Question for folks at Northern Brewing

I have been brewing for about five years and enjoy your products. I have always thought that the 2/3 cup of cane sugar for all of your products is a little silly. Why can’t you be a little more specific on the correct amount of sugar since I notice in Palmers “How to Brew” he definitely shows different styles of beer DO take different amounts of sugar to achieve the correct amount of CO2 when bottling. You know the ingredients so why is that priming amount always the same? If I am missing that I need to input the ingredients into a brewing program to get the correct answer then I stand corrected. I was just wondering as getting the priming sugar right has been an issue for me in the past.

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It’s just packaged that way. You need to do your own calculations. How carbonated do you want it? What is you’d volume to be bottled? WhAt is you FG? You have to fill in the blanks.

I think you answered my question in that I do have to do the calculations. I do understand how to calculate the ABV of the brew but the correct amount of sugar was always a little vague to me. Any particular brewing software that you recommend? I have never used any software this way. Thanks for answering.

I use Brewers friend but there are many others

Google priming sugar calculator…should find plenty of options.

Just curious… Has anything turned out with really wrong carbonation for you yet? I think they give you a generic, middle range carbonation level. Sure, it’s worth tweaking for different styles, but I’ve never been horribly disappointed with average carb.

NB has a priming sugar calculator here.

Calculator also gives you the option of which sugar to use.

PS
Table sugar works the same as corn sugar. What you have at home is also cheaper.

I would agree. For example I’m brewing the dry Irish stout which the instruction sheet says 2/3. That’s much higher than the NB calculator. Even if they instructed 1/2 cup to simplify, that would be much closer to the actual calculator.

Stupid question but how do you guys know what your desired CO2 volume is when calculating this? I know I can just pick my style of beer and go from there but I like doing things the long way and wonder if there is a way to know how much CO2 I would want in my bottles.

Volumes of CO2 is style dependant. However, Americans typically like a little more effervescence. Using the priming calculator above you can get very close to the desired volumes of CO2 for the style. It can be difficult because the program is using math to attempt to figure the residual CO2 that is dissolved in the beer from fermentation.

Thanks Loopie