Priming - what to use?

[dyyony]

When it comes to bottling - what should I prime with? I read somewhere on the internet that normal sugar (sucrose) leads to very large bubbles, which fits with my one previous attempt to bottle beer. Should I go for something like glucose or dextrose instead?

 

[spin]

Please ignore this post. I wrote it when I was first starting out brewing and it is incorrect. Table sugar is fine for priming.

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Never use table sugar for brewing, it gives a nasty twang to the beer. I just batch prime with 8 to 9 grams of brewing sugar per litre. Or about 1.5 teasoons if you just add it to each litre bottle. I usually use plastic bottles but if you are using glass bottles it's best to be a bit cautious with the amount of sugar so you don't get any bottle bombs. But I've never had any explosions !!! .

 

[prolix]

for priming it does not really matter as the doses are so low so if you don't have anything no one will be able to tell.

I only brew ales and like low carbonation so am tending to not bother priming at all, there is usually enough mouth feel in the beer and enough fermentables still to give it sufficient, you want fizzy then you need to prime.

I read somewhere that malt priming takes longer if you go the dry malt route as it is slower to ferment.

Bubble size is due to amount of priming not what it was primed with, the volume of CO2 in solution and the temperature of the beer and the atmospheric pressure.

There is a of of mumbo jumbo about bubbles, like if it is in solution longer it comes out in smaller bubbles! like the CO2 remembers how long it has been in solution.

Anyone with different views post away always willing to be proved wrong.

 

[spin]

I would say that the beers I have conditioned for longer, say 3 months, have had a frothier, finer carbonation. Maybe I'm imagining things but I'm pretty sure this is the case. It seems more evident with all-grain brews rather than kit.

 

[Ceejay]

Never use table sugar for brewing, it gives a nasty twang to the beer. I just batch prime with 8 to 9 grams of brewing sugar per litre. Or about 1.5 teasoons if you just add it to each litre bottle. I usually use plastic bottles but if you are using glass bottles it's best to be a bit cautious with the amount of sugar so you don't get any bottle bombs. But I've never had any explosions !!! .

Sorry dude, but table sugar is fine for priming. I use it every time for my AG beers, as do loads of people on the forum. I think the "nasty twang" from table sugar (i.e cane or beet sugar) is a bit of a myth. :thumb:

 

[spin]

My original reply to Waterboy's question was incorrect about never using table sugar to prime bottles with.

I made that comment on this thread about the table sugar 2 years ago when I was just starting out brewing. I had a bad experience with my first beer which was a Coopers kit with a kilo of table sugar added. I didn't wait long enough for it to condition so that probably had a lot to do with the `twang'. I'm not sure how it would have been if I'd left it to condition for longer.

Since that first brew it completely put me off using table sugar and I started using DME instead and got much better results. But again, that is probably also due to me letting the beers condition for longer. Sometimes I'd brew with 750g DME and 250g brewing sugar and then prime my bottles with brewing sugar.

I usually prime my bottles with either brewing sugar or sugar cubes nowadays with no noticeable twang. So in answer to the original question, table sugar is fine for priming, I use it myself with no noticeable twang.