Hello homebrew friends - I'm hoping some of you experienced homebrewers can help a noob with a noob-ish question. I searched through past forums but couldn't really find an answer to my question. I'm getting ready to bottle my first all-grain homebrew, which turned out to be an 8% ESB (although the recipe was only supposed to hit around 5.5%), OG of 1.090. I've only have 2 gallons of beer to bottle, and I've got a couple of dextrose packets which were sold to me be the local homebrew supply store. Now my issue is how much priming sugar to put in my batch before I bottle it, and then at what temperature I should initially store the bottles. I've tried using online priming calculators like this one http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html but the result gives me a measurement that doesn't specify if it is per gallon, per entire batch, or per bottle (and if per bottle, what size of bottle?)... I obviously don't want to over/under prime my beer. I was also recommended by a fellow homebrewer to prime the entire 2 gallon batch instead of each bottle individually as to avoid differing levels of carbonation per bottle. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator/carbonation.html 70F is a good general temp for carbonating.
Prime the whole batch. "Standard" amounts of priming sugar (corn sugar) provided with 5 gallon kits are typically 4-5oz, meaning 112-140 grams. The grams part is important; measure by weight, not volume. If you don't have a gram scale, get one before you prime. 5 oz is on the high end of what you should use; some people would use 4, some in between, probably not many outside those parameters. Certainly don't go past 5. Scale this for your volume. If you have exactly 2 gallons, you would need between 1.6 and 2.0 oz (28 grams in an ounce). Boil priming sugar in small amount of water. Cool and add to bottling bucket. Rack beer on top of the sugar. This facilitates mixing, but it doesn't hurt to also give it a GENTLE stir to ensure complete mixing. Incomplete mixing = uneven carbonation, some flat, some kaboom!* The type of sugar makes a big difference. I have discussed numbers for CORN sugar (dextrose). It's NOT the same for other types of sugar. *may not always be so extreme in differences, but don't discount the possibility of bottle bombs. They DO happen. I had one about a week ago, cause uncertain.
1. The Tastybrew priming calculator gives you the amount of sugar per batch. Dissolve that amount of sugar in a small amount of water, boil it for sanitary precaution, allowing it to cool with a lid on and add it to your beer as you filling your bottle bucket. Stir it gently, ever so gently, for good mixing. Give it 5-10 min for good measure. Start bottling. 2. You should start calling your 8% ESB a barleywine so people won't recoil in shock. In contrast to what AlCaponeJr said, I have bottled with dextrose and table sugar, and I have found no discernable difference. The Tastybrew calculator suggests that nearly the same amount of each will be necessary to carb to a particular level. With that in mind, the Tastybrew calculator suggests those English beers be pretty flat. Your mileage may vary. Also, it probably will take longer for an 8% beer to achieve full carbonation than it would if the beer were 5 percent. Store those bottles warm for several weeks - I wouldn't check one until at least three weeks have passed.
Thanks for the great advice! This info has most definitely answered my questions. Greatly appreciated. I just need the patience to wait 3 weeks once bottled Haha, yeah, the 8% was definitely an accident, but I'm not complaining.
