misleading extract info when bottling

[scrawbag]

hi peeps. im troubled. im doing a muntons extract kit and im using the calculator provided here
http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html
and its a brill tool
only prob is the calc asks what type of wheat beer i am making but i dont know and if i select the least high carbonation it recommends 7-8 ounces of dextrose and the muntons instructions say 3 ounces.
is the calculator for allgrain only?
i think the last time i put in 3.5 ounces dextrose and it was loads
would a stout need a lot more?
if you were doing a kit which is closer to 25 liters instead of 23 would you go for 3.5 or 7 ounces ??

 

[amandabab]

with a canned kit, I'd just go with their instructions and ignore the calculators until you're making recipes and know the ingredients you're working with.

 

[Yooper]

The ingredients don't matter at all with priming calculators.

What those calculators do is let you pick the style of beer, and give you a "suggested" carb level. I dislike that, as some beer styles show up as darn flat while others are overcarbed. No way to you want to go to 4 volumes of c02!

Just use a typical amount, and I like to use 1 oz (by weight) for every gallon of beer. Or, doing liters and grams (ughhh! ) that would be 28 grams for every 3.79 liters. So, for 25 liters that would be 6.6 ounces of priming sugar, or 170 grams. If you think that's too much, and you prefer a lower carbed beer, you could go with 5 ounces (about 142 grams) of sugar for 6.6 gallons (25 liters).

Just weigh your sugar on a little kitchen scale, and then dissolve it in 2 cups of water and boil it for 5 minutes and add it to your bottling bucket. Rack the beer into that, and you'll be all set.

 

[scrawbag]

yooper 5 ounces of dextrose looks way too much but i have not tried it so i cant really say. with that much sugar will the bubbles be smaller when it is poured?
to be honest i thought 5 ounces would burst the bottles. i have glass pint bottles that im capping and i have the coopers PET bottles. how much sugar would i have to add to the standard 23l / 6gal before i start to worry about the bottles popping.

also im finding myself tranferring from primary to a glass secondry just to mix the sugar and then tranfer back to the primary(same day) because the primary is the only way to bottle. im worried if i put the priming sugar into the primary and mix it ill stirr up too much yeast to bottle it. can i cut out the transfer and just mix and bottle from the primary

 

[JuanMoore]

Ignore the first drop down menu on that priming calculator. It's not needed for the calculator to work. It only tells you what the suggested carb ranges are for BJCP style guidelines, which in my experience don't always match commercial examples of those styles very well, and certainly don't match my own preferences. What you need to learn is what various levels of carbonation relate to in terms of vol of CO2, so that you can choose the carb level you want yourself.

How much carbonation bottles can take before becoming bottle bombs depends on the type of bottles and the temp they're being stored at. I personally don't trust standard bottles with anything over ~4.0 vol of carbonation.

I would not suggest mixing the priming sugar with the beer in the primary, for the reason you mentioned of mixing all of the yeast and trub up. Here in the US most of us homebrewers use something like what you're calling a primary fermenter as a bottling bucket. We ferment in all sorts of things like carboys, buckets, kegs, etc, and then transfer to the bottling bucket with the sugar in it, and then bottle out of the bottling bucket.

 

[scrawbag]

I personally don't trust standard bottles with anything over ~4.0 vol of carbonation

ill be bottling in a few hours after work and im going to almost double my sugar to 7 ounces to see how fizzy it gets. it will keep my co2 below 4 but will give me a good idea of a fizzy beer. my last batch was i little light with the fizz. this must be why acording to the calc i have been getting the co2 levels to about 2.2

Ignore the first drop down menu on that priming calculator

i see its more of a guide to what your co2 should be rather than involved in the maths. good call. is there a handy list anywhere of brewing temps and/or expected co2 levels for the different styles of beer? i presume a stout will be different
FYI everyting i do is at a steady 20 c or 68 f