# 🍺 Top-down Brew: Carbonation With Sugar

Purpose: Determine the amount of sugar needed to achieve a desired level of natural carbonation.

Volume (gallons or liters)
Beer temperature (F or C)
Target carbonation (volumes CO2) US units Metric units

Results *** Waiting for results ***

## Notes

The beginner method of using 3/4 cup of corn sugar for carbonating a five gallon batch is simple but it has some serious drawbacks. The present calculator offers a more precise method to acheive the desired level of carbonation.

Basic carbonation reference (volumes of CO2):

- Low: 2.0 to 2.4 - British beer styles
- Medium: 2.5 to 2.7 - Most beers
- High: 2.8 to 3.0 - American, wheat beers
- Over 3.0 - Some Belgian styles, wheat beers

Using over 3.0 volumes of CO2 is unsafe for standard beer bottles. Highly carbonated beers need sturdy Belgian ale bottles that have corks held in place with a wire basket.

If multiple temperatures were maintained during fermentation, the highest temperature is the one that should be used for the calculation.

A tip is to stir the beer gently in the bottling bucket with a sanitized spoon before filling the bottles to evenly mix the priming sugar solution. Uneven mixing can produce inconsistent levels of carbonation for the batch.

The documentation and an explanation of how it works is available at this link.