Flavoured Priming Sugars

[panspermian]

Hi there,
I have beer ready to bottle in a week or so. My usual process is to use carbonation drops.
This time 'round I'm keen on using golden syrup to prime my bottles and a 9.5L keg I've recently bought.
SWMBO brought me home one of those little saucepan things (the ones you would make Greek coffee in or heat milk up in). It's only 500ml.
I plan on heating golden syrup in that (not sure if I should boil) and then with the use of a 2ml syringe I bought from chemist, transfer a measured amount to each bottle.
I was thinking I could prob experiment with spices etc, boil them, mixing them with priming sugar and inject them into individual bottles. I could experiment with a heap of different flavours from the one batch of beer.
I've heard of spices or fruit being added to secondary but never a process like I just described.
Any one done this?

 

[Tahoose]

There was a episode on basic brewing radio where they spoke to a guy who did all sorts of different priming sugars. One that he did was prime a batch with grapefruit juice.

My thoughts are calculate the amount of syrup needed for the whole batch, dissolve the syrup in a pan with some water then bulk prime the whole batch.

Priming each bottle individually with spices might be tough. But if you have a full batch you could always bulk prime 5litres at a time and use different sugars and spice for each lot.

You are limited by your own creativity.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

+1 for bulk priming, even if you do break a main batch into smaller individual ones.

Bulk priming is far more accurate

 

[dannymars]

I prime kombucha with various fruit juices... Works awesomely... Could work for beer too I s'pose.
However, I don't think golden syrup would really impart that much different flavour. For the effort I'd want something more unique.

Might be wrong, worth a shot... What beer style?

 

[Mardoo]

Yep, bulk priming rocks if you're bottling. As for using flavoured priming sugars, I've found that they tend to add a couple weeks on to conditioning time. Not carbing time, but it takes a bit longer for the flavours to meld. Golden Syrup is pretty much my favourite.

 

[TimT]

Agree bulk priming is better. When you prime the bottles you do get your last opportunity to add a spice or herb flavour to your beer, it's true. I tried this with a bit of mint once (made some mint essence, mixed in sugar to make it a bulk priming solution) but there wasn't enough mint to make a difference. However, I think it potentially could work.

Apparently the idea of adding spices to the brew *at bottling time* goes back a fairly long way; before bottles were primed with sugar they were simply given fresh yeast (barm). Some brewers still seem to use this method - possibly Coopers. Possible Bridge Road Brewers. While adding barm to the bottles, spices could be added (perhaps they also served as a yeast nutrient): stuff like cloves or rosemary. So when you open a bottle, you don't just get fresh maltiness and hoppiness: you get a hit of spice as well.

 

[Tex083]

I have been wanting to try panela sugar to prime up some brown/dark ales, I think it would be great.
+100 for bulk priming, som much easier than measuring out each bottle.

 

[Danscraftbeer]

I feel I have to add (for noobs like me) bulk priming you should purge the secondary/priming vessel with co2. I think I've bulk primed maybe 4 times and 3 out of 4 times I got oxygenation flavours. Those bottles sit under the house and only get fed to the slug trap in the garden.. -_-