Bulk Priming

If you’re an observant beer lover you may have noticed not all your favourite beers have the same amount of fizz, or carbonation. You may have thought to yourself, ‘huh, that’s weird, this stout is barely carbonated’ or ‘wow this lager is so fresh and bubbly’. When it comes to your own beers you may have noticed that all your beers are similarly carbonated. This guide will walk you through the process of carbonating your own bottled beer (naturally) to suit the style you’re brewing.

Instructions:

1. Once your beer has finished fermenting bring your fermenter to 20 celsius for 3 days - if you’re brewing a lager, don’t worry! Commercial brewers will also raise the temperature of their lagers in what is called a directly rest, this helps remove a compound responsible for off flavours in lagers.
2. Calculate the amount of dextrose (priming sugar) you will need for your beer style and batch size using the table below.
   
   Total dextrose = ‘Dextrose/L’ x Beer Volume in Fermenter
3. Dissolve the dextrose in a few hundred millilitres of warm water.
4. Add to your beer 30 minutes before bottling, gently stir the surface of your beer as to not disturb the sediment while still making your beer and priming mixture homogenous.
5. Fill each bottle halfway up the neck and cap bottles. Make sure you do not add carbonation drops also. The sugar added to your fermenter acts ion place of carbonation drops.
6. Allow beer to sit for 1-2 weeks before enjoying.

Benefits to Bulk priming:

• More flexibility with carbonation level
• More cost effective than carbonation drops
• Less sediment
• Faster secondary ferment (carbonation)
• Cleaner flavour

We have tried to keep this relatively straight forward while still being informative; if you have any further questions feel free to reach out!