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Hi all,
Considering doing a bulk prime as Ive aquired another fermenter. What should I prime with? Sugar,Dex or LDM? I have searched this and there seems to be plenty of different thoughts.
Its a pale ale.

Cheers
Tadge

any will be finefrom what i've gathered, not personal experience, LDME gives better head and smaller bubbles, but takes longer to carbonate, whilst the other two are the opposite way around.

just remember to take into account the different level of fermentables in each, as LDME you will need about 20-25% more as it is not 100% fermentable like the sugars

And a good place to start for something like a pale ale is about 170g-180g of dextrose.

Nah, screw the dextrose, use 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups of LDM

Does LDM make much of a difference in priming? Have read it doesn't make a difference because of the small volume of fermentables involved.

Coopers prime their bottles with sucrose

Has anyone ever done a side by side comparison of priming with Sugar, Dextrose and LDME?

Cheers,
Greg

Pale_Ale wrote: Coopers prime their bottles with sucrose

Why is it that coopers try to promote their beer as premium when they don't use all malt? I am sure I can taste the effect of simple sugars in both their sparkling and pale ales, perhaps not the extra stout. Should the German purity law apply to commercial beer in this country so we know we are getting what we pay for?

I would suggest wager than very few, if anyone, could taste the difference between 2 identically brewed beers, one primed with sugar and one with malt. The amount added per beer is insignificant when compared to the total volume of malt.....

Not to mention that introducing CO2 into the beer using yeast is cleaner than using a commercial source of CO2, which is a by product of various chemical plants.......

Anthony I'm pretty sure that CPA and CSA are all-malt brews, the priming sugar shouldn't be taken into account as it will be entirely turned into CO2 with no residual flavour. I can't taste any sugar in either brew and think they are both top notch.

gregb, I too would be interested on any direct comparisons conducted

gregb wrote:Has anyone ever done a side by side comparison of priming with Sugar, Dextrose and LDME?

Cheers,
Greg

Yep and although it was a very, very minor taste difference ( could have imagined it it was that small) the main difference i noticed was the actual carbonation itself e.g Bubble size, head retention and time it took to carbonate, malt takes a long time to carb up but does have good size bubbles and not bad head retention wheras sucrose and dex take less time to carb but seem to take longer to mature down to nice small bubbles, Dex being the better of the 2 IMHO and malt is just too bloody expensive to bother priming every brew with it but once again just my opinion

Thanks Lethal.

Cheers,
Greg

Cheers Guys,

Ill give dex a go and see how it goes.

As Malt is not totally fermentable, would this give more sediment in the bottle?

Tadge

Yeah, a little bit of sediment, but not really significant.

I recon malt goes better for the carbonation itself, as lethal said. I don't notice a flavour difference.

The bubbles are nice and fine- as is the head. You don't get those beachball sized bubbles that break the head up in 2 seconds.