Can anyone tell me what kind of sugar and how much water do I need for an IPA?

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Elysium

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Hello everyone.

This is my 1st post here. I have just started homebrewing with an IPA. It is a 23-liter batch and now it is time for the second (bottle) fermentation. However, the instructions only say "I need a glass of water and 5-6 grams of sugar per litre". This kinda makes perfect sense. I'll need 23 glasses of water and 115 grams of sugar...but I have no clue how big that "glass" should be. 2 or 3 dl?

Another thing is the sugar.....can I use any kinds of sugar? My favorite sugar is brown sugar that we use for brownies....will that do? Or shall I stick to the normal white sugar?

Thanks.
 
You only need enough water to dissolve the sugar- 2 cups (.5 liter) will do just fine. I'd use 155 grams of corn sugar total for the amount of sugar.

For sugar, you can use white table sugar or corn sugar for this. don't use brown sugar or honey or anything, as they are different in the amount of fermentables and you could have some issues with the beer not carbing up, or worse, bottles exploding.

Make a batch with traditional priming sugar first, to make sure your process is sound, and then you can experiment in later batches.
 
You can use white or brown sugar, most people use corn sugar because it dissolves easy. Typically boil a cup of water add 2/3 cup sugar stir to dissolve then pour into bottom of bottle bucket rack beer over then some people stir gently, I find racking over allowing beer to swirl is enough to mix all together just fine. Congrats on your first beer. Cheers!!
 
Ok, then for the 23 liter batch of my IPA I can simply use about 115-138 grams of sugar dissolved in just enough water. No need to worry about the quantity of water...I guess.
By the way......do you know if it is okay that I added 20 liters of water to the malt extract...instead of making it 20 liters with the malt extract together?
I mean...will this affect the taste a lot? Shall I be more careful with this one next time?

Thanks a lot for the reply.
 
Ok, then for the 23 liter batch of my IPA I can simply use about 115-138 grams of sugar dissolved in just enough water. No need to worry about the quantity of water...I guess.
By the way......do you know if it is okay that I added 20 liters of water to the malt extract...instead of making it 20 liters with the malt extract together?
I mean...will this affect the taste a lot? Shall I be more careful with this one next time?

Thanks a lot for the reply.

If you added more water, the beer will be slightly watered down.
 
Guys, sorry for asking so many questions.....but the one glass of water with the sugar in it....goes straight into the fermenting bucket? I just pour it in and that's it? Let it disperse on its own and start bottling straight away?
 
Guys, sorry for asking so many questions.....but the one glass of water with the sugar in it....goes straight into the fermenting bucket? I just pour it in and that's it? Let it disperse on its own and start bottling straight away?

It's much easier to use a bottling bucket. You'd pour your solution into the bottling bucket, then siphon the beer into that and let it mix.

You probably don't want to just pour the sugar solution into the fermenter and stir- because then all the stuff on the bottom of the fermenter would be all mixed into the beer and it would be chunky and cloudy then.
 
thanks a lot guys. I was wondering.....when i siphon the beer into the bottling bucket,can I contaminate it in any ways? It is my first batch and I have no clue what I have to be careful with when transferring the liquid. thanks.
 
thanks a lot guys. I was wondering.....when i siphon the beer into the bottling bucket,can I contaminate it in any ways? It is my first batch and I have no clue what I have to be careful with when transferring the liquid. thanks.

If you sanitize the equipment, you won't have any issues. Just do your best not to splash the beer, and try to siphon gently, and you'll be fine!
 
Maybe read Revvy's Bottling sticky? It's got a lot of good information. Just do as Yooper suggests. Careful handling to prevent splashing and you will do fine. I also like to use an autosiphon, cause I think it makes things much easier, but you don't really HAVE to have one if you can start a siphon without.
 
Homercidal said:
Maybe read Revvy's Bottling sticky? It's got a lot of good information. Just do as Yooper suggests. Careful handling to prevent splashing and you will do fine. I also like to use an autosiphon, cause I think it makes things much easier, but you don't really HAVE to have one if you can start a siphon without.

Good advise ... The auto siphon is awesome well worth the extra couple bucks, once you have one you won't ever use a regular siphon again.
 
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