I've been using 5oz of priming sugar for every batch....

[StarCityBrewMaster]

Early on when I started brewing and bottling I was trying to correctly bottle condition my beers but a few came out undercarbed I thought so I have since been using all 5 oz of priming sugar at every bottling.

What effect does this have good or bad? Does it really matter?

I notice beersmith gives me a style standard for sugar and it's usually 2.5 or 3 oz per batch.

I'd like to nail the entire process from grain to glass and feel pretty good about every step of the process minus the priming sugar step.

Thanks

 

[jmferris]

My first batch took a long time to carbonate, and I was thinking that it was BeerSmith, as well. However, for me, it had more to do with where I was conditioning. I thought the basement "felt" like it was in the sixties, so I just assumed that it was in the sixties all over it. The wall I put up against, though, transmits cold like it is no one's business. Moving them to a warmer location, gently agitating them (inverting the bottle and swirling, then placing back into the boxes), and waiting a couple of more weeks paid off, though.

Just to be sure that BeerSmith was not underestimating what I needed to add, I used a couple of online calculators and came up with similar numbers. For me, the lesson learned is that some yeasts are going to be more picky than others for helping carb up in relation to temperature. If I am taking the default number in BeerSmith (68F), then it better actually be somewhere close to that temperature. But more importantly, that temperature needs to be in that yeast's fermentation range.

Do not know if that is the case for what you encountered, but thought it to be worth sharing.

 

[Clann]

Since I have gotten a digital scale I have been carbonating with 4 oz and my beer has ended up with great head.

 

[Edcculus]

Are you telling Beersmith how many volumes of CO2 you want? I think it defaults to a number, but I'm not sure if that default is always style appropriate. Its up to you to put in the correct volumes for that style. Also remember to put in at least the approximate temperature of the beer. FWIW, in the past, I've had to go to the higher end of the style for carbonation to get the beer where I want it from Beersmith.

In the end, its all up to you. If you like how the beer comes out with 5oz of priming sugar, just do that. There are some variables, but if you come on an amount that you generally like, you can just do that for every beer.

 

[ETCS]

This is a good website that I use. It has a default CO2 Volume for the style beer you are bottling. You can tweak it if you want to. Here ya go.

http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html