what are the advantages to a bottling bucket?

grrtt78 · 12-17-2006, 03:38 AM

I currently use a cooler as my bottling bucket but i just thought it would be easier to bottle strait from my secondary? It has no spigot so i hav to siphon anyway. are there any other advantages? can i just pour/siphon the dextrose/ water into my secondary? i would rather do that bc it is one less thing to sanatize and expose to the open air.

homebrewer_99 · 12-17-2006, 03:43 AM

You use your secondary for clearing.

When you add corn sugar or malt to bottle condition you have to mix it up.

If you've cleared your beer in the secondary you will re-mix the yeast on the bottom and it becomes cloudy again.

grrtt78 · 12-17-2006, 03:44 AM

can i just put the dextrose into the bottles themselves?

God Emporer BillyBrew · 12-17-2006, 04:12 AM

You could use carb drops. http://pivo.northernbrewer.com/nbstore/action/search-do?searchTerm=carb+drop

I kind of feel like my bottling bucket keeps me from getting junk in my beer. It's like a one shot thing and you can pay attention to where the bottom of your siphon is while you're moving it into the bucket. then when you start bottling, you don't have to worry about it. I'm down on the floor while bottling, and am not able to pay attention to whether or not I'm picking up trub.

I'd still use the bucket if I were you. Plus carb drops are relatively expensive compared to dissolving corn sugar or DME.

**RichBrewer** · 12-17-2006, 05:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by grrtt78

can i just put the dextrose into the bottles themselves?

I actually did that once a long time ago.
I don't remember the figures but I took the total volume of the corn sugar water mix and divided it by 50 and that's how much I put in each bottle. I used a sanitized eye dropper to put it into the bottles. I then filled the bottles and capped. It worked good and the beer was evenly carbonated throughout the batch. If I remember correctly, I decided it was too much of a pain so I never did it again.

**Bobby_M** · 12-17-2006, 12:20 PM

You get your beer off the trub left in the secondary for one thing. Mixing in your dissolved dextrose is much easier that way. As Rich said, adding the priming mixture to each bottle is doable, but it's such a PIA that you'll either stop that process or stop brewing altogether. We're talking about a $8 bucket and one gallon of sanitizing solution. Throw the lid on and shake it up, let it sit for a minute and do it again. A spigot with a 10" piece of hose on it really makes bottling easy.

When you really start brewing back to back batches, you'll find you can combine processes to make better use of a batch of sanitizer. Sometimes I rack and brew, other times it's bottle and rack or bottle and brew. In that way, you're moving sanitizer from one vessel to the next.

Ivan Lendl · 12-17-2006, 02:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by grrtt78

I currently use a cooler as my bottling bucket but i just thought it would be easier to bottle strait from my secondary? It has no spigot so i hav to siphon anyway. are there any other advantages? can i just pour/siphon the dextrose/ water into my secondary? i would rather do that bc it is one less thing to sanatize and expose to the open air.

Yeah you can do that. Ive done it several times. Just pour the sugar solution slowly into the secondary then slowly stir with the racking cane for a few minutes. Youll probably get some trub picked up but its no big deal really. (You wont get any more or less by using a bucket) The only disadvantage is that you must have enough empty space to be able to fit all the sugar and racking cane without it overflowing (which happened to me once and it sucks)

**Bobby_M** · 12-17-2006, 05:52 PM

IMHO, stirring in the secondary will reduce any benefit of using a secondary in the first place. I don't even move my secondary for two days prior to racking into the bottling bucket. I get none of the sediment into my bottles.

grnich · 12-17-2006, 06:10 PM

Plus you don't need to buy a bottling bucket. Your primary is your bottling bucket. Just use your racking cane and preferably a bottle wand to fill your bottles.

dantodd · 12-17-2006, 08:44 PM

definitely use the bottle wand. They are a great help for $4.