Bottling Today...question...

When I add the beer to the bottling bucket, do I just add it on top of the corn sugar/water mix and bottle or do I give it any kind of light stir? Thanks

Pour the mix into the bucket, and place your hose in the bucket in a fasion that it creates a swirling effect. There should be no reason to stir.

Just be careful what you have in the bottling bucket when you pour in the hot priming sugar solution. I use an auto siphon and almost cracked the plastic when I poured hot sugar onto it.

Marc.

mbreen01 said:

Just be careful what you have in the bottling bucket when you pour in the hot priming sugar solution. I use an auto siphon and almost cracked the plastic when I poured hot sugar onto it.

Marc.

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Marc, you don't cool off your priming sugar solution before putting it in the bottling bucket? If not, you're siphoning your beer onto that hot solution and won't that kill off alot of yeast?
I cool mine in the freezer until it's the same temperature as my beer before I siphon my beer into it.

You don't have to cool the sugar water down all the way. If you get it to, say, around 120ºF you'll be okay, I think, just because there is so much other liquid you're adding on top of it that by the time you're done it's averaged out to the same room temperature or so. Those first few thousand yeasties will die, sure, but sacrifices have to be made sometimes.

I poured the hot priming solution into my bottling bucket then siphoned the beer right on top. I was getting carbonation a week later.

I may be totally wrong, but the speed in which the beer siphoned into the bottling bucket was pretty fast, and although I'm sure many yeasties met their ends in the beginning, the sheer volume of the incoming beer seemed to cool down the relatively small amount of priming solution very quickly.

I've never really thought about this before. I've always just dumped the freshly boiled priming solution straight into the bottling bucket, then racked the ready-to-bottle beer on top! Yeast must die at those temps! I'm a murder :cross: To think... all those yeasts that could have lived to carbonate my beer more.

Don't get me wrong though... i always get carbonation, most of the time it's within a few days to a week, but a little extra yeast can sometimes go a long way with bottling. I had one beer that needed a minimum of 2 weeks to carbonate, and I'm sure if there were more yeast, it would have been quicker.

In all honesty... do we really know if it would make a difference? Yeasts are so mysterious :fro:

5gB

JohnnyK,

Cool the pint or so of priming sugar-water,
not nesessarily to room temp. but at least half way,
{it is easy to cool that small amount of liquid}
pour the priming sugar-water in the bucket first.

And then 'rack' the wort in, stirring it with a big plastic spoon from the homebrew supply being careful not to get bubbles in it.
Stir real slowly, round and round up and down,
mix several times during the bottling process so that you don't end up with inconsistantcy of carbonation in your bottles of beer-ale.
{ie. One has a head on it and the next one don't.}

As they say...

"Lets git ignert and go coon hunting!"

Knife

I tend to siphon a little bit of the beer into the bucket, and then carefully pour the corn sugar solution down the side of the bucket as the beer is filling up.

ayrton said:

I tend to siphon a little bit of the beer into the bucket, and then carefully pour the corn sugar solution down the side of the bucket as the beer is filling up.

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me too. i pour 1/3 of the priming solution in the priming bucket. siphon wort on top of it. when bucket is about 1/2 full, pour another 1/3 of the priming sugar solution, then when the beer is all siphoned in my bottling bucket, I add the other 1/3 of the priming sugar solution. When I first started brewing I used to pour all the sugar solution in my bucket and rack onto it. I had a few batches with varying carbonation in the bottles, so I started doing it the other way and have had no problems.


loop

If you use a no-rinse sanitzer, then it's very easy to sanitize a big spoon and gently stir a few times over the course of bottling.

JacktheKnife said:

JohnnyK,
And then 'rack' the wort in, stirring it with a big plastic spoon from the homebrew supply being careful not to get bubbles in it.

Click to expand...

This is very important. You don't want any extra air getting to your batch.

I agree with Cweston as I do the same.

i figured the same thing as Torchiest. dumped the stuff in there flaming hot and figured 'ah screw it so a few yeasties bite it but there are plenty more where they came from'. the strongest survive, right? or is it the ones at the bottom of the bucket that dont get fried with the hot liquid poured in? i forget

Loop md,

The best priming idea I have heard yet!
I have noticed that pouring when the bucket is partially full causes bubbles,
and have been pouring the priming sugar-water first.
But last would be easy too, as the level of ale,
is not so far down in ther bucket.
I'll pour half at first, and the rest after the bucket is full,
stirring well several times.
And in fact inconsistancy of carbination is a regular occurance,
in my 'Hammerbier' and to be expected.
I'll bet this pour-mix pour-mix will solve that problem, thanks!

Von Knife