,

but how did your brew turn out?

I'm in a similar situation right now. My LHBS instructions recommended 3/4 to 1 cup of corn sugar. I added slightly shy of 1 cup. Later, i decided weigh out 1 cup and see if the weight corresponded to what i had googled (1 cup = 4 oz), but mine weighed 5 oz. To top it off, after filling all my bottles i only have 4.5 gallons, not 5. So, im hoping this works out ok!

I just bottled my first pale- I used the tastybrew.com calculator, and used 4.7 oz of sugar for 5 gallons- but it ended up that I only had 4.5 gallons...so similar situation...What ended up happening with your batch?