Adequate mixing of priming sugar?

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MariaAZ

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I just finished bottling my first batch with relatively little stressing. But now I have a question that is haunting me.

According to the kit I bought (a pale ale) and Charlie Papazian's book, one adds the hot corn sugar solution to the bottling pail and depends upon the movement of the wort being siphoned on top of the solution. I was doing fine, happily bottling away, when I decided I needed to look up something in the Briess Homebrewing Companion that came with my equipment. I don't even remember what I was looking for, all I saw was the author's instruction to gently stir the beer with a sanitized spoon.

Well, at that time I had about 1/4 of the beer bottled in swingtop bottles. I called the HBS where I bought everything from, and the owner said I should be fine, but it wouldn't hurt to stir what was left.

My big worry is that the sugar didn't mix well enough (though I had pretty good swirling activity going on during racking) and that those first several bottles are going to be bottle bombs.

Should I worry? What should I do, besides relax and have a bottle of homebrew (I'm sampling the bit that stayed in the bottling bucket.)
 
Relax. The swirling of the siphoned beer should have put the priming sugar into solution and distributed it just fine. However, next a little gentle stirring couldn't hurt to make sure. I also did the same thing once and I feel your pain and worry. Will some be flat and some overcarbonated? The beer turned out fine.
 
I NEVER stir my beers when in the bottling bucket. The action of siphoning into the priming solution, plus the molecular movement of the all that "stuff" in the bucket will do you just fine. I've never had a batch that had flat bottles along with carbonated bottles and I only bottle so that works out to over 60 cases of brew with no problems. RDWHAHB.
 
Maria, I tell people to stir, GENTLY, with a sanitised spoon, but in all reality, if you siphon onto the hot sugar-water, and get a little whirlpool action going, you'll be fine.

Besides, if you get some bottles with a double-strength dose of sugar, it will just be a gusher, not blow up. (It'll be overcarbonated, but not to the point the bottles explode.)(Provided you are using good bottles.)

Oh, welcome to the Forums, and also to Homebrewing!

steve
 
Hopfan said:
I NEVER stir my beers when in the bottling bucket. The action of siphoning into the priming solution, plus the molecular movement of the all that "stuff" in the bucket will do you just fine.

I agree with hopfan. Stirring can lead to infection and not the good kind either.:p :cross: :)
 
I don't see how GENTLY stirring in the priming sugar could cause an infection as long as your stirring spoon was SANITIZED just like all the rest of the stuff that touches the cooled wort. You just don't want get so vigorous that you slosh in air. Or don't bother and let the whirl pool effect of the siphoning mix it all together. But stirring shouldn't cause a problem in itself if everything is clean.
 
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