What is the difference between priming sugar and table sugar

These are the sort of questions I intend to answer. But before I can answer the questions above, I do need to lay some groundwork and describe the different building blocks. All sugars are carbohydrates, molecules that contain both carbon carbo- and hydrogen -hydrate atoms.

Carbohydrates have the general formula of C n H 2n O n , meaning they have one carbon C and one oxygen O to every two hydrogens H 2. For example, glucose has the formula C 6 H 12 O 6 , meaning it is constructed of six carbon atoms, twelve hydrogen atoms and six oxygen atoms. Incidentally, fructose also has the formula C 6 H 12 O 6 , but the atoms are arranged differently in the molecule.

The most common type of sugar is called glucose aka. Glucose is a monosaccharide, hexose-type sugar, meaning that it is a single molecule consisting of six carbon atoms. Other hexoses relevant to brewing are fructose and galactose. Elementally, these monosaccharides are all the same, but they are isomers of each other i. For instance, an isomer of glucose called fructose also known as fruit sugar , tastes sweeter than glucose. Maltose is a glucose disaccharide, which means that it is made up of two glucose molecules.

Sucrose is another disaccharide and consists of one glucose and one fructose. Sucrose is a naturally occurring plant sugar, and is used as table sugar worldwide. Sources include sugar cane, beets, maple sap and nectar.

Maltotriose is a trisaccharide consisting of three glucose molecules. Dextrins aka. Monosaccharides are sweeter tasting than polysaccharides.

In descending order of sweetness: fructose is sweeter than sucrose, which is sweeter than glucose, which is sweeter than maltose, which is sweeter than maltotriose. Yeast are apparently very methodical little organisms. Even though sucrose usually comprises only a small percentage of the wort, studies have shown that most brewers yeast strains seem to work on it first — breaking it down into its glucose and fructose components.

Once the sucrose has been broken down, the yeast cells consume the glucose first, followed by fructose, maltose and finally maltotriose. Some yeast strains behave differently; consuming maltose at the same time as the monosaccharides, but this seems to be the exception. Most yeast strains are glucophilic, utilizing most of the glucose in the wort before consuming the other monosaccharides. They also ferment most of the monosaccharides before fermenting maltose and subsequently maltotriose.

In fact, it is known that high levels of glucose and fructose in a wort e. This repressive behavior is probably a common cause of stuck fermentations in worts containing a lot of refined sugars — the yeast have fermented the monosaccharides and then quit, leaving more than half of the total sugars unfermented. Yeast metabolize the different wort sugars in different ways. To consume the disaccharide sucrose, the yeast utilizes an enzyme called invertase, which works outside the cell to hydrolyze the molecule into its components — glucose and fructose.

The glucose and fructose molecules are then transported through the cell wall and metabolized inside the cell. Conversely, maltose and maltotriose are transported into the cell first, and then are broken down into glucoses by the enzyme maltase.

Even though the enzyme for both sugars is the same, maltose is typically consumed first, indicating that the cell wall transport mechanism for the two sugars is different. Maybe maltotriose is too big to get through the maltose door! The take-home message is that all fermentable sugars are broken down into monosaccharides like glucose before being utilized by the yeast, and that yeast evidently prefer to eat their sugars one course at a time.

This has big implications for wort formulation in our pursuit of new recipes and unique styles. Dextrose is slightly less fermentable than table sugar but as far a priming is concerned they are interchangeable.

So, if it were ordinary bottle or kegs I would be priming at a rate of 4. So suggest you read the EasyKeg post to check this out.

Thanks, I guess that the different labeling is just down to the amount given with each kit. I'll be kegging and bottling at the start of the week so will check out the amounts you've given me. In 40 years eek of brewing I've never used anything other than ordinary granulated sugar. Bah, humbug. Actually with a bit of black and white food colouring I guess "humbugs" is what you'll have?

In my defence, the only reading I had done before my first brew was the instructions on the Coopers kit. I have also read of people using Light malt for priming too. So many choices so little time. This old chestnut. Joined Jan 9, Messages Reaction score 3. Cane sugar is sucrose which is digested slower then the Glucose in Priming sugar.

Neither are really much of an issue. If I use cane sugar, I'll "invert" it with a squeeze of lemon sugar. This converts the sucrose into glucose and fructose. Joined Feb 3, Messages 14 Reaction score 0. Crazytwoknobs Well-Known Member. He probably means lemon juice. The "inversion" is just breaking apart the bonds between the two simple sugar molecules that make up sucrose.

Priming sugar is D-glucose, or Dextrose. Same thing. Joined Jul 7, Messages Reaction score 4 Location new york. I just bottled with cane sugar.

I wasn't drinking it while in class. I can think of no better way to relax after an exam, than with a home brew. Also, as has been mentioned above, dextrin glucose is a monosaccharide. Sucrose, is a disaccharide of glucose and fructose. Yeast convert the glucose to ethanol fermentation , going through fructose an intermediate molecule in the pathway.

Added directly to the bottles at bottling time, priming tablets make it as easy to prime one bottle as it is a dozen. You can usually find them in two varieties: straight priming sugar tablets, often called carbonation drops , and conditioning tablets , which contain DME and heading powder a blend of dextrose and gum arabic designed to promote head retention as well as corn sugar. Priming sugar tablets :.

Caution: Priming tablets trade precision for convenience. Read on to completely nerd out on the numbers. Or you can skip to the next step in the priming process. Sure, you could use that handy priming sugar calculator. Or you could take credit for every single step of the homebrewing process by doing the math yourself.

But you can fine-tune that with the formulas to make sure you hit your target carbonation and brew the best beer possible. Note: These formulas are formatted for the metric system. This gives us the following formula:. The target carbonation is 2. Adjusting the amount of sucrose to g 4. This primer is a bit different than its sugary siblings, as it requires a bit more calculation to find the correct amount of carbonation it will create.

This is the amount of material in the DME the yeast in your brew can digest and convert during the final fermentation. Many DME brands sold commercially will list their fermentability on the package or product sheet. This is known as the apparent fermentability or apparent attenuation.