Tell me more ×
Homebrewing Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for dedicated home brewers and serious enthusiasts. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 6 down vote favorite

OK, so I was in the health food shop (again) and couldn't find any corn sugar. However, on a whim I bought some fructose. I am thinking of using it for priming the English ale I have pencilled in to start tomorrow.

My questions are: can I use fructose for priming? And, if so, can I treat it as though it were corn sugar in my carbonation calculations (I am looking at about 1.8 volumes carbonation which seems ballpark for this style)?

share|improve this question

2 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted

Fructose is fully fermentable. Assuming the fructose is completely dry, containing no moisture - as is the case with granulated table sugar, which is also fully fermentable - then you can use it in the same quantity as you would table sugar (sucrose). In fact, save your money; use table sugar for priming.

share|improve this answer
up vote 3 down vote

You should be fine to use it as sugar, its the stuff you get in honey and that is fine to ferment.

Exactly how much to use is hard. I would guess it would be about 1 fuctose : 1.5 standard suggar as there is more energy per gram in fuctose.

share|improve this answer
For the record, honey contains fructose as well as glucose. – brewchez Jun 16 '11 at 0:11
1  
but does energy/gram equate with fermentability? This is what leads to the carbonation in homebrew right? – Poshpaws Jun 16 '11 at 9:43
@Poshpaws I know its nowhere near that simple. I was just assuming since there is 1.5 times the avalible energy for humans there will be 1.5 times as much for yeast. As a rough rule of thumb it works since suggar is fairly simple. If you were to do it proerly you would have to take in all sorts of factors. Im sure even amount of food to amount of co2 is non linear! – Tom Squires Jun 17 '11 at 10:29

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.