Hello! I'm currently in the midst of bottling my first attempt at an IPA. I followed an IPA recipe from an issue of Beer Advocate that was released about 3-4 months back. Everything went smoothly, but as I looked back on the recipe before bottling, there was no mention of adding sugar before bottling. It instructed me to dry-hop 1 week after brewing and then bottle 2-3 weeks after that, but no mention of adding sugar. Every other IPA recipe I've looked up seems to have this sugar addition step so I'm a little confused as to how to approach this. Should I add the standard sugar solution recommended for a 5gallon brew or is the Beer Advocate recipe correct? Thanks for any and all help! Cheers!!
Is it possible the recipe was posted by someone who kegs and therefore force carbonates? Use an online priming calculator to determine hwo much sugar to add, e.g., http://www.northernbrewer.com/priming-sugar-calculator/
yup add your priming sugars! if they're already bottled, i'd recommend popping the tops and adding sugar to each bottle
Thanks for the heads up! I figured that would be the plan but I just wanted to avoid any unnecessary steps. Cheers!
You can use Conditioning Tablets or Carbonation Drops or just corn sugar All the above is sugar, the substance that reactivate the yeast in the bottle, resulting co2 and do the magic we call beer carbonation. The impotent part of the Bottling/Priming/Conditioning/Carbonation is to add the right amount of sugar, that will "Fizz" the beer. too much sugar will blow up the bottle too little result a flat beer. The right amount of sugar will deliver smooth beverage with the right amount of co2 for the beer style. First timer beer priming calculator
depends on the f.g., how much attenuation you expect from your beer. if you bottle before fermentation is complete (not recommended) you can carbonate in bottle and could over-carbonate and get bottle bombs especially if you add priming sugar. For taste I prefer to save a quart to half gallon of wort depending on O.G. in the freezer to thaw and use as priming sugar. You can also use hot water and DME to mix into the finished beer before you bottle to prime. Corn sugar is the easiest, wort is the purest for flavor, dme is a compromise of the two.
