Priming Sugars

[Thunderous]

Is there a better priming sugar to use than another? I am not a big fan of corn sugar and was thinking about using Sugar in the Raw. Any thoughts?

 

[rudu81]

Table sugar can give off flavors which is why corn sugar is usually used. If you don't want to do that, you could try honey as it is 100& fermentable.

 

[lumpher]

Table sugar can give off flavors which is why corn sugar is usually used. If you don't want to do that, you could try honey as it is 100& fermentable.

yep, and it totally depends on what beer it is. some belgians use table sugar in them, for example, but i wouldn't use cane sugar in a hefeweizen

 

[Nurmey]

The small amount of priming sugar doesn't make any impact on flavor, however, the weights of different sugars need to be adjusted for proper carbonation.

 

[brewit2it]

There won't be any difference in taste between corn sugar and table sugar. Honey is much more likely of the 3 to impart a flavor in your final beer. Both Honey and table sugar contain both glucose and fructose but honey has other stuff as well.

Typical honey analysis.[25]

Fructose: 38.2%
Glucose: 31.3%
Sucrose: 1.3%
Maltose: 7.1%
Water: 17.2%
Higher sugars: 1.5%
Ash: 0.2%
Other/undetermined: 3.2%

The undetermined is Bee Vomit which is where the flavor comes from. The problem with honey, besides the flavor profile that you may not want in your beer, is that is varies significantly batch to batch in percent fermentable sugar so it is hard to get consistent carbonation when using it to prime.

If you are worried about priming sugar imparting a flavor in your beer you can use malt extract, or better yet you can keg your beer and not use any priming sugar at all.

 

[Thunderous]

I'm brewing a Pale Ale and it looks like I'll be using corn sugar. Thanks team.