Your thoughts on different priming sugars

[Katman]

Hi everyone

I forgot to order priming sugar a couple weeks ago and did not realize it until bottling day. So I took a look at a couple of brewing books I have and decided to use sugar that I already had to prime two different batches. I bottled a blond ale with regular old table sugar and a porter with pure brown sugar. I am sure I used the correct amounts maybe even a little extra and got very different results. The blond ale had a bit of carbonation after two weeks and is carbonated after three weeks but not like other beers I have brewed (carbonation and head were weak). The porter is still flat as the day I bottled it after three weeks. Every brew I have done with store bought priming sugar has carbonated nicely in a week to ten days. What do you think caused the long carbonation time on the blond and the so far failed carbonation on the porter. I bottled a brown ale last weekend with store bought priming sugar and tested one last night and it was already fully carbonated at six days in the bottle. BTW all of the above beers are being aged in the same conditions so I am sure that is not a factor.

 

[DocScott]

Are all of the beers of equal abv? Higher alcohol beers take longer to carbonate. Are all the same age at time of carbonating? If the yeast is less viable, that could impact it too.

Carbonation depends on amount of sugar added (or left unfermented at the time of bottling), yeast viability, time and temperature. If all of those factors are the same, you should get the same results regardless of the type of sugar used.

I typically use regular old table sugar, give it 2-4 weeks and have never had issue.

 

[kh54s10]

I'm assuming that you looked up and used the proper amount of each sugar, the amounts will be different. As said a darker higher ABV beer will take longer to carbonate. If one was bulk aged there will be fewer yeast cells in suspension so that one would take longer.

The standard with corn sugar, and probably table sugar, is 3 weeks at about 70 degrees. I have never tried a beer before 2 weeks. To me that is a waste of a good beer. At 2 weeks most have carbonation, some very little. At 3 week almost all are fully conditioned and taste better. A few big beers have taken 4-5 weeks to fully carbonate.

Then there is the taste. A light beer might be at peak flavor in 2-3 weeks but a beer like an Imperial Stout might take 6 months to a year to mature.

If you have zero carbonation, there is probably some problem. More information would be needed to determine the cause.

 

[MaxStout]

With big beers that have aged a while, the amount of viable yeast remaining may be low. In those cases, it's helpful to repitch some neutral strain of yeast, such as Notty or CBC-1 just before bottling.

 

[Katman]

Thanks for the replies everyone, here is some more info. The blond ale is 2.8% ABV and the porter is a 4.7% both were in the fermenter two weeks before bottling. Both beers were fermented at around 65* and bottled conditioned at the same temp. My notes say I used 5oz of table sugar to two cups of water for the blond ale and 6oz of brown sugar for the porter. The only other thing I did different with the porter was to rack to a secondary smaller carboy after a week (needed the bigger fermenter for another brew). Also used the same style bottles, same capping tool, bottle caps were two different colors but from the same supplier and seem to be sealed tight on both. I really can't think of anything else to add at this time except I don't mind drinking the porter flat, since it taste really good but I would love to figure out what went wrong so I don't repeat my mistake.

 

[Kharnynb]

how big batches of beer?
did you mix it well?
I bottle almost exclusively with table sugar(sometimes honey) and it seems to work well, never seen a change in head either from one sugar to another(there shouldn't be)

 

[mashpaddled]

I wonder with the brown sugar how well you mixed it into a solution and how well you mixed it into the beer. Common brown sugar is just white table sugar sprayed with molasses so it should not ferment differently from the plain white table sugar. Brown sugar can be clumpy due to the sprayed-on molasses getting sticky with a little humidity which in turn can make it clump and not dissolve as well as table sugar. If this is what happened then you might have some undercarbonated bottles and some extremely carbonated bottles. You may want to store the brown ale bottles in a durable container and use caution when opening them.

 

[InspectorJon]

Warming the bottles up to upper 70s for a week may help get the porter to finish carbing.

 

[rburrelli]

The priming sugar calculator at Norther Brewer website is pretty robust. I think it has more options than most calculators. I have been using turbinado sugar for a long time now for all my beers.

Really have not noticed any difference from cane sugar. As long as you are calculating correctly and mixing well it should not make much difference what form you use.

 

[Bubbles2]

No diff. Honey has different Sugar values. Brown, White, RAW, Organic, Priming all the same value. Some are bleached.

 

[El Nino]

I've always used organic cane sugar dropped into a funnel over the beer bottle. Always perfect carbonation going on 25+ batches now. I rather do this than prepare priming sugar and wonder if i'll get even carb across the whole batch. Besides after doing it this way so long, I already have the system down pretty good. Fill 12 bottles in a few rows, sugar in all of em, cap, put aside, do the next 12 until I'm out of beer to fill

1/2 tsp for 12 oz bottles, 1 tsp for bombers (22oz)

 

[Katman]

I wonder with the brown sugar how well you mixed it into a solution and how well you mixed it into the beer. Common brown sugar is just white table sugar sprayed with molasses so it should not ferment differently from the plain white table sugar. Brown sugar can be clumpy due to the sprayed-on molasses getting sticky with a little humidity which in turn can make it clump and not dissolve as well as table sugar. If this is what happened then you might have some undercarbonated bottles and some extremely carbonated bottles. You may want to store the brown ale bottles in a durable container and use caution when opening them.

I dissolved the brown sugar into two cups of water and boiled for ten minutes. Added it to bottling bucket and gently stirred it just like I have done with all previous brews.

Warming the bottles up to upper 70s for a week may help get the porter to finish carbing.

I moved both brews into a spare bed room that is about 74 the other day after making this post. I am going to give them another week or so then check them again.
I will post again once I have tested them and thanks so much for the replies.

 

[snarf7]

I typically use regular old table sugar, give it 2-4 weeks and have never had issue.

Second that, all you need is good old fashioned table sugar and patience. I find they're drinkable at 2 weeks usually but best if you can make it to 3.

Different sugars will interact with the yeast differently though so make sure you key in your numbers first to make sue your quantities are correct to avoid flat beer or explosions

https://www.brewersfriend.com/beer-priming-calculator/

 

[z-bob]

I've had one beer that took 2 *months* to carbonate. I had pretty much given up on it and started drinking them flat (glad I didn't drink very many that way) It was a Kentucky Common with a *lot* of corn, and I fermented with Nottingham. I think it just needed some yeast nutrient because I've read that Notty needs a lot of nitrogen and I didn't give it much. Ultimately it was good beer without it.

 

[ncbrewer]

I moved both brews into a spare bed room that is about 74 the other day after making this post. I am going to give them another week or so then check them again.

I think that will solve the problem. In the past, I conditioned at around 65F in the winter - it took about 5 weeks to carb up.

 

[Katman]

Just thought I would post a update to this thread. Another two weeks have pasted and the porter still has not carbonated and there is no sediment in the bottom of the bottles at all. I guess something happened to the yeast but it doesn't matter since I have drank most if it now anyway. I stuck a six pack back just to see if anything will change over the next month or so. I also brewed the same recipe again and bottled it this morning with regular priming sugar(just to see what will happen). The blond ale finally carbonated a bit more after moving it to a slightly warmer room but is still not as carbonated as the other beers I have brewed. I plan to stick with using the powdered dextrose priming sugar from now on since every batch I have bottled with it has carbonated properly.