How much sugar to prime hefeweizen?

[JulietKilo]

The first three online priming calculators I found on google said for hefeweizens to use between 7.5 and 9.5 oz dextrose/corn sugar per 5 gallon batch? Anyone use that much? Sounds like a lot to me just because I've always used 4oz via the bottling instruction sheet the local brew store gave me, which didn't mention varying for different styles, I had just assumed 4oz was universal.

I googled it cause I was gonna try 5oz in my next batch but wanted to be sure it wasn't too much. It would seem not?

 

[Qhrumphf]

That's quite a bit of sugar. A good Hefe should be highly carbonated, but that's higher than I might care to go. For a typical 5 gallons (in the fermenter) of beer at typical ale temps, yielding ~4.5 gallons actually bottled, 4 oz corn sugar ends up in the mid 2.5 volumes area, which indeed a pretty good middle of the road number. Probably a little low for a Hefe, but I'd probably target 3-3.2 volumes (I wouldn't normally want to prime higher than that unless using heavy bottles, just to be safe, although the odds of a problem even using regular 12 oz longnecks at that carbonation are quite small). I'd probably go with ~6 oz corn sugar personally.

 

[Stillraining]

between 7.5 and 9.5 oz

Forget that..use 4.5 to 5 oz as you normally would...I'm drinking one right now carbed with that and its great.

Oh wait I was drinking a Bush just a minute ago wasn't I......Oh ya that's a picture for the other "Kill the big three" thread.

Carry on.

 

[GHBWNY]

The first three online priming calculators I found on google said for hefeweizens to use between 7.5 and 9.5 oz dextrose/corn sugar per 5 gallon batch? Anyone use that much?

Even for a hefe, these are high. At 68F, 7.5 - 9.5 oz. sugar translates to 4.0 - 4.5 vols CO2. A hefe does well at 3.0 - 3.2 vols (5.2 - 5.6 oz priming sugar/5 gal). Too high a carb robs the palate of its ability to discern taste, plus you might be risking the possibility of bottle bombs. You could buy heavier ("Belgian") bottles to insure a safer outcome, but that level of carbing is too high (IMO).

 

[JulietKilo]

Thanks all! I thought those numbers seemed high. Gonna try 5 next, 6 after that.