Ive been using it recently for keg conditioning.





When I was introduced to beer making, the guy just dumped it in the priming bucket, no boiling. He always did it that way. Now I read it must be boiled.
I think it wont matter because how can bacteria live in dry sugar?



In canning you need acid, or high sugar to keep bacteria out- same for beer?





What ye say?
 

I've done both. I never really noticed a difference in the final product. Ultimately I decided to add my priming sugar to some boiling water to ensure that it dissolved properly and it only takes a couple of extra minutes to boil up some water.

You're asking for problems. It's not about the sugar having bugs, it's everything else.

Our priming sugar gets mixed with 180deg water.

In addition to bacteria OP, how much mixing are you going to do to get the sugar crystals dissolved?  May add some un-needed oxygen (not sure if it would be a lot or a little, but something to think about...)   I love that it is dissolved into liquid so well.

IIRC, in beer, its "low pH + alcohol content" that is the magic equation to make sure "nothing that can kill you lives in here."  I don't think that means wild yeast or bacteria of some kind cannot get a foothold in some beers to make them taste bad though.

like what?



 

no o2 as the keg is purged, and the mix will happen in the keg



 

At the end of the day it's your brew and it works so resistance to change is good and expected. If it ain't broke don't fix it. That said, you asked my position.

Lactobacillus, pediococcus, and acetobacter can live I some surprising media. Beer and sugar drips. Inside keg valve assemblies. That little bit of crud on the spike oring. Bla bla bla.

Boiling also drives off any dissolved o2 in the water. We see as hight as 40-50ppb dissolved o2 in our winter water (it's cooler so it can hold more o2)

There are a lot of things that we as brewers do that are not as sanitary as they could be and we're safe because it just hasn't happened. We run micro samples all the time. at fermenter fill and at 20 hours in at filtration, at packaging. If we get a positive we re-sample and if it's positive we real time PCR the bugs. 99.9 precent of the time it's a non beer spoiling bacillus.  We expect to see them, positives in beer are fact and if we have a rash of no positives for a while we worry about sampling issues.

What I'm saying is, we get positives, and so do you. They just Arn't beer spoilers. But they just as easily could be. They Arn't pathogenic but they taste like ass and can be hard to rid from a system.  Like I said before, we just use really really hot water. We dose it right into the beer stream at that temp too. The sugar to beer ratio is such that the temp rise is minimal.

Thank

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Great reason, hadn't thought of that!

On bottle conditioning, one thing I have heard is that the yeast will scavenge any dissolved O2 since they will ferment again--I assume there is a limit to that and it would be fairly small so boiling is still a good idea.  So I have a question, if I wanted to store say a big barleywine or Tripel for a couple years, would I be better off bottle conditioning so that the staling action of O2 is reduced OR would one be better off trying to drop all yeast out (fining or filter), carb and bottle with a beer gun or counter pressure filler to avoid dead yeast autolysis in long term storage.  

I assume commercial bottling has fairly strict quality control on dissolved O2, but it can be more of a question on the homebrewing level (or I would assume that is the slam dunk professional answer).

Yeast autolysis is real but only happens in extreme cases. Heat, high pressure, high osmotic pressure, or very high stressors.

If you pick a yeast known for its bottle conditioning performance id use that method with out question. We bottle condition a lot of the beer we make and every now and again we do a run of the bc brands that's forced carbed just to remind our selves how superior bottle conditioning is.  We have a few brands that can stand up to aging and yeast autolysis has never been an issue.

Unless it's hoppy....should add that.....bottle conditioning scrubs a good amount of hop aromas out.

Great info, thanks!

I do. With a cup of water, so easy. No worries about anything.

I prefer DME but yes I boil it....Yes the risk for contamination is small but to ensure that requires so little effort.

how much dme do you use per 5 gallons?



 

I am just curious why you decided to keg condition instead of use force carb...any benefits or merely convenience so you don't have to have a bunch of kegs hooked up?

because I have about 70 gallons of beer ready and its a pita to force carb it all.. I like to age, so its easier to throw 3oz of sugar in a keg, vice pull a keg out of the keezer, cool it, force carb, let it sit, then drink.



I can carb condition, let it sit around-which I think aging helps a lot of my beers. then dump in a trashcan of ice if needed to cool down quickly or overnight it in the keezer.
basically its easier and its always correct.



 

I figured something like that would be a good reason...