Priming: Sugar or DME's?

[griz]

Greetings. I've notice some recipes call for either using sugars or DME's when priming. I just made a batch of Harbor Lighthouse Ale from a recipe out of the Clone Brew 2nd edition book, and it calls for priming with 1.5 cups of Muntons extra-light DME. I have seen other recipes that call for the same thing.

Would there be any difference using sugar vs DME's? Thanks.

 

[Nosybear]

Aside from the fact that sugar is pure and DME can leave a "bathtub ring" in your bottles, as long as you get enough sugar in the bottles, no difference whatsoever.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

sugar is cheaper

 

[Nosybear]

sugar is cheaper

And it doesn't leave a bathtub ring in your bottles!

 

[Nosybear]

Oh, DME is allowable under the Reinheitsgebot - dried Speise.

 

[sbaclimber]

Aside from the fact that sugar is pure and DME can leave a "bathtub ring" in your bottles, as long as you get enough sugar in the bottles, no difference whatsoever.

Stupid question, but just to make sure....
That would mean I could use 50g of DME instead of the 50g pure cane sugar!?
That might help with the somewhat odd sweet flavor that I am sometimes getting during conditioning in the bottle.

 

[Hogarthe]

use the priming calculator this site to find out how much dme to use. Using sugar shouldn't give you a sweet taste though, I think regular sugar should fully ferment? I have always used corn sugar for priming, so no first hand experience.

 

[sbaclimber]

use the priming calculator this site to find out how much dme to use.

D'oh, good point. Totally forgot about the calc.

Using sugar shouldn't give you a sweet taste though, I think regular sugar should fully ferment? I have always used corn sugar for priming, so no first hand experience.

It does fully ferment. The "sweetness" isn't actual sweetness, more of an aroma....
I think I'll open another thread for that particular issue.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

just a note, sugar is what yeast eats, the dme, wort, rice, corn, all it does is give us a flavored or different texture sugar for the yeast to eat. and yeast will eat strait sugar before anything else thats why its used for priming and it does get eaten completely in most cases

 

[Blutech]

slightly offtopic

i have made my second brew on thuesday, it is also an ale (bohemian pilsen malt, saaz and mittelfrüh hops, the fisrt one was an IPA, it was great). my mashing "technologie" is not the best, and i guess that simple sugar content of my batches is low (gravity is OK, but i guess it has more complex carbohydrates than simple ones). anyway, i am a bit worried of this second batch's ABV so yesterday evening i added 50g of table sugar for 18-19 liters of beer to the fermenter (dilued in some hot water then cooled down) to bump up a bit the ABV...

i am wondering, was it a good move or not? how would you have done this in my place?
cheers

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

there's nothing wrong with what you did, I do it a lot ... worse case, you'll end up with more alcohol than you thought but it will not hurt anything, it might be dryer tasting after adding the sugar