Hi there, I’ve been trolling these forums to glean as much information as I can over the past 4 months after I upgraded from my MrBeer brewing kit (which I used about 10 times last year before deciding I was ready to upgrade to closer to real brewing and purchased the Deluxe brewing starting kit for myself for Christmas this year :twisted: ).
My goal long term is to get to all grain but I haven’t managed to convince the Missus that the equipment is worth the investment yet. 
I got a spare turkey frier setup with a propane burner and a 32 qt boil kettle from my uncle (who brewed one time and decided he’d rather buy his beer than make it :lol:
The question I have is with my Irish Red, the recipe said to use 2/3 Cup sugar for carbonation in the bucket before bottling. I let it sit at room temperature after bottling (in a cooler in my laundry room which averages around 68 degrees) for two weeks (I ferment in my basement which averages around 62 degrees because my college mini-fridge I used for a fermentation chamber with a Johnson Temp Controller for Mr. Beer doesn’t hold my new carboys, I haven’t gotten around to upgrading that yet). The final result after I put it in the fridge for 1 week I would describe as rather under-carbed. The flavor was very nice but the bubbles were lacking for an Irish Red.
With Mr. Beer kits I was adding 1 tsp sugar to each bottle of beer to carbonate it. I experimented with different amounts of sugar by batch with varying results. (over sugared beer sucks although I’ve only had to completely dump one batch due to it tasting like beer/pop and undrinkable :oops:
My question is, with brewing straight extract kits atm from NB, should I dump the whole bag of priming sugar that I have been ordering with my kits (boiled in the appropriate amount of water and cooled) in when I transfer to the bottling bucket and not worry about the measurement on the recipe? I have been putting the boiled, cooled sugar water in the bottling bucket before racking from secondary carboy and stirring with the siphon as I bottle. Batch carbing is a fairly new concept to me so I am looking for any input I can get.
Thanks in advance for any advice from those who have been here before me. . .
