Priming Sugar

[voodoochild7]

I'm going to be doing my first bottling on Wed. I have DME and the corn sugar what are the pros and cons of using one over the other.

 

[david_42]

I prefer corn sugar. It ferments completely and gives you more precise control over carbonation.

This is one of the topics where everyone has an opinion and it doesn't actually make much difference.

 

[Shambolic]

It shouldn't make much of a difference; the amount of priming sugar/whatever you use is basically negligible.

I would suggest using corn sugar simply because it's a lot cheaper

 

[drengel]

you should try krausening. definitely the cheapest cause you just use unfermented wort. adding the same beer to the same beer just seems like its the 'right' thing to do to me, although i havent tasted the beer that i tried krausening with to see if theres any real difference. the one thing i suggest if using corn sugar is to not use the whole 4.5 or 5 oz. bag. for my tastes the beer comes out excessively carbonated. ive found taking about 5 tbs. out of a 4.5 oz. bag works about right.

 

[Rhoobarb]

I'm a purist, so I have always used DME. 1-1/4 cup (I actually measure out 8 oz. on a digital scale). It does take a bit longer to carbonate, IMO. Just my personal preference, I believe either are okay.

I'd be curious to learn more about krausening, though!

 

[God Emporer BillyBrew]

I'd be curious to learn more about krausening, though!

Yeah, me too. Tell us more Drengel.

 

[Cheesefood]

you should try krausening. definitely the cheapest cause you just use unfermented wort. adding the same beer to the same beer just seems like its the 'right' thing to do to me, although i havent tasted the beer that i tried krausening with to see if theres any real difference. the one thing i suggest if using corn sugar is to not use the whole 4.5 or 5 oz. bag. for my tastes the beer comes out excessively carbonated. ive found taking about 5 tbs. out of a 4.5 oz. bag works about right.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you're referring to gyle. Krausening is skimming the head off of beer during active fermentation.

 

[drengel]

yeah i always thought that krausening was skimming off the krausen too, but im not sure why anyone would want to do that. if someone knows tell me. anyways, acccording to app. 3 in the Complete Joy...krausening is taking gyle and using it to prime. like i said im waiting to see how it works cause i havent tried the beer i did this with. Heres how it goes, after the wort is cooled but before you pitch the yeast you siphon off a pre-determined amount of wort. You save this in a sterile and airtight jar (i used a couple bombers) in the frig until your ready to prime. then you go about priming and bottling like usual, the unfermented sugars will be enough to cause the carbonation. you have to figure out how much wort to take out because of the variability in sugar content. the equation is: quarts of gyle=(12xgallons of wort)/[(specific gravity - 1)x 1000] note that the denominator is simply the las digits of the O.G. i.e. 1.047 is simply 47. pretty easy and i hope it works.

 

[drengel]

ahhh....ive been spelling it wrong i realized- kraeusening - according to the book