Bottle conditioning: corn sugar or dry yeast?

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tanderson36

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I am bottling two 5 gallon batches this weekend, a habanero white ipa (1.057 OG) and a bourbon barrel porter (1.065 OG). I have 5 oz of corn sugar and 11.5g of Safale US-05 dry ale yeast. I'd like to try carbonating one batch using the yeast and can use the corn sugar for the other. I was thinking the yeast for the porter, but wasn't sure if I should use the whole packet when bottling. Any suggestions?
 
I am bottling two 5 gallon batches this weekend, a habanero white ipa (1.057 OG) and a bourbon barrel porter (1.065 OG). I have 5 oz of corn sugar and 11.5g of Safale US-05 dry ale yeast. I'd like to try carbonating one batch using the yeast and can use the corn sugar for the other. I was thinking the yeast for the porter, but wasn't sure if I should use the whole packet when bottling. Any suggestions?
 
You will need sugar to prime regardless of whether you add yeast or not. I would save that yeast for a future beer.
 
Right. No reason to add more yeast. It won't do anything to carbonate your bottles, unless something went wrong with the fermentation.
 
Definitely just the corn sugar.

And if you ever do need to add additional yeast at bottling, you would only need about 3g for a 5 gallon batch. The only time I have ever done this was after long lager periods. Even then it probably wasn't necessary, just insurance.
 
The porter was racked over to a barrel after secondary about a month ago, and was brewed two months ago, so I figured the existing yeast might need some help.

Could I use the 5 oz of corn sugar for both batches, and split it in half, or should I use all 5 oz for one and cane sugar for the other batch?
 
Just use a priming calculator to figure out how much sugar to use. Tastybrew has a free one that's easy to use.

To add to that, the (US style, presumably) IPA will need more sugar than the porter - it should be more highly carbonated. 4 oz of corn sugar would be a safe guess for a 5 gallon batch of IPA. For the porter, 2-3 oz might be better. You can just use table sugar, especially in a darker style like a porter, where the slight possibility of a cidery taste would be well hidden. The exact quantity of sugar required depends on the highest temperature each beer has seen since the end of fermentation, which is something the calculator will ask for. Use the calculator, but you should get somewhere close to those quantities above.

For each batch dissolve the sugar in boiling water, cool, then rack the beer to the bottling bucket on top, making sure that the sugar is well mixed in to the beer, and you don't get flat or gushing bottles.
 
To add to that, the (US style, presumably) IPA will need more sugar than the porter - it should be more highly carbonated.

Maybe. While most would want a higher level of carbonation in an IPA, the porter has been aged longer in a barrel, and will likely have less residual CO2 than the IPA. Hence the calculator suggestion.

Most calculators don't take age in wood into consideration, so for the porter it might be prudent to target .2-.5 volumes over what you actually want when running the numbers.
 
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