can i prime with syrup?

Ingredients
1

I have blue agave syrup and was wondering instead of priming sugar can i use blue agave syrup ?  ???

2

Yes.  Determine the sugar content, then calculate how much you need to add.  It should be fully fermentable.

3

I used agave syrup in an American wheat beer as a fermentable and then used it for priming.  I wanted to get the Tequila essence.
The SG of Agave syrup is around 1.300. Other usual priming sugars are:  Munton’s Light DME is 1.043;  Corn sugar is 1.038;  Table sugar is 1.046; Belgian clear Candi sugar is 1.046.  Honey is between 1.350-1.400.

When I figured out how much agave I needed (not being a math whiz) I looked at the % difference between agave syrup and corn sugar (1.300 SG ÷ 1.038 SG = 1.25).  I measure my prime sugar by mass, not by the volume (¾ cup/5 gal) to get the Vol of CO² I want.  I would have used 113 g of corn sugar for to get around 2.2 vol CO².  I divided that by 1.25 and got  90.4 g of agave syrup.  I found the CO² level to be great for a wheat beer and the taste is great.

The beer had a medium mouthfeel with a medium finish, not to dry, not to sweet, but didn’t have any Tequila essence.

4

Steve, AFAIK both corn sugar and table sugar have the same number of gravity points, around 46.  Could you tell me where you got your numbers?

5

I would just stick to plain table sugar or corn sugar. You most likely won’t notice that small of an amount of agave syrup in 5 gallons of beer, so what’s really the point? At least with regular sugar you will know what you are going to get as far as consistent results go.

6

Agave is mostly fructose with a smaller percentage of glucose. So yes you can use it but you definitely need to know how much actual sugar by weight is present in order to calculate the required sugar needed to properly prime your beer. It will ferment but I don’t have any experience with it and I’m not sure how well it will behave. If you’re really hellbent on trying it I recommend trying it out on a smaller scale as not to risk a botched experiment on 5 gallons of beer.

7

100% blue agave nectar ferments an excellent wash for tequila.