Airlock activity after taking DM reading

[Pavros]

Personally, I like a lot of carbonation so go with 7 grams per litre. That's with straight dextrose.

Carb drops are probably the easiest way. Many people dissolve the sugar in a small amount of water, then rack their beer to a bottling bucket, adding the dissolved sugar solution, then bottling from there.

Personally, the method I use is to dissolve the sugar in water, then use a syringe to add 20 ml to every 500 ml bottle. If you have 40 bottles (20 litres), you'll need to dissolve 280 grams of sugar in 800 ml of water....

Ummmm. Unless my rubbish maths has let me down, isn't it 140g for 20 litres at 7g per litre? I wouldn't like to use glass bottles with 280g of sugar priming a 20 litre batch as that sounds like 40 potential bottle bombs!

 

[terrym]

When I get to bottling. Is it 4.6 grams of table sugar per litre of beer?
Like good carb in my beer so was wondering what is a safe aim?

Also I bottle from FV straight into bottle.
What is the easiest way to get this into 22 litres of beer as previously I have used carb drops?

First this is useful when you start brewing to give you an idea of how much priming sugar to add.
https://www.brewersfriend.com/beer-priming-calculator/
I also don't use a bottling bucket. I package straight into bottles or a PB. To prime bottles I simply take a measure of sugar, then dose it into the bottles via a funnel, then cap. Then I gently roll the bottles on their side to disperse and dissolve the sugar. That's it.
I use a breadmaking teaspoon which I keep for brewing as my measure. To give a good approximation to what this delivers I weighed out 20 tsp worth of sugar, divided that by 20 and that is the approx weight of every 'teaspoon'. In my case one teaspoon of sugar equates to about 4.5g. According to style I will prime anywhere between 1 and 1.5tsp sugar (per litre). I use table sugar it's cheap, easy to handle and predictable. When you have done a few brews you will know how much to use for each type of beer to suit your taste
To suit the style your stout should be carbed at about 4.5g per litre +/- a bit. You can of course use more. And you could prime some bottles at one rate and some at another to see which you prefer.

 

[Bigcol49]

Hi BigCol, what do you use to get your RO water? I bought a cheapo system for about £50 and it takes ages to get anything. I haven't used it for a year but seem to remember I ended up with about 10L of RO water after 4-5 hours, maybe even longer. I gave up in the end.

Hi @BrewHouse
My system is probably the same as yours. It takes a long tome to get 25 litres and there is a lot of waste - I measured 30 litres waste to get 5 litres of RO water. I don't have a water meter, but feel guilty about the wastage, so I collect the RO water in a 5 litre water bottle and the waste in a 30 litre FV. I use the waste water for cleaning and rinsing.
I usually set up the RO system outside, using an external tap and do something else, checking every 30 minutes or so. I fitted taps to each tube so that I can shut everything off and store it indoors in a plastic box.

 

[phillc]

Ummmm. Unless my rubbish maths has let me down, isn't it 140g for 20 litres at 7g per litre? I wouldn't like to use glass bottles with 280g of sugar priming a 20 litre batch as that sounds like 40 potential bottle bombs!

It's my maths which are wrong! I multiplied the 7 grams by 40 bottles, not by 20 litres. Thanks for picking that up. I'll edit the post.

 

[Neil1454]

Here's an older thread covering the topic of how much sugar to use: https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/priming-sugar-per-litre.28446/

Personally, I like a lot of carbonation so go with 7 grams per litre. That's with straight dextrose.

Carb drops are probably the easiest way. Many people dissolve the sugar in a small amount of water, then rack their beer to a bottling bucket, adding the dissolved sugar solution, then bottling from there.

Personally, the method I use is to dissolve the sugar in water, then use a syringe to add 20 ml to every 500 ml bottle. If you have 40 bottles (20 litres), you'll need to dissolve 140 grams of sugar in 800 ml of water (less really as the sugar will increase total volume, so start with 500 ml and top up after the sugar dissolves). I won't say it's the easiest method, but with a 60 ml syringe you can do 3 bottles before "refilling." I like this method because it means I don't have to mess about with another racking.

Edit: Fixed calculations. 140 grams of sugar for 20 litres, not 280 grams.

Thanks.

