Bottle from carboy or Bucket?

Has anyone tried bottling straight from the secondary. You just added the priming sugar solution to the secondary, gently mixed, and siphoned into your bottles?

I noticed that the one time I used this method my beer was fully carbonated after 1 week. Every batch where I haven't the beer has not been nearly as carbonated and takes much longer. I think this is because the yeast at the bottom begins to enter back into the wort when the priming sugar is added. It is this extra amount of yeast cells that help carbonate the beer. When one bottles from a bottling bucket the yeast cake will not be exposed to the priming sugar and thus no more yeast can be added back into the wort before bottling occurs.

Any thoughts...opinions...preferences?

I think that you are probably right that more yeast is being put into suspension when you mix the priming sugar in there. Nothing wrong with this per se but it will probably increase the amount of sediment at the bottom of the bottles.

This completely defeats the purpose of letting the beer clear.

david_42 said:

This completely defeats the purpose of letting the beer clear.

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The beer cleared up just fine...although there was a little sediment in the bottom of the bottle... but nothing bad enough to stop me from trying it again.

nl724 wrote:

Has anyone tried bottling straight from the secondary. You just added the priming sugar solution to the secondary, gently mixed, and siphoned into your bottles?

The beer cleared up just fine...although there was a little sediment in the bottom of the bottle... but nothing bad enough to stop me from trying it again.

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david is right. The clearing process is the hops, proteins and yeast settling to the bottom of the carboy so that you can rack from above them. By adding priming sugar and mixing you are putting these things back into suspension. You’d be better off leaving it in the primary the extra time and racking to a bottling bucket.

Sounds like a great waste of time allowing it to clear then remixing it...

Syphon to a bottling bucket...the clearer the beer going into the bottle the cleaner coming out.

I have mixed the priming solution into a primary w/ good results without disturbing the yeast layer at the bottom of the fermenter. All one needs to do is add the priming solution and very gently stir the brew w/ the racking cane. The two solutions mix very easily and don't require swirling the yeast cake.

Try it some time w/ 5 gal. of water and a couple pints tinted w/ food coloring. Once or twice around the vessel is all it takes.

Mike

wilserbrewer said:

The two solutions mix very easily and don't require swirling the yeast cake.

Try it some time w/ 5 gal. of water and a couple pints tinted w/ food coloring. Once or twice around the vessel is all it takes.

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Success with this approach will depend upon the yeast, some flocculent strains form a very solid and compact yeast cake, others don't.

The food coloring test is not a valid one, since your priming solution has a vastly different specific gravity from your finished beer.