How Much Priming Sugars change the Beer

[toolboxdiver]

I have a question about Priming Beer. I have always Kegged my beers and forced carbed the kegs. I am planning on experimenting with some smaller batches and I am curious how some of the sugars have effects on the final beer. I was thinking about using Honey as I use it in most of my Beer Recipies and want to benifit from others if it is a win or not.

 

[Soulshine2]

I have primed using priming sugar , honey and have been kraeusening for 3 batches now. I cant realistically tell you what differences have been because I dont brew any beer consecutively or repeated a batch yet. I change it up. I used to do the "boil the quart of water and add the prescribed amount of sugar and cool" thing before bottling. I have added honey to an American Honey Brown Ale . It has a high level of alcohol but it also has a sort of twang I can't exactly describe. Since I used a liquid yeast in that one that never got going and I repitched with an old dry yeast in panic. The fermentation took 17 days. the addition of honey at priming was planned and the result may just be an anomaly that I wont ever replicate(hopefully anyway).Don't get me wrong, It is drinkable and not terrible ( My wife likes it) but it could have been better for sure .
BUT, I can tell you the kraeusened beers (addition of un-fermented sterile wort at bottling)have turned out way better. Less unexpected weird flavors. More finer bubbles(creamier head) on the pour and the head retention clearly has improved by doing this.
You'll have to experiment to see what works for you. Split a batch and try .

 

[RPh_Guy]

I am curious how some of the sugars have effects on the final beer.

They don't. There's very little sugar used for priming versus the sugar/flavor from the malt.

 

[eric19312]

+1 no impact and not worth paying for expensive priming sugar. Table sugar is fine, use a calculator you will use a little less than corn sugar. Honey is going to get lost in the beer but if you made a honey beer and want to continue the theme go ahead. Just realize if you want your beer to taste like it has honey in it you will want to use at least some honey malt.

 

[Smellyglove]

I'd never use sucrose as a priming agent in light beers, especially not wheat beers (the wheats is the ones I've picked up most off-flavors from when using sucrose). Pure glucose is a safer bet for a simple sugar.

 

[toolboxdiver]

+1 no impact and not worth paying for expensive priming sugar. Table sugar is fine, use a calculator you will use a little less than corn sugar. Honey is going to get lost in the beer but if you made a honey beer and want to continue the theme go ahead. Just realize if you want your beer to taste like it has honey in it you will want to use at least some honey malt.

Thanks, yes both of the Beers I asked about are Honey Ales. They have Honey Malt and Honey in the Recipies and I just thought I would use Honey to Prime.

 

[RPh_Guy]

If you want to use honey to prime, make sure it's pasteurized.