Is there a reason to use Dextrose rather than Table sugar or is that just down to personal preference?
Also, would the same dosing be applied to table sugar as you use with Dextrose?

 

[terrym]

Is there a reason to use Dextrose rather than Table sugar or is that just down to personal preference?
Also, would the same dosing be applied to table sugar as you use with Dextrose?

I use ordinary table sugar for priming. Its cheap, easy to buy, and easy to handle, and it dissolves. I keep a bag of sugar solely for brewing. I know others use DME and dextrose and carbonation drops for priming but I really can't see the point given that table sugar adequately does the job. And if you look at the brewers friend calculator referenced above you will be able to compare priming rates for different sugars, which, in increasing weight for the same carbonation level, is table sugar, brewing sugar (dextrose) and then DME.

 

[phillc]

Is there a reason to use Dextrose rather than Table sugar or is that just down to personal preference?
Also, would the same dosing be applied to table sugar as you use with Dextrose?

There does appear to be a debate regarding the best sugar to use for bottle priming.

For example, on this forum:
https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/priming-sugar-vs-ordinary-sugar.59493/

Elsewhere:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/dextrose-vs-sugar-at-priming.28112/

From what I could gather there were two arguments:

a) Dextrose was better for priming because table sugar could result in a "sweet apple" flavour or that it is hard for yeast to digest or that it was just a "bad idea."
b) There was no real advantage using either table sugar or dextrose, just don't use Dry Malt Extract

I never really came across a "table sugar is by far the best" argument, apart from that it's generally cheaper than dextrose.

I had no personal experience or strong opinion either way, so on the balance of things I went with dextrose for bottle priming (or carbonation drops if I'm feeling lazy).

As @terrym noted, the Brewer's Friend calculator is a good resource for how much sugar to use.

 

[terrym]

I work on the basis that the quantity of priming sugar is really small in relation to the rest of the stuff in the bottles, so any slight taste, indeed if there is any, will go unnoticed. Very similar to using DME which will hardly make any difference to the taste profile. And if it takes an extra day or two for the carbing to take place due to the yeast needing a little extra time to break down the sucrose into sugars it can then ferment, is that really important in the overall scheme of things.
I'm sure that someone out there will have done a detailed study where they convinced themselves that it does make a difference, but I work on the basis that brewing is a fun-to-do hobby not a detailed scientific experiment. I left that environment behind years ago.

 

[Neil1454]

Here's an older thread covering the topic of how much sugar to use: https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/priming-sugar-per-litre.28446/

Personally, I like a lot of carbonation so go with 7 grams per litre. That's with straight dextrose.

Carb drops are probably the easiest way. Many people dissolve the sugar in a small amount of water, then rack their beer to a bottling bucket, adding the dissolved sugar solution, then bottling from there.

Personally, the method I use is to dissolve the sugar in water, then use a syringe to add 20 ml to every 500 ml bottle. If you have 40 bottles (20 litres), you'll need to dissolve 140 grams of sugar in 800 ml of water (less really as the sugar will increase total volume, so start with 500 ml and top up after the sugar dissolves). I won't say it's the easiest method, but with a 60 ml syringe you can do 3 bottles before "refilling." I like this method because it means I don't have to mess about with another racking.

Edit: Fixed calculations. 140 grams of sugar for 20 litres, not 280 grams.

I have some 710ml larger bottles.
Based on the above @ 7g can anyone please explain how to work out how much ml from the syringe I'd need to use per 710ml bottle?

Thank you.

 

[terrym]

If you are not using a bottling bucket, use a teaspoon, funnel and granulated sugar as it comes to prime your bottles. One tsp is about 4.5g. I have done it this way for years. In your case if you are priming with 7g sugar that is about 1.5 tsp sugar. However that sounds a lot to me and will give you about 3.4 vols CO2 in your beer. If you are using 700ml bottles you should only need between 0.75 to 1 tsp of sugar per bottle according to the style.

 

[Neil1454]

Hi,

When bottling and left for a few weeks. Maybe an odd question but rechecking ABV is it possible to do this from the bottled contents or would the carb just effect it to much?

Thanks

 

[Neil1454]

Anyone know if it can still be checked.

Thanks

 

[Pavros]

I think you have to pour it and leave it to go very flat. Even then, I'm not sure how accurate it will be.