Priming solution question...help!!

Just boiled my priming sugar and am waiting for it to cool so I can rack to the bottling bucket and bottle. How cool should the priming solution be before I combine it with the beer? Also, should I add to the bottling bucket first, and then rack the beer?

Your priming sugar doesn't need to be all the way down to room temp, but you don't want it hot. I usually cool it down to the point where I can put my hand on the bottom of the pan comfortably before I use it.

Pour the sugar water in the bottling bucket and then rack onto it. That way it's already halfway mixed with your beer. Then give it a good but gentle stir after you rack to make sure it's mixed in. I usually give it a stir once or twice partway through bottling too just to make sure it's not settling out.

Yep, what Cat said. As long as you're able to put your hand to the pot without a problem, it's cool enough. No need to get too crazy with trying to bring it to exactly the same temp as the beer.

I'v poured it into the bottom of my bottling bucket at almost 200deg and just racked my wort onto it and carbed up perfectly every time.

By the time there is 1gal in there it is cooled off from mixing.

Arkador said:

I'v poured it into the bottom of my bottling bucket at almost 200deg and just racked my wort onto it and carbed up perfectly every time.

By the time there is 1gal in there it is cooled off from mixing.

Click to expand...

Yep, me too....But usually since it is factored into my entire process as outlined in my Bottling tips thread, I end up with it cooling about 15-20 minutes these days.

Arkador said:

I'v poured it into the bottom of my bottling bucket at almost 200deg and just racked my wort onto it and carbed up perfectly every time.

By the time there is 1gal in there it is cooled off from mixing.

Click to expand...

+1. I never wait for it to cool. The heat in such a small amount of water dissipates very quickly once you start racking.

Do you guys all boil the water with the sugar in it for 15 minutes? Or boil the water, remove form heat and dissolve the sugar into it? It seemed I always had an off flavor when bottling that didn't show up until it was in bottles and I think it was from boiling the sugar. It was a twang, but was present even with Ag batches. But I'm not willing to bottle another batch to test it since it's not an issue with my kegging.

I don't boil the sugar. I just bring the water up to a boil for sanitation purposes and then remove from the heat and add the sugar.

I get my water to a boil, pull it off the burner, stir in my sugar and then put it back on the heat until it just reaches a boil again, then shut it off.

I'm not sure if I would want to rack onto near-boiling priming sugar, myself. I'd rather give it a little time to cool rather than poach a portion of my beer and my poor little yeasties. I know it comes out fine for those that do, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I'd imagine hearing the poor little guys screaming as they hit the hot sugar water.

I boil for about 5 minutes then turn the stove off. If it is 15 minutes @ whatever the temp to pasturize is, I figure 5 minutes at a rolling boil should do the same thing...

I did that by accident last bottling session, Pulse. I wasn't paying attention, most of the water boiled away, and the resulting solution was at some candy stage (soft crack or something). It was a thick syrup that I had to wash out of my bottling bucket, which then had to be re-sanitized. I think boiling the water for 15 minutes, adding the sugar, and boiling for a minute to dissolve is the way to go.

I always boil the sugar for 2 minutes (carmelization of corn sugar is a bad taste in beer) and then let it sit for a few to cool off a bit. One thing I am ALWAYS mindful of is DO NOT OXYGENATE the priming solution when dumping it into the bottling bucket. For this reason I usually rack the beer into the bucket FIRST and then gently pour the priming solution on the top of the beer. Any splashing and you are introducing oxygen. Hence why I gently pour on top of the beer rather than let it splash on the bottom of the bucket, then rack the beer onto it.

Food for thought.

The pot I use for my priming sugar fits in my bottling bucket, so I don't think I'm splashing much at all. Besides, what little O2 you introduce is easily gobbled up by the yeast when they're eating up the priming sugar. It's such a small volume of water anyway. I'd rather get the extra mixing by racking onto the sugar solution instead of pouring on top and then having to stir more.

Oh, and I usually use bottled water for my priming sugar. Not that it matters that much if I use tap water since I'll be bring it to a boil, but it's just easy to grab a bottle from the pack in my kitchen and dump it in the pot.

Is boiling the water just for sanitization of the water or is there more to it?

So far I have been topping off my extract brews with straight tap water without any problems (4th one is fermenting now). So do I even bother boiling the water for priming?