priming your beer

thanks to both of you, i just wanted to have an idea about other option, i will most likely stick with priming sugar as well. but i might try DME at some point just to see. thanks again!

Either one of the approaches will work just fine...provided you know exactly what you're getting from each priming material.

The problem lies in the sensitive nature of bottle-conditioning. There's a relatively small target to hit when it comes to carbonation in glass bottles: there are only a few ounces of fermentable sugars mixed into five gallons (that's what's fueling the carbonation-building process) between under-carbonated, over-carbonated, and explosions ruining carpet, walls, and possibly injuring you.

The problem with malt extract is the fact that you don't know exactly how much fermentable sugar you're going to get out of a certain amount of extract. You can calculate for that and/or check some online resources and you'll be able to find out the amount of fermentables in the extract, but if you're wrong (or they're wrong) there might be some serious problems. The left-over yeast in the bottles are going to eat as much as they can, they don't care about blowing the bottle up and ruining your carpet (or face). Plus, you've got to worry about the freshness and flavor of the extract you're using to prime: are the flavors that are going in to the beer flavors that I want? What about later when you're trying to brew a beer with a very specific flavor profile in mind: how much flavor will that priming extract impart and will you be able to adjust for that?

Priming sugar is nice because it's almost completely fermentable (leaving behind very little of anything that will affect the flavor of the beer) so you have a really good idea of exactly how much fuel you're giving your yeast. Priming sugar (which is normally corn sugar, so it's readily available at the grocery store) is cheap, easy to use, transparent in the end product, and really efficient. I had considered using honey, different sugars, or DME to prime my bottles. I came to the decision that priming sugar was the easiest, cheapest, and safest.

Sorry for the long read, I'm always full of words and arguments.

yes i was refering to dry malt extract, and thank you for the reference.

Dry malt? Like ground barley?

That won't really work since you'd need to break down the sugars. Priming sugar is nice because it is essentially 100% convertible to -OH/CO2.

If you are referring to DME then it should work fine. It could impart a slight amount of color and flavor depending on the type you intend to use, but at the levels you are adding it there should be no significant difference.

Technically speaking check out this short blurb about the subject:

DME v. Corn Sugar

Seems there is some debate on the subject, but I think it mainly comes down to whatever each individual has come to believe based on personal experience.

ok, i have used priming sugar to get the carbonation on my bottles. but i have found some folks use dry malt for this. would this add anything to your beer? how do you know how much to add? have any of you done this?

thanks in advance for your time
dennis