BrewFerm Belgian Extract Kit Question

[VaNewbieWRB]

Have been home brewing for about 6 months now. Have made some great beer with extract kits. Lately i've been drinking a lot of high abv belgian beers, and decided I wanted to make one. I purchased a BrewFerm Belgian Abbey Ale extract kit. This thing comes with some very detailed instructions. One of the things the instructions are very clear about is using corn sugar for carbonation when bottling. I have never used corn sugar, and have always used the carbo drops sold my most home brew supply stores. I emailed BrewFerm, not realizing they were in fact in Belgium. They said they had never heard of carbo drops and instructed me to stick with the instructions that came with the kit. My question here is: Has anyone here made one of these kits? Did you use the corn sugar? I thought the carbo drops were just solidified corn sugar? Any insight is helpful. Thanks

 

[frazier]

FWIW, since I've never made a Belgian, but:

1) I have never noticed, nor have I ever heard anyone say they noticed, a difference between corn and table sugar, as far as carbonation is concerned.

2) The people to ask about the contents of the carbo drops, are the people who make them.

3) Do you have access to a LHBS? They would certainly have corn sugar, albeit with the extra expense and hassle of procuring it.

4) You said the instructions specified corn sugar - did they say NOT to use any other type? Refer to item #1 above.

The drawback I see to the carbo drops is that you have a hard time changing the volume of CO2 created. Belgians typically are carbonated to a higher level - do you really want to add 1.25 tablets (or whatever it would be) to each bottle? But whatever method you choose - corn sugar, table sugar, or tablets - you will certainly get beer.

Cheers!

 

[m00ps]

corn sugar is just dextrose that is basically the easiest thing for yeast to eat. You can just use table sugar too if you want, but the amount to hit your target Vol CO2 will be different
northernbrewer.com/priming-sugar-calculator/
I would start bulk-priming your batches. Its much cheaper, easier, and has less chance of oxidation as opposed to dropping those things in each bottle

 

[Sailingeric]

Brewer's Friend web site and phone app has a good carbing calculator depending what you are using and they style of beer.