Why a bottling bucket?

It seems that plenty of people on here siphon their brew from a carboy into a bucket, and bottle from there.

Why not siphon straight into the bottles? Surely that reduces the chance of aeration/infection etc.

You can attach a bottling wand to my siphon (which I will use for the first time when I bottle the current brew), so no hassles, surely?

I do it becuase i dont want to stir up all the stuff on the bottom when i mix in the priming sugar.

edit: Primary: "Dry as a dead dingo's donger (empty)" Im glad you clarified that.

Shambolic--I find it easier to rack onto the primer than to mix the primer into the carboy...you do need to mix it up somehow throughout the entire bottling session, not just at the beginning. Makes for more even carbonation amongst the bottles. Using the syphon will mix up any carryover trub.

Sham, the chief reasons to transer into a bucket have been mentioned - good stirring of the priming sugar, and getting beer into bottles with a minimum of trub disturbed. However, there are arguments FOR bottling from the carboy. The chief one is that there is a layer of CO2 on top of your beer in the carboy, and you can basically add the priming sugar, and stir the thing, without ANY exposure to oxygen, unlike when you transfer into a bucket. Just gently funnel in the sugar solution, and stir gently, and let it sit for a half hour. Unlike others here, i believe that once sugar is stirred into solution, it stays there for quite awhile. But make sure you do give things an initial stir.

The trub is not much disturbed, and if you let things sit awhile, then it settles right back down. I've had no clarity issues bottling this way.

So... if you find it easier to bottle out of a bucket (with syphon or tap) then great, do that, and if you want to keep your beer in the carboy, then you can do that too. Happy brewing.

I hadn't thought of priming. I prime each individual bottle separately, so won't have that trouble.

The nice lady at my LHBS attached a little beastie to the end of my siphon that is intended to prevent it from stirring up the trub, too, which will hopefully help.

I think I'll try siphoning straight from the carboy. This is the first batch I've racked to a secondary; previously I've just bottled from the tap on my plastic primary, and ended up with too much sediment in my bottles...