Corn syrup cask priming

[Woolsocks]

Does anyone prime casks, or anything else, with corn syrup as opposed to dry sugar? I'm looking to save time by not having to dissolve sugar in water -- just dump it in the cask!

[steved]

I use Dark Karo corn syrup to prime my casks. Works really well. I typically use around 200 to 250 ml. of corn syrup per firkin.

[Woolsocks]

I was thinking of going the "Karo" route myself -- why the dark stuff?

[steved]

The light Karo has vanilla flavoring added, and it comes through a little in the taste.

[jsvoboda]

I've always just dumped the sugar in when I fill the firkin. Never had a problem with carbonation. In fact, lately they take two days to vent through the spile. You can get Corn syrup from a food vendor without the vanilla. I use a boat load of it in Lambics. But the dry sucrose dissloves a temp I'm sure. Never had a flat one yet. I do pitch in yeast at same time. Doesn't everybody?

[Woolsocks]

I generally don't add yeast unless I know the existing yeast is very tired. If I do, it's about 1/2 of one of those homebrew packets of dry yeast. Always toyed with the idea of putting filtered beer in a cask and adding yeast, though...

I'm not worried about the carbonation from undissolved sugar, just the possibility of contamination from unboiled sugar.