Spray malt or sugar?

[donk]

My first biab is coming up to transfering to bottles, I have read somewhere (cannot remember where, might even be on here) about using spraymalt instead of sugar for priming?

if so how much do you use for 23 litres? or do you use half and half? or one or the other?

[Bribie]

White sugar is a neutral-tasting conditioner - the thing about spraymalt is that it subtly alters the flavour of the beer that you have worked so hard to nail, so why would you want to change it? There is a bit of an urban myth that sugar gives a "cidery" twang or makes the beer taste thin. In reasonable quantities as used by some commercial breweries, white sugar lightens the body of the beer but doesn't give rise to a twang. Of course this can happen if you buy a kit-in-a-can and then go ridiculous and pour in a kilo or more of cane sugar, which you wouldn't want to attack your worst enemy with (unless you want to disable them with a severe hangover in which case it's probably a good strategy ) But in the small quantities used in priming you wouldn't get any twang.

[donk]

Hi Bribie
quick question on sugar. in my first kit it was 1 and a half table spoons, as this is all grain and not malt extract
how much do you add? do you have any clue how much spraymalt to use, should I go down that route

[Bribie]

One and a half TABLESPOONS ?? per bottle would probably create hand grenades.

Basically for a pint bottle with an ale you would need around a flat teaspoon of white sugar and no more than a slightly rounded teaspoon. Because spray malt is more fluffy and light, it's hard to work out how much to use per bottle, you would have to use a priming calculator - do you have scales accurate to one gram?

Here's a calculator http://webspace.webring.com/people/ms/s ... lator.htmlthat could help you, when you have worked out how much spray malt (light dried malt extract) you need to gas the beer up to a certain style, you can either try to split it up per bottle, or rack the beer into a second FV, add the weight of spraymalt, dissolve well and fill from there. Personally I'd still go the sugarz

[donk]

One and a half TABLESPOONS ?? per bottle would probably create hand grenades.

Hahahahhaha pure brilliant,

sorry about that, just checked my kit instructions, I was wrong its 3 level table spoons of sugar for the whole 23 litres not
per bottle. that did make me laugh, bad prose and grammar never fails to confuse people.

thanks for the link to the calculator

D

[jonnyt]

I use 85g for 23l, seems OK from the two batches I've done

[Beer O'Clock]

Around 80g for 20 litres of Ale is good. That's the amount I use and it never fails to give the correct level of carbonation.

[donk]

Beer o clock 80grams for 20 litres, johnnyT 85grams for 23litres (scratches head) is that for sugar or spraymalt?

[jonnyt]

Sucre

[Beer O'Clock]

Sugar for me too. I don't like wasting my money

[Valley Commando]

I am working off 5 g table sugar/L and that gives a decent carbonatio. I have noticed carbonation is a little inconsistent, some bottles nice and fizzy, others less so and some just right.

[jonnyt]

5g is a level teaspoon, 10g is a heaped teaspoon, I've been sad enough to measure this over multiple teaspoons to test the accuracy.

[donk]

Well I will bow to superior knowledge and just use plain old tate and lyles finest, so sugar it is

which would work out at 115g for 23litres @ 5grams per litre, might pick a mid point between 85 and 115grams and call it 100 grams

[john_drummer]

I use 1/2 tsp per bottle, but do it in bulk. 20l = 40x 500ml bottles, so that's 20 teaspoons, or 7 tbsp in bulk. I just chuck it in the FV half an hour before bottling

[Wezzel]

If you don't want to risk sugar affecting the taste I can recommend Dextrose. It is available from some supermarkets and is only a couple of quid for a packet. I bought mine in Morrisons.