Questions about bottle carbonation

After drinking a few bottles of my first batch I have noticed differences in carbonation levels bottle to bottle. Some are almost flat, while some have much more carbonation, or somewhere in-between. They all were bottled at the same time from a bottleling bucket with boiled priming sugar. Even though I haven't noticed any leaks from my bottles, and they don't twist unless cranked on extremely hard, my concerns are the bottle caps and capper used. I used the generic caps that came with a simple kit, while my new kit has a name-brand caps (DeGroen's) which appear to have a thicker seal inside of the cap. Can a better cap seal better? can a generic cap leak some carbonation? My capper looks like it is a mod creta or mod greta and seems to work OK. Any thing else I might be overlooking that might cause this?

If the priming sugar isn't completely mixed with the beer it will cause uneven carbonation. Gentle stirring will help make sure that the priming mixture doesn't stratify and end up concentrated in some of the bottles.

+1 to that. You can also get it mixed well without stirring yourself (I am lazy) but putting your priming sugar mixture into the bottling bucket and then lay the siphon hose at a slight angle or kinda curled on the bottom. This will make the enter at an angle and make it gently swirl and thus mix thoroughly.

So after you boil the priming sugar, do you need it to cool down to a certain range before adding it to your bottling bucket/beer?

Does it mix better at certain temps?

Place the priming sugar into your bottling bucket before you begin the siphon, stir before bottling, then stir after every eight bottles. I've had very consistent carbonation when following these procedures. Don't stir too vigorously, though. Just enough to move the beer around, but not enough to cause a lot of surface disturbance.

1) The sugar solution will always drop to the bottom of the bucket - you need to take time to stir it in properly.
2) Make sure your bottles are of good quality - did you say you were using twist off's? - they can be unreliable
3) almost all commercial caps seal just as well but make sure that you are crimping all the caps tightly - look at the crimp after you cap your bottles.

Yeah, swirl it when siphoning and stir it for good measure. I do both. Just stir slow and make sure not to splash.

earthad1 said:

So after you boil the priming sugar, do you need it to cool down to a certain range before adding it to your bottling bucket/beer?

Does it mix better at certain temps?

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Your priming sugar needs to be cooled down to room temperature. It should be about the same temp as the beer. Just follow the basic priming procedures and you'll have no problems.

Pelikan said:

Your priming sugar needs to be cooled down to room temperature. It should be about the same temp as the beer. Just follow the basic priming procedures and you'll have no problems.

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Cool, thanks.

Your priming sugar needs to be cooled down to room temperature. It should be about the same temp as the beer.

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While you shouldn't take your priming solution from boiling right into the bottling bucket, a few minutes cooling off the burner is all you need. The massive volume difference between the beer and the priming solution will equalize temperature incredibly fast.

Mirage said:

+1 to that. You can also get it mixed well without stirring yourself (I am lazy) but putting your priming sugar mixture into the bottling bucket and then lay the siphon hose at a slight angle or kinda curled on the bottom. This will make the enter at an angle and make it gently swirl and thus mix thoroughly.

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This is how I mixed the priming sugar in, so I was looking at the possibility of a cap problem.

Thanks for all of the help. I should have given more info in my original post. I am not using twist offs, I did cool my sugar after boiling, I did swirl my beer while racking, I did use new brewstore purchased brown bottles, I did store bottles at 68-70 degrees after racking, I did not stir the beer in the bucket while racking into the bottles.

If no-one can think of a reason my caps or capper are at fault, it would appear I need to be sure my priming sugar is mixed well, sounds like I should have stirred my beer a bit while racking into bottles.

The quote learn and live is right! I just bought John Palmers book and am trying to soak as much info up as I can. thx