Does the temperature of the beer affect the amount of priming sugar to add?

[RustySteve]

Hi Everyone!

I'm new here and have a questions about priming sugar.

I'm bottling my first batch of beer tonight and I have a question. Currently, my beer is cold crashing. When looking at this priming calculator: https://www.northernbrewer.com/priming-sugar-calculator,

I see that the temperature of the beer seems to really affect the amount of corn sugar I need to use.

Do I need to measure the temperature of the beer when I'm about to bottle and use that to calculate the sugar I need to add or use the room temperature of where I will store my beer?

Thanks for the help!

 

[TheMadKing]

You should enter the highest temperature that the beer was at for an extended period of time (more than a few hours).

The temperature of the beer affects how much CO2 is left in solution from the fermentation. For example, a beer fermented at 55F and immediately chilled will have more CO2 in solution than a beer fermented at 65 and then raised to 70. Likewise, the same first beer fermented at 55 and raised to 70 will have the same residual CO2 level as the second beer that was also raised to 70. This happens because the solubility of CO2 decreases with increasing temperature. So as the temperature of the beer increases, CO2 becomes a gas and leaves the solution.

Since the CO2 is only produced during fermentation, the amount of CO2 in solution before bottling is determined by the highest temperature the beer was at.

 

[RustySteve]

ok, so if I understand correctly I should use the temperature where the beer was fermented at since this would have been the highest temperature for the longest period of time?

 

[TheMadKing]

ok, so if I understand correctly I should use the temperature where the beer was fermented at since this would have been the highest temperature for the longest period of time?

Yes, unless you warmed it higher than fermentation temperature (say for a diacetyl rest)

 

[day_trippr]

The metric is the highest temperature the beer saw post-fermentation (ie: FG was locked in).
This sets the maximum CO2 content the beer could hold...

Cheers!