Priming

[Alibee]

I've been reading Graham Wheelers new book and one thing that jumped out at me was that he recommended not priming bottles or kegs but relying on the unfermented sugars to slowly prime the beer.

I've always used a couple of ounces of sugar or so per 5 gallons depending on style.

Is it common practice to leave out the sugar. What is everyone else's experience?

Al

[Zatoichi]

I keg my beer and have always primed with just white sugar which has always worked for me! But recently I was lucky enough to spend the day at the Cheriton brewery and see how its done professionally.
Instead of priming with sugar which would soon add up and become expensive they catch the beer in first fermentation after about 3 to 4 days and then cold store it for about a week then they rack it into the barrel at which point the yeast wakes up again and starts working but this time under pressure it carbonates the beer!!!!

[Parva]

For us mere mortals, if bottling I would definitely disregard trusting a still fermenting beer going into a bottle. Whilst it would be ok with a keg due to the safety of release valves and stuff with bottles there is no relief valve and estimating the best point at which to bottle the fermenting beer to get the correct carbonation without either ending up with flat beer or exploded bottles will rely on many, many factors (such as yeast used, temperature of fermentation, starting and final gravity).

I see no reason why it would be better (and many reasons why it would be worse) than just priming with half a teaspoon of sugar per bottle. Similarly, I can see that it could work in a keg but again, I fail to see the benefits of this from a homebrewers perspective.

[Alibee]

What Graham was saying if I read it correctly was ferment right out as normal, but when bottling or kegging don't prime. (So not the commercial process of stoopping fementation early)

[trucker5774]

I have not read what Graham has said on the matter, but I am 100% with the 2 previous posts. Commercial brewers do the same thing over and over again and can control the environment b etter than us. I am sure Graham has very good reason for what he states, but without knowing the context of his comments it's hard to know the reason

[Horden Hillbilly]

I tried the no priming approach once as a experiment when bottling in the late 1990's. It took the brew about 9 months to get an acceptable level of carbonation in the bottles. Needless to say, I now prime all my ag bottled brews.

[lukesharpe]

The Germans use the Krausen technique to assist the conditioning of bottle and keg beers. A small amount of unfermented wort is added to the conditioning tank. This has the same effect as adding sugar or spraymalt. Adding a priming sugar would be against the Reinheitsgebot beer purity laws.