Can I use grapefruit juice as a priming sugar when bottling? If so how do go about that. I have a gallon batch that I'm about to bottle. Thanks
Well, you could, but I wouldn't recommend it. If you do, use something that doesn't have any preservatives in it. Maybe fresh squeeze it. You'll need too google up its sugar content. Let's say it's 9 grams sugar per 100 grams juice. So that's 9% sugar. Next, use any carbonation calculator out there to find out how much table sugar you would have used in ounces for the level of carbonation you want. Let's say the answer was 4 ounces table sugar. Since the juice is 9% sugar, you would multiply the 4 ounces table sugar by (100%/9%)... 4 ounces x (1.0 / 0.09) = 44.4 ounces So you'd need to use 44.4 ounces (by weight) of juice. Not very practical, and the added water content will dilute your beer. And to really do it right, now you'd need to account for the extra volume in the carbonation calculation. ETA: My example above more or less assumed a 5 gallon batch. Naturally, you'd never use 4 ounces table sugar to prime a one gallon batch. But it would all be proportional, and still not a good idea IMO.
