Priming Sugar Substitutes / Life in a Home Brewing Desert

[JWR_12]

Hi folks,

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sadly, I live in a homebrew desert since our store closed, so I always have to plan in advance and mail order things in. But sometimes my planning fails, as in this weekend. I need to bottle, and am a little low on priming sugar. Thankfully, I think I have just enough for my batch. But I found myself wondering about substitutes. Does anyone know if:

* Do grocery stores sell corn sugar under a name I don't know? If I buy something that's sold as corn sugar but is not sold for brewing per se (suppose it's like sold for cakes or something) is that okay?

* Could I do something like make another concentrated all grain wort, cool it, and add that as more sugar to prime for bottling? How to calculate?

* How disastrous would small amounts of cane sugar be, if used to just 'top off' a batch of corn sugar that's maybe a table spoon short?

* Any other options that one could dig out of a pantry and / or buy at a supermarket?

Thanks so much!

John

 

[Megary]

You can bottle prime with all kinds of sugars and this web site has a great calculator to help you figure it all out.

https://www.brewersfriend.com/beer-priming-calculator/

 

[Zambi]

Any sugar will do.
I use cane sugar
(From another desert dweller)

 

[Craigerrr]

Welcome to the forum @JWR_12 you came to the right place for help!

 

[Minbari]

As others said, you can prime with cane sugar too

Corn sugar might labeled dextrose sugar. You can get it on Amazon.

 

[Donoroto]

It is also high fructose corn syrup. But any sugar can be used, even honey, pancake syrup, maple syrup and simple syrup. Perhaps even most breakfast cereals…

 

[Brew Cat]

Orange juice

 

[Zambi]

Orange juice

I think apple juice would be better...
But I dare someone to try @Donoroto suggestion of breakfast cereals

 

[Brew Cat]

I think apple juice would be better...
But I dare someone to try @Donoroto suggestion of breakfast cereals

I've used frosted flakes in beer but not to condition
you can calculate the sugar by looking at the grams of sugar per serving
to bottle condition grind it up fine
only problem is you would need to let it settle some in the bottles best in a hazy

 

[Brew Cat]

I think apple juice would be better...
But I dare someone to try @Donoroto suggestion of breakfast cereals

everyone uses apple juice use the orange or grapefruit in an juicy IPA
maybe @Bigbre04 can use the shredded what in his wheat beer instead of the oats

 

[Brew Cat]

@JWR_12 hope we aren't making you nervous just a bunch mad scientists here

 

[J A]

Cane sugar is the number one most-used priming sugar, I'd wager. No reason not to use it on a regular basis. It's cheap and effective. You can easily make a simple syrup and cool it and add it to bucket or bottle - calculating the precise dosage based on the strength of the solution.
Corn syrup, maple syrup, pure cane syrup or any syrup that's not laden with preservative will do. There's a grams per serving amount on the nutrition label and that'll tell you an exact amount to add to each bottle or bucket.
If used in relatively large quantity in a recipe, dextrose vs sucrose would make a noticeable difference but the small amount used in priming is not significant.

 

[Brew Cat]

Cane sugar is the number one most-used priming sugar, I'd wager. No reason not to use it on a regular basis. It's cheap and effective. You can easily make a simple syrup and cool it and add it to bucket or bottle - calculating the precise dosage based on the strength of the solution.
Corn syrup, maple syrup, pure cane syrup or any syrup that's not laden with preservative will do. There's a grams per serving amount on the nutrition label and that'll tell you an exact amount to add to each bottle or bucket.
If used in relatively large quantity in a recipe, dextrose vs sucrose would make a noticeable difference but the small amount used in priming is not significant.

I use corn sugar when I bottle which is rare only because I have it on hand
I use it in some recipes
I've experimented with wort, DME, honey, juice and did the bottle before it's completely fermented thing. Never noticed much difference in flavors

 

[Sandy Feet]

Table sugar, but make sure you look at the calculator. You use less table sugar than corn sugar. Corn sugar is just a hell of a lot easier to measure because it is an even 5oz and and even 3/4 cup.

 

[Craigerrr]

Science!

 

[JWR_12]

Thanks everyone. It's bottled.

 

[Craigerrr]

Awesome!

 

[Ward Chillington]

Heyya J...glad you got things taken care of. I'm a table sugar user. I can identify with the desert but look on the bright side....you will become more resourceful. I know I have. My source is about an hour and a half away so "last minute" is out of the question.

I'm also on a well that has a hard water treatment system that I bypass for brewing water with just a carbon online filter. On brew day, I pull a mason jar full of my strike water and let it seal itself so I have clean, untreated water for bottling day. It's most likely a little overkill but it makes me happy that I don't have to hook up the inline just for a quart of water!

 

[Smartrem]

Cane sugar is sucrose, which is one glucose and one fructose. Yeast tends to go for the easy one which is glucose. If they have sucrose, they break the sucrose to feast on glucose then fructose. This "effort" they have to make to break the bond between the molecules might sometimes lead to some slightly off flavours. Yeasts don't need this effort to reach glucose in corn sugar (which is pure dextrose) so the final taste in beer might be a little cleaner. All the brewers I know use table sugar (beet in France, thanks to Napoleon!), I'm the only one with dextrose and there's no noticeable difference between our beers. Just make sure to use the right sugar in your priming calculator!

 

[Daniel Parshley]

Any sugar will do.
I use cane sugar
(From another desert dweller)

Perhaps with the exception of Lactose.