How do you guys calculate the amount of priming sugar?
Example: I had 2 batches of beer to bottle last weekend
Batch #1 4.75 gallons was inside Speidel Fermenter, I can clearly the levels right through the plastic
Batch #2 4.50 Inside a 7 gallon white plastic Bucket, cant see through it
Well I had appox. .25 of yeast cake in my speidel and subtracted that out of the amount and then input that into a primig sugar calculator.
The bucket i guessed it was .25 so subtracted that amount for my sugar amounts.
But what about if you brew in a 10 gallon steel vessel or larger and you cant se through it…LOL… how do you do that??
is their just a standard educated guess… like lets say between 5 and 10% of yeast cake and the subtract that from your 10 or more gallons example
OR do you just see the 10 gallons of beer and prime based on that, disregarding the yeast cake???
L
I’ve always used 2 tablespoons cane sugar per gallon, ignoring the yeast cake, with pretty dang consistently good results. If there’s also a huge amount of hops like in an IPA, then I account for that. As for measuring it, you can mark your fermentation vessel in advance by pouring exact amounts in and marking it off, or if not see through you can “stick the tank” by making your marks on a dowel or other reference tool that you can sanitize and stick into the vessel at the end of fermentation to measure.
I bottle exclusively, have for 16 years. It gets tiring, but it’s a hell of a lot easier with smaller batches. Currently I only brew 1.7 gallons at a time typically, with the occasional bigger batch but I too hate bottling the bigger batches. Smaller batches have a zillion advantages. Think about it.