CARBONATION DROPS VS SUGAR????

[ryan]

"Twang" !!

[Chris]

And no more lolly sucking jokes please!!

Wouldn't dream of it TL...

[Boonie]

I bulk prime if I'm bottling an entire batch, and single prime if I'm bottling the leftovers from kegging. Both methods are great and they're both easy. I'll let you in on a little secret. I bulk prime because it gives me an excuse to rack. Racking the beer before bottling gets it off the trub, and that lets me relax and move the fermenter around as much as I like while bottling.

So yeah, just stick to whatever you like guys. It's all good.

Exactly what I do.....tweet tweet. I have kegs like rwh and have not bulk primed for 5 months.

I have a variety of bottles....330ml, 375ml, 500ml, 750ml and 800ml. Bulk priming is perfect for these as you only have to buy a set of scales, which my wife received for Xmas and a spare fermenter.

I wouldn`t bulk prime if you paid me.

I reckon you would if I paid you.

I still prefer bulk prime as I use dextrose. One thing I found with the dex was that when I had it in the Little Measurer that you can buy, the dex used to clump up inside it and I was always unsure of how much went in. My theory was that you could have had a gap inbetween top and bottom of the dex as it clumped. No probs with plain sugar that way though.

When I used the dex with the above method, I found that I had some extremely carbed and some not much at all......but then again, that could have been my "she'll be right" mate I used to brew with.

Cheers

Boonie

[palealemale]

Firstly, what's the difference between priming your bottles with dextrose as opposed to ordinary white sugar (apart from price) ?

Secondly, what is one supposed to make of this :-

'Whether you prime is up to you. We've found that using a full measure (about a teaspoon) of sugar in a 750ml bottle results in an over-carbonated beer. A half measure is good for brews that should be on the effervescent side, such as lagers. But for many beers that are not usually very fizzy, such as ales and stouts, we rarely use priming sugar; there is already some gas dissolved in the beer and some will be created after bottling as the yeast acts on slow-fermenting malts.'

-------> unless brewing an effervescent style of beer, priming is not necessary in 750ml bottles? What about in ordinary 375ml stubbies?

[rwh]

Firstly, what's the difference between priming your bottles with dextrose as opposed to ordinary white sugar (apart from price) ?

Almost nothing. The amount of sugar involved is just too small to be significant. Mind you, if you stick dextrose in your bottles, they'll probably foam over due to the smaller particle size of dextrose.

Secondly, what is one supposed to make of this :-
'Whether you prime is up to you. We've found that using a full measure (about a teaspoon) of sugar in a 750ml bottle results in an over-carbonated beer...

The first sentence is the defining one. It all comes down to your own preference. Most Australians, being accustomed to Australian beer, expect their beers to be highly carbonated. I suspect if you don't prime your beer, you'll consider it "flat". But an English ale drinker probably wouldn't.

Have you seen the Essential Guide to Bulk Priming?

[palealemale]

Ok, thanks rwh, that makes sense.

I've been studying home brewing for about 6 months now so get the gist of it, but there are so many small questions I keep coming up against. For example I thought bulk priming was only something you do if you're kegging (don't know what I read to give me that idea!).
Still some unresolved questions though, for example, what does adding hops "at flame out" mean? Common sense says it just means adding hops to a pot which contains water and other hops that have been boiled for a period of time - is this right?

Blah blah blah - many more questions to come folks!

[rwh]

Still some unresolved questions though, for example, what does adding hops "at flame out" mean?

It means adding hops at the end of the boil, at the same time as turning off the heat.

[Trough Lolly]

...Blah blah blah - many more questions to come folks!

Bring 'em on! We're here to help!!

Cheers,
TL

[matr]

I used Carb drops for my first few brews but didn't have any for my last brew

I made the mistake of using dex to bottle prime...

Holy Crap.. I'll never do that again... FIZZZZZ

[James L]

I would... you need to do it right... you need to add the exact ammount depending on the temp at which you are bottling and of course the carbonation to suit the style of beer you are making.

i would never use carbonation drops again.....

using dex and sugars just takes a little practice, but its worth getting right.

[matr]

Yeah maybe it was the amount I used.???

Going by the carb calculator for a Weizen @ 22C I needed approx 9grms per 750ml.

Apparently there's 3.4grms of dex per 5ml teaspoon so I added 2.5 teaspoons (measuring spoons)

Just a pain in the ass having to half fill a bottle & let the head go down before topping up and allowing to overflow to fill the bottle.

[James L]

yeh mate, i know exactly what you mean.... we've all done that before...

maybe for the time being, stick to the general rule of about 8g/L...

[matr]

I'm guessing you wouldn't get the same fizz results with sugar???

[rwh]

Yeah the issue here is the fine powder that dex comes in. Just use sucrose (plain white sugar). The larger crystal size prevents (or at least significantly reduces) the foaming issue. If you want to be exact, also keep in mind that sucrose crystals contain 10% more fermentable sugar by weight than dextrose (because the dextrose crystals are actually dextrose monohydrate, which has one water per two glucose molecules in the crystal matrix).

[matr]

Thought that was the case..

The calculator I used takes into account for sugar or dex use.. Seems to be a good / simple calc.

I think it's on the AHB forum???