Proper priming method in bottling bucket?

Hi guys,

This Sunday I bottled my first batch (and it tastes and smell great, I am having a hard time not drinking it right now). I followed the process I have seen in the How to brew beer online book (I don't remember the title but this is the one recommended here).
So I put some DME in water (maybe not enough water?), boiled it for 20 minutes, put it in my bottling bucket and syphoned the beer from fermenter into the bottling bucket.
After bottling (using the bucket tap and a bottling wand), the last bottle was only half full so I decided to drink it (and damn was I happy!!) then, I poured what was remaining in the bucket and tasted it, it was extremely sugary, which makes me think that the priming sugar did not mix with the beer so I will have under-carbonated beer.

Now, I have been told that I could safely drop some carb drops in the bottles to fix this (and I did that with 4 bottles last night) which sounds like a good idea to me but I also would like to avoid doing the same mistake next time.
I have been advised to dilute the sugar (or DME here) into more water which makes sense to me (lowering gravity will limit the risk it sits at the bottom). I have also been told to pour the priming solution on top of the beer and gently stir (I have more doubts here since it is going to aerate the beer).

So, long story short, what is your method and can you help me fix mine?

Regards,

Sam

The 4 bottles you put carb drops in put them in a safe place they might blow up. When I bottle i use corn sugar for the priming solution boil for 15 min dump in bottling bucket siphon beer on top of it and give it a gentle stir(no splashing) to make sure it is even throughout the beer. Have never noticed any issues with doing it this way.

Thanks for your response.
I guess the stirring is the missing part in my process.
Regarding the bottles I put carb drops in, I put only one drop in pint bottles (instead of 1.5 drop) and did it on plastic bottles only so I can monitor the pressure and limit the risk of injury but thanks for the advice

Why boil for so long? I just bring to a boil and dissolve. Maybe let it go for one more min. Never had any issue.

chiteface: I am just a bit paranoid so everything I can sanitize gets sanitized. Let's say that this one is in the "it does not hurt" category.

Is that how it says to do it in Palmer's book. Been a while since I've read it...

It say:
"Plus there is a greater risk of infection because the sugar has not been boiled."
And my understanding is that boiling to sanitize takes at least 10 minutes.

Had you drunk from any other bottles, you would have found they tasted the same.....it tastes sweet at that point because, you just put sugar in your beer. Not because the sugar wasn't mixed properly....it mixes itself pretty well just by letting the beer swirl with the priming solution.

When you boil the sugar, you turn it into a fluid, and two fluids of similar densities mix pretty automatically on their own. It's not like you dumped raw sugar in and expected it to dissolve, you helped it along by boiling it.

You prime tabbed those bottles out of panic, and not because they needed them. Now you need to isolate those bottles from you and anyone else getting hurt by putting too much sugar in them.

Read the bottling sticky here, and next time, ask for help BEFORE you try to fix something that had you asked us about it, we would have told you it wasn't broken.

Hi Revvy, thanks for your input and I fully understand the "Ask for advices before, not after".
Actually, my concern was that the taste of the half bottle was extremely different from the taste of what remained in the bucket (the last centimetre of liquid) which leads me to think that the mix wasn t done properly. Could it be that the density of the priming solution was quite high due to lack of water?
I also noticed that the syphon tends to pour beer on top of the priming solution rather than through it (very flexible tube).

The bottles are already in a cupboard and I ll monitor them regularly to detect any pressure issue (these are PET bottles so I can see easily if the pressure increases).

It really mixes itself better than most new brewers think it does. It's not like mixing oil and water, you're really mixing two very similar densities that want to go together.

It really is a simple, foolproof process, just relax and let it go next time. Don't panic about how something may look, smell or taste UNTIL a beer is carbed and conditioned, because until then there are so many variables at play in the process that are perfectly normal, yet are often different than we in our nervous ignorance think it should be.

Just ignore the bottles for a minimum of 3-4 weeks, let them do their thing, and more than likely you'll be perfectly fine.

beerman0001 said:

The 4 bottles you put carb drops in put them in a safe place they might blow up. When I bottle i use corn sugar for the priming solution boil for 15 min dump in bottling bucket siphon beer on top of it and give it a gentle stir(no splashing) to make sure it is even throughout the beer. Have never noticed any issues with doing it this way.

Click to expand...

^

This, exactly how I do it........

Apatride said:

It say:
"Plus there is a greater risk of infection because the sugar has not been boiled."
And my understanding is that boiling to sanitize takes at least 10 minutes.

Click to expand...

It's pasteurization that sanitizies the wort,& that happens at about 162F in a few seconds. so I just get 2C of water boiling,then remove from heat & dissolve the measured amount of sugar. Cover & cool till I'm ready to add it to the chilled wort.

Apatride said:

chiteface: I am just a bit paranoid so everything I can sanitize gets sanitized. Let's say that this one is in the "it does not hurt" category.

Click to expand...

Boiling sugar water too long can lead to creating a supersaturated solution as you drive off steam, which will tend to crystallize as soon as it's cooled. In candy making, you test this level of saturation by putting some of the syrup into cold water, and seeing whether it's in the soft ball, hard ball, or crack stages. In that case, it's quite possible for some of the sugar (or malt) to fall out of solution and stay in the bottom of the bottling bucket if you don't get a good "swirl" going when you rack in your beer.

You can avoid this by using more water or not boiling long enough to create a thick syrup.

Just take it up to a boil, and turn off the heat. You'll be fine.

Agree with Revvy. I also pour in the priming sugar solution after starting the rack instead of before.

One thing I would like to state is that it seems that a lot of people are paranoid about oxidation. While I don't want to drink liquid cardboard, I also don't want dissimilar carb levels bottle-to-bottle. I stir every time (carefully and slowly so as to not splash or make bubbles). This will not oxidize the beer and will help to mix if conditions are not ideal. That being said, I will agree with Revvy that likely the two solutions will mix pretty readily.

FWIW, when I rack the beer to the bottling/priming bucket, I stick a racking cane into the bucket. This gives you more control than just sticking the tube into the bucket, ensures that the beer comes in at the bottom (which should improve mixing), gives you a little more leeway on handling the tube (the outside never comes into contact with the beer), and gives you something you can lightly stir with.

Cullen: Thanks, great tip, I am definitely trying this next time!!

One more thing. This was a PET bottle.

I had a pumpkin beer that the priming sugar did not mix properly with. I poured the priming solution into my bottling bucket and siphoned from my primary into it. I figured the swirling beer from the siphon tube would mix the sugar in thoroughly. Apparently, I was wrong. The first few bottles were super carbonated and I'm lucky they didn't explode. The remaining bottles were completely flat. No carbonation whatsoever.

From now on I pour the solution into the beer and gently stir with my spoon.