Please help - amateur brewer sugar question

Use this calculator:

http://www.northernbrewer.com/priming-sugar-calculator/

And add the sugar to the whole bulk batch before bottling instead of adding it to each individual bottle. You will get more consistent results from bottle to bottle that way.

 

The amount of sugar you add for bottling depends on the amount of CO2 you want in the final beer. Choose the style of beer your making with the drop down menu, choose the volume of beer (2 gallons was it? ). Enter temperature of the beer, and look down at the chart. It will tell you how much sugar to use to achieve your desired result with the various sugars people use to carb beers.

Once you figured out how much to sugar to use, and I recommend you use a scale to weigh it rather than using volume measurements like cups or tablespoons, take that amount and boil it in an equal amount of water. Cool it down, the carefully add it to the mr beer keg. Stir very carefully to make sure it's distributed evenly NO SPLASHING. Then bottle away.

 

Priming sugar is dextrose and I believe is derived from corn sugar. Granulate sugar like you put in your coffee is sucrose.

 

Nope. All the sugars listed in the calculator will carbonate. The priming sugar will leave no residual taste. People use dark sugars and honey and other things like that to impart flavor. Priming and table sugar won't leave any flavors.

 

Aside from the advice you've received, here is a link to a free version of a really good homebrew book you should check out. Enjoy! www.howtobrew.com

 

No worries. Add this book to your Christmas list. It's a fantastic resource you'll refer to for years to come.

http://www.howtobrew.com

Edit: Lololol... Just beat me out by a few seconds :-D

 

Great minds think alike

 

The MrB liquid malt extract (LME) shouldn't be boiled.
The water is boiled before adding the LME but not after.

Five ounces of sugar is a lot for such a small batch size ... especially given MrB's products already produce a dry ... light body beer.

Let your MrB recipe ferment for two full weeks ... especially since you added sugar to the wort.
Bottle too soon and you'll end up with a sour ... cider-like drain pour.

When it's time to bottle ... the easiest thing to do is add two Domino Dots (sugar cubes) to each 1-L bottle.

 

You're supposed to save that priming sugar for priming at bottling time. Since you've already added it, it will ferment out completely before it has a chance to carbonate your bottles. Not to worry though. Your beer will still turn out great. Anyway, 5 oz would be way too much to prime 2 gallons of beer. 3.5 Tablespoons or about 1.5 oz cane sugar should be plenty. On bottling day, dissolve 3.5 Tablespoons cane sugar in a little water, boil in the microwave for a minute, cool, then add in bulk to your fermenter or bottling bucket (whatever Mr. Beer has for bottling, I don't know) and fill and cap your bottles from there. Pretty easy.

 

Also ... pretty awfully bad advice from someone who clearly 'I don't know' nothing ' about brewing with MrB.

 

I don't do the Mr. beer kit, but I don't like seeing anybody struggle, so I will give this a go. I did look at the web page, and the Mr. Beer kits come with "carbonation drops". I don't know what those are, but my guess would be they are just sugar tablets that you put in the bottle when you fill it. They could be corn sugar or table sugar if my guess is correct. If you don't have this, then you need to add your own sugar for the yeast to consume in the bottle to carbonate your beer.

To use the calculator, you need to have an idea of what carbonation level you want. The easy way is to use the pull down list of beer styles and pick one that resembles your beer. If you pick a style, it puts the carbonation value in the box for you. If you know the target, you can type it in yourself. That is step one.

You can get the temperature easy enough - measure it and enter it in the box Next to current temperature of your beer. Step two...done.

Step 3 is just the volume of beer in gallons, which I think is 2 gallons for the Mr. Beer kit.

Ready, set, go...hit the blue calculate button and that whole table fills in. Forget about the more exotic stuff. You Would most likely use corn sugar to prime your brew. It is white powdered sugar you can get at any home brew shop.

I don't do the Mr. Beer system, but here is how I add my priming sugar to a five gallon batch. I mix the priming sugar in a pint of water in a saucepan heated to the boil. I let it cool to about the same temperature as the beer. I transfer my beer from the fermenter to my bottling bucket (not letting it splash so no air gets in). When I have transferred a bit of the beer, I pour in the cooled sugar solution. When I have transferred all the beer, I stir slowly with a sanitized spoon. Again, not wanting to put any air in the beer. Then I bottle it up.

I think your confusion is about what priming sugar is. All the stuff listed on that calculator can be used to prime. Priming sugar provides carbonation when you bottle your beer. It is just enough sugar for the yeast to ferment and produce bubbles without blowing up the bottles. You added yours to the boil, so it will be fermented with all the other sugars in the sort at that stage. Priming sugar goes in after fermentation is completed and just before bottling. The way you describe what you did, it is all gone, or should be if your fermentation went well. Corn sugar and dextrose are the same thing. Sucrose is table sugar. Both plus a whole bunch of other things can be used for priming sugar. The goal is to feed the residual yeast in the beer so they carbonate the beer in the bottle.

I used the calculator picking an American Amber Ale, which should have a carbonation level of 2.3. I put in two gallons as the volume, and 68 F as the temperature. The answer for corn sugar is 44.09 grams or 1.56 ounces BY WEIGHT. Weighing is much more accurate vs. cups or tablespoons. The only question I would have is the volume of solution you need for two gallons. I use a pint in five gallons.

And David Palmer is your friend...maybe an older reference, but still solid and easy to read.

 

And a howdy do to you, too! I suppose you are a Mr. Beer expert! I'm so awfully dumb that I don't even know how to respond to that.

Listen to my advice or not, I don't care. I have 15 years brewing experience with extract, all-grain, etc. I've been on a dozen other forums for many years. Just showed up here last night to find what I thought was a pretty nice forum and wondered why I haven't been hanging out here for just as long. Question might have been answered for me right off. Thanks.

LeRose is right on, by the way.

 

Thank you, Pete, for the additional information. My advice certainly remains applicable. Priming sugar is most easily added in bulk rather than bottle-by-bottle, and carbonation then will also be more consistent. General rule of thumb is 4 oz priming sugar per 5 gallons. So that's how I came up with about 1.5 oz per 2 gallons (actually 1.6 oz to be perfectly precise, assuming you have exactly 2 gallons beer, which you might not -- maybe you only have 1.8 gallons or something like that -- right?).

Sorry for any offense earlier. I just don't take kindly to people treating me awfully for no good reason.