Skip to main content

How to Properly Prime a Beer with Candi Syrup

I have a Belgian Dubbel in the fermenter that will need to be bottled soon.  I wondered if Belgian Candi Syrup could be used as the priming sugar.  As it turns out, you can do that.  A document on the Simplicity Candi Syrup web site explains now.

You need to know two things about your beer in order to do this properly.  First, what volume of CO2 do you want in the beer?  You can determine this from the style.  My Dubbel will want something in the range of 2.3 to 2.9 Volumes.  Next, what is the volume of beer you're carbonating?  In my case, this is a 2.5 gallon batch.

On the Simplicity Candi Syrup web site, they offer an instruction document for carbonating beer with Candi Syrup.  The information below is derived from that document.

CO2 (Volumes) Grams of Candi Syrup per Gallon
2 22.47
2.1 24.66
2.2 26.84
2.3 29.03
2.4 31.21
2.5 33.4
2.6 35.58
2.7 37.77
2.8 39.95
2.9 42.14
3 44.32

I want to carbonate my 2.5 gallon batch of Dubbel to approximately 2.5-2.6 volumes of CO2,  In the chart above, that means I'll need approximately 34 grams of Candi Syrup per gallon.  With 2.5 gallons to carbonate, that's 85 grams of syrup by weight.  With that calculation, I was ready to prime my beer.

  • I placed a small pan with a lid on my scale and set the tare to zero.
  • Poured candi syrup in slowly until I reached 85 grams.
  • Reset the tare back to zero.
  • Slowly poured in water until I hit 34 grams (actually, I overshot accidentally to 51 but decided this would be OK given the next step).
  • Brought the mixture to a boil, which didn't take long since it was a very thin layer in the pan.
  • Put the pan into an ice bath to cool it.
  • Transferred the beer from the fermenter to the bottling bucket.
  • Checked the temperature of the syrup mixture, then poured it into the bottling bucket.
  • Stirred the contents of the bucket well to ensure a proper incorporation of syrup.
  • Bottled and capped the beer as usual.
Two weeks later, when I opened the first bottle, the Dubbel poured into the glass with a great color and a nice thick head on it.  The carbonation level was comparable to a bottle of Chimay Red that I had right after it, so I think the experiment was a success!  The Candi Syrup, being added near the end like this, also improved the flavor of the beer.  It had been a little bland when I tasted a sample before bottling it and adding the syrup.  The finished beer ended up with dark fruit elements that are common for the style.



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Note that comments to this blog are moderated in order to minimize spam comments and things that might be offensive to readers.

Popular posts from this blog

Yellow Label Angel Yeast vs. Typical Brewing Yeast

I currently have my second batch of rice wine fermenting with the "magical" yellow-label Angel Yeast from China, and wanted to share some of the more unusual aspects of using it.  If you've never seen or used this yeast, I suspect you're not alone.  It ships in a 500 gram package that looks like this: What makes it "yellow label" is that yellow box you see in the upper left corner of the package.  This implies that it's yeast for distilling (though you do not need to have a still or distill the output to use it).  As I understand it, inside the package is a mix of yeast and other materials which will convert starch into sugar and directly ferment it, without the need for a traditional mash step.  This can radically shorten your brewing time.  For my most-recent batch of rice wine, I heated 3 gallons of water to 155F, poured it over 13+ pounds of uncooked rice straight out of the bag, let that soak for an hour, rehydrated some of this yeast in warm water,
Post a Comment
Read more

Making Alton Brown's Immersion Cooker Fennel Cardamon Cordial

Alton Brown's "Good Eats" series is my favorite cooking show.  I love the way he explains the "why" and "how" of a recipe in detail, which helps you understand (if things don't go right) where you may have gone wrong.  In his episode on immersion cooking (also known as sous vide), he shows you how to make a cordial in an hour using an immersion cooker. It took me a while to locate all the ingredients here in Columbus.  I ended up getting the fennel and vodka at Giant Eagle. The cardamom seeds, pods, and anise stars came from Amazon.  The Fennel fronds and bulb came from Trader Joe's at Easton. Ingredients 32 ounces of 80-proof vodka 2 cups of fennel fronds 10 green cardamom pods 3 ounces granulated sugar 1 tablespoon fennel seeds 1 teaspoon black cardamom seeds 1 whole star anise Begin by loading your sous vide vessel with hot water and set your immersion cooker to 140F. While the cooker is getting up to that temperature, meas
2 comments
Read more

2021 Batch 1 - Rice Wine made with Yellow Label Angel Yeast

I've become a big fan of the Still It channel on YouTube.  About a month ago, Jesse posted a video about how he made rice wine using nothing more than water, rice, and a purported "magic" yeast from China called Yellow Label Angel Yeast. Perhaps even more amazing was the fact that he was able to make the rice wine without gelatinizing or mashing the rice.  He shows three batches in the video.  One was made by cooking the rice before adding the yeast mixture. Another was made by adding uncooked rice to boiling water.  The last was made by adding uncooked rice to room temperature water.  All three fermented out to roughly the same amount of alcohol in about two weeks. He was amazed by this, as was I. I resolved to buy some of this magical yeast from Aliexpress.com and try it out. In the Still It video, the rice is ground up in the grain mill into smaller chunks to make it easier for the enzymes in the yellow label yeast to convert and ferment.  I'm changing this up s
Post a Comment
Read more