Priming pumpkin beer with brown sugar

Brewing Processes
1

I just brewed a pumpkin beer this weekend so I can give it some extra time in the bottle before fall.  Although I’ve brewed 20 or so batches, I’m still getting use to all the flavors in homebrewing and how they interact.  I was thinking I would prime with brown sugar but I’m not 100% sure what kind of flavor it will create.  I’m thinking the brown sugar was impart some nice flavors but I’m not sure.  The recipe calls for corn sugar.  If someone would recommend brown sugar, light or dark?

Here is the recipe I used.

Did a partial mash of (60 minutes at 152)
2 lbs Rahr 6 Row Malt
0.5 lb Briess Caramel 40 
30oz of organic pumpkin

Proceeded with the extract recipe as follows 
3.15 lbs Amber malt syrup (60 min)
1.0 lb Pilsen dried malt extract (60 min)
3.15 lbs Amber malt syrup (15 min)
1 oz Cluster (60 min)
1 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice (0 min) 
Yeast- While Labs WLP001- California Ale

2

Brown sugar, at least as far as what we think of as brown sugar in the US, is just table sugar sprayed with molasses. If you prime with it you will get a small amount of molasses flavor. Not a terrible thing for a pumpkin beer.

3

Would maybe adding it to the secondary give it a more desirable taste and then just prime with corn sugar as normal?

4

ounce for ounce you will get more flavor from priming sugar than any sugar added to the fermentation if for no other reason than delicate aromatics that would be driven off in a fermenter will be sealed in the bottle.

But the amount you use for priming is very small and only quite strong flavors will survive. I think a touch of brown sugar flavor would likely go well with your beer. it won’t hurt anything to prime with it. you will need to use more.

http://www.northernbrewer.com/priming-sugar-calculator/ check this calculator out to calculate your desired priming amount.

5

My experience priming with brown sugar is that you can’t tell it’s there.

6

How about if you prime with molasses/Treacle Denny?

7

Never tried that.  I think you would get little flavor due to the small amount you’d use, but I have no first hand experience.