I have made over 50 batches of beer and kegged every one of them and force carbonated all of them. I have never put beer in a bottle. I have a friend who got a 1 gallon brewing kit as a gift, I helped her make it and have the beer in the primary and need to bottle it. The plan is to put it in a one gallon growler, I have table sugar can I carb with that? If so how much in a gallon bottle?
Yes, you can. As for the amount to use:
Add the sugar to some amount of water (if you were bottling 5 gallons you would use 16 oz of water, so scale that accordingly) and then boil it for 5 - 10 minutes to sanitize and remove oxygen, the cover and cool it before adding it to your growler.
Sugar is sanitary out of the bag, so you can add it dry to the growler and transferring the beer on top will dissolve it. I’ve dry-primed hundreds of gallons with no issues.
Table sugar? No problem. My concern is the growler. There are stories of those things exploding at bottling pressures. They aren’t designed for carbonation.
depends on the growler for sure, I have a groschl like growler
i prefer table sugar over liquid sugars
I always use table sugar. I usually boil it with a bit of water before adding it. You will not need very much sugar since there will be very little head space in your growler. I bottled in a 1/2 gallon growler one time. It did not explode, but I probably used 1 teaspoon of sugar for the whole 1/2 gallon. It was an English ale, so I wanted soft carbonation. I usually use 2 Oz to carbonate a whole 5 gallon keg. Again, there is much less head space in a 5 gallon keg than their is in the 50-60 bottles it will take to bottle 5 gallons. I would also store the growler in an area that does not make a mess or hurt anyone if it does explode. I often put bottles in my old Stainless 5 gallon pot until I am sure they are stable.
