priming coopers lager for bottling

[rhodian]

ok, i've bottled a couple of times before and been pretty pleased with the results, even though the last batch was a tad flat cos i purposley under-primed cos i was using glass bottles for the first time and coudln't bear to have an explosion.

now, though, i'd like to get it right and have bottles of fizzy lager. so i actually read the instructions this time, and they say 4g of sugar per pint. that's 160g for the 5 gallons.

crikey! that's a lot, innit? i'd only been thinking about half that.

what should i do? split the difference and go for about 120g?

[J_P]

Hi rhodian

I generally work on the ratio of half a teaspoon of plain old table sugar per 500ml. If I'm putting the beer in a corni I use Jim's ratio of 80g Sugar per 23 litres

Hope this helps

John

[sparky Paul]

I put 1 level teaspoon measure (approx 4g) per pint into PET bottled lager, and it always gives me a good level of carbonation. I wouldn't go any higher than that, and certainly not in glass - perhaps a bit less.

[anomalous_result]

I've found my ales over carbonated at 80g for 40 pints so it may well be what you're after for a lager.

[rhodian]

thanks folks

so i've gone for 80 rather than 160, and then a wee shake more just to see what happens.

i had a wee sip, and it seems rather sweet, which reminds me - has anyone tried those enzymes (forget the name now) that turn all the non-fermentable sugars into fermentable ones?

i'm sure it'll all be grand when the time comes to drink it!

sheers (hic)

[Madbrewer]

Have also been guilty of under-priming in the past too. As I have a Munich Style Lager fermenting right now, I was wondering about a) how much to prime (figured 1tsp per pint) and what to do if after a few weeks it doesn't build up any condition. I was wondering how much yeast you need to add to kick this off again, is it literally something tiny like 5 granules per 500ml bottle?

[booldawg]

The sweetness is probably down to the yeast not fermenting the priming sugars yet. Give it a full warm week and then see if its still sweet. I've currently got a batch that was still flat and sweet 5 days after bottling. It's slowly getting there I'll leave it another week in the warm.

Dry Beer Enzyme worked very well for me on the occasion when I used it. Its usually the type of remedy you'd use at the primary fermentation stage if the gravity sticks at a fairly high level. Its probably the first port of call I'd take before pitching more yeast or using yeast vit as its less likely to affect the overall taste of the beer.

Link below suggests pitching levels of new yeast in bottles.

http://jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8669

[rhodian]

mmmmm

excellent lager!