Cheapest Method of Carbing

[jerryalan]

Good afternoon!

My brother and I are wondering what is the cheapest method of carbonating a five gallon keg of beer. Natural carbing with corn sugar / DME, or force carbing? This is assuming that the CO2 tank and all required accessories are already purchased.

Thanks!

 

[BendBrewer]

You are talking about pennies at this point. I don't know. How much is 4 oz of Corn Sugar these days?

 

[PVH]

Guessing table sugar is the cheapest.

In any case, why worry about this small cost now? It is much better, IMO, to do what's right for the beer and your current setup. If you have fridge space, why grow more yeast in the keg by naturally carbing? If you don't have the space, naturally carbing can be a great way to let the beer hang out while you free up space in the fridge (drink beer).

 

[scottland]

Table sugar - We're talking like 7/cents per batch.

Corn sugar is more expensive, but not much, maybe 20-30 cents per batch - I'd use this over table sugar because it's trusted over table sure, and we're talking a 25/cent difference.

C02 is fairly cheap, I get mine filled for $1/pound. I probably get shorted a little, but still $5 for a 3-5lb fill is cheap. I'll get like 7-8 kegs out of that. That's carbed and dispensed. 2.5 vol per beer to carb, plus 1vol to dispense. that means 70% or so of the CO2 is used for carbing. Meaning you could carb 10-11 kegs from one 5# bottle.

~50 cents per batch.

DME is probably the most expensive at $3.99/lb. That's about $1 per batch.

 

[jerryalan]

I usually force carb my beers but my bro is naturally carbing so we started wondering what's cheapest. Sounds like it really doesn't matter much because it'd take many batches to realize a cost savings that could go towards something useful

Thanks for the replies!

 

[TomSD]

I'm far more interested in reducing the sediment in my keg than saving a couple pennies. I also don't force carb but that is a personal preference. I like having a couple more weeks age on my beers before tapping them.

 

[Zen_Brew]

Cheapest method by far:

Pick up measuring cup, walk over to neighbors house.
"Uh, I am out of sugar, do you think you could see your way to filling me up a 1/2 cup or so?"

Cost of measuring cup....Hopefully you already had that
Cost of sugar......$0.00
Drinking your fresh homebrew in a couple weeks....Priceless