Which type of sugar for bulk priming?

[Alex.Tas]

I've been using dry malt extract to bulk prime my beers, with good success. I've been using Ian's spreadsheet to calculate the weights required.
My question is, ians spreadsheet calculates the weight of dex required to get the desired vol of co2. do i need to change this if i use dme?

What do you people use for priming your beer? Is some type of sugar better for different styles of beer?

Cheers

 

[wbosher]

Never done it myself, but did look into it a little while back, and it seems that most people I've come across use either plain sugar or dextrose. Would probably be a lot cheaper than using DME.

 

[Alex.Tas]

I think I used 170g for a 20l batch last night, so it isn't really a severe financial burden.

 

[cremmerson]

I'm now onto my third batch using white table sugar for bulk priming, boiling in about 375ml of water for two minutes, allowing to cool, then stirring through. I leave it for 30 mins to cool, and all good. Nice change from those carb drops.

 

[Alex.Tas]

do you use a syringe to then dose your bottles, or do you bulk prime?
i used half and half (wheat and dry malt) for my recent hefe. should be good hopefully.

 

[manticle]

DME and dex will require different amounts to hit the same CO2 vol.

 

[verysupple]

Dextrose is much cheaper than malt extract so maybe it's better to just buy some and avoid having to convert quantities. But that aside...

The DME manufacturer's website might have specs. If it does, look up the fermentability of the extract and adjust the amount you use as necessary. This will be a good approximation. i.e. if the extrac is 75% fermentable (I think that's the value for most Briess extracts) then you need to divide the mass of dex required by 0.75.

eg.

If the spreadsheet says you need 170 g of dex:

mass of DME required = 170 g / 0.75 = 227 g


EDIT: Be mindful that this is a very rough calculation as it doesn't account for the difference in density between dextrose and DME. Err on the side of caution for more highly carbed beers until you dial it in a bit.

 

[lmccrone]

Here is an online calculator I just found yesterday,

http://kotmf.com/tools/prime.php


Cheers

Luke

 

[Yob]

http://webspace.webring.com/people/ms/sirleslie/AlcoholChart/PrimingCalculator.html

 

[mash head]

do you use a syringe to then dose your bottles, or do you bulk prime?
i used half and half (wheat and dry malt) for my recent hefe. should be good hopefully.

I use dex. And I just bought a new sheep drenching gun for bottle priming, used it on the weekend and worked a treat. For those that don't know they are an auto filling syringe type of device that can be dialled in to repetedly give a set dosage from 1-20ml.

 

[yum beer]

I have bilk primed with both dex and LDM andthey both work fine.
I find that the LDM gives a finer level of carb, the bubbles seem to be a bit smaller and slower moving.
I like this carb for pilsner's and lagers.
As stated above due to fermentabilty of LDM you may need to play around a little with a few batches to get it right.

 

[jimmyfozzers]

If DME is only 75% fermentable then surely you are increasing the residual sweetness of your beer if you use DME to prime?

 

[manticle]

By 3/5ths of the diameter of an ant's penis, maybe.

 

[QldKev]

If DME is only 75% fermentable then surely you are increasing the residual sweetness of your beer if you use DME to prime?

It would change a bit, but remember bottle priming add about 0.5% abv. On a 5% that's only about 10% of the total sugar bill you have changed. Personally I think throw the malt in the main brew and prime with sugar.