I just seems counter intuitive to put a clear solution into a nice dark beer to prime it. I’ve used the Priming calculator provided by our hosts and have used Sorghum(Poor Richard heritage Brown), Buckwheat honey(Black IPA), Dark Brown sugar (Winter warmer,Barley Wine, spiced pumpkin), and they all carbonated nicely. I know the flavor they add is minimal if any, so what am I not understanding. PS the cost is a wash.
I’m not sure you’re missing anything - sugar is sugar as long as you adjust the priming amount for the density of the particular sugar. But adding a cup or two of clear syrup to five gallons of beer will have a negligible effect on the SRM. If you’re worried about color change, just skip the water entirely and dry prime with white sugar.
I use DME.
I like it. I notice no difference in the carbonation or taste. I find I get a more accurate carbonation level when using it.
I’ve carbed with tabs, table sugar, corn sugar, malt extract, honey, maple syrup, and flavor wise its all pretty much the same as far as I can tell. The percent of new fermentables you’re adding is too small to have a significant flavor impact. Actually I can’t vouch for the flavor difference maple would make in a normal beer, because I used it on a maple porter that already had a ton of maple in it. Still, I doubt it would make much difference.
I keg these days, but when I was still bottling I settled on table sugar, since it worked as well as anything else and my wife always keeps it around anyway.
I wouldn’t worry about any color dilution. If you want to be real authentic you could try krausening (sp?). I think you can just save some wort from the boil to bottle prime with… Or something like that… I obviously have never done it.
I found it it be a PITA and not very accurate. You have to know the fermentability of the wort in order to know how much gyle to use.
I have experimented with MANY different primings. All had drawbacks, IMO, except either corn or table sugar. That’s all I use now.
