Priming with candy

[Azharen]

I keg my beer so I'm not sure I could even do this if I wanted to; but I was enjoying some LemonHead Candy a few minutes ago and started to wonder if you could actually use a small candy like a LemonHead to prime your bottles? Has anyone tried this?

 

[TipsyDragon]

well the candy is primarily sugar. you would have to smash it up and dissolve it in water. there is no real way to know how fermentable the candy is or how many gravity points it would impart to your brew. but assuming you could solve these problems then yea you could prime with it.

 

[Azharen]

I was thinking more along the lines of just dropping a lemonhead in the bottle before capping. The candy will naturally dissolve. I'm think it'd be like taking one of those slow acting tablets. It's all conjecture. Not sure if this is something I'll ever do. It's a random thought that flew into my head while on a sugar high. ;-)

 

[david_42]

Not much different from using carb drops. You'd have to gauge the sugar content, but the serving info would make that simple enough.

Might be very good in a hefeweizen or cherryhead in a stout.

 

[DKershner]

Stick one in a beer and see how long it takes to dissolve. May add some time to your carbonation, but it would be cheaper than carb drops!

 

[moosetav]

I know a guy that used jolly ranchers to carb up an american wheat. Tasted like s*** but you could deffinitely taste the fruity flavor of the candy. His beer just might've been bad to begin with. The sweetness all fermented out of course. Carbed up nicely.

 

[moosetav]

....and, he just dropped the whole candy in there. Didn't crush them or boil them at all.