Bottling bucket - to stir or not to stir?

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Marsdude

Marsdude

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I will be bottling my 5th brew later today and I have a question about the distribution of the sugar in the bottling bucket.

It seems like some of my bottles are more carbonated than others and I wonder if I am getting the sugar evenly mixed up in the wort. I dissolve the sugar in a pint of water I have boiled and pour it into the bottom of the bucket. I then rack my wort into the bucket - then bottle.

I was wondering if it is OK to stir the mixture? I did a search but it seemed like there were two schools of thought on this. I thought I had read that it was bad to stir the wort after fermentation.

So...is it OK to the beer before bottling without harming it?
 
I've always just let the beer filling the bottling bucket stir the sugar mixture into the beer, but I recently had the same thought.

I sanitized my giant spoon and gently just swirled it around the bucket one or two revolutions on my last batch.

I think if you are very gentle, don't splash, etc. Essentially avoid whipping any air/oxygen into the green beer, you'll be okay. Since exposing the beer to oxygen will oxidize it, etc.
 
If you add the sugar solution first, then lay the output of the siphon in the bottom of the bucket so that the flow creates a circular motion, then it mixes fine, IME.
 
jeffmeh said:
If you add the sugar solution first, then lay the output of the siphon in the bottom of the bucket so that the flow creates a circular motion, then it mixes fine, IME.
Click to expand...

I agree, this generally tends to work fine for me as well, but I have noticed perhaps a very very slight difference between some of my beer bottles from the same batch. Not really a big deal.

I recently purchased a chest freezer and I am hoping to move to kegging in the near future anyways. ;)
 
Gently stirring with a sanitized spoon/stirrer is fine! I do it all the time and my beers have been very consistently carbed!
Of course, always be sure your beer is finished fermenting! Throwing too much active yeast in a capped bottle can produce some explosive results!
Proßt
 
Thanks for your suggestions.

Also, one of the reasons I asked this was that my first brew produced a bottle bomb. It was only one bottle (a bomber - oh the irony) and it was only that one bottle that one time.
 
+1 on gently stirring. Better be sure the sugar is evenly distributed so carbonation levels are what you expect in each bottle. Besides, if you don't splash, it's virtually risk free to get that extra assurance. Beer takes a lot of work to make so it's especially frustrating when you crack an under/over carbonated bottle of an otherwise perfectly good beer.
 
Personally I add te sugar for the botteling bucket then allow the beer being siphoned into the bucket to stir up my sugars for carbonation. I also see nothing wrong with a gental stir, but I like letting my system do the work for me whenever possible.
 
I used to not stir; but, recently I have had a couple batches that had very inconsistent carb & flavors between bottles. I am going to gently stir from now on to see if that was the issue.
 
I definitely stir. Just take it easy. I have had perfect results everytime. If you splash a little, just think of commercial breweries: when they transfer beer, it is hundreds if not thousands of gallons at a time, and the sheer gravity alone makes for a high velocity - theres no way that they keep that stuff under total control, and I don't think they lose money from oxidized beer complaints.
 
Hi, my name is Bill...and I'm a "stirrer"...:D

What I also do is fill about 12 bottles then give it another gentle stir or two then repeat the process, another 12, another stir.

The only bottle grenades I ever had were in 1994 with Root Beer. :rockin:
 
Well, today is bottling day. Thanks for all the advice. I think I will give the bucket a slow stir and see what happens.
 
Well wether you stir or not, I wish you luck Marsdude!

The only thing worse than bad beer is spilled beer;)
 
I'll add my 2 cents and tell you to stir, if you have not bottled already.

My second beer ever was a very big(1.072 OG) porter that finished rather thick @ 1.020. I racked on top of the sugar and forgot to gently stir. Result: first 10 beers or so I filled were total gushers, emptying themselves after I opened them. The rest were totally flat. To make it worse, I didn't keep track of which ones I bottled first so I had to open and recap all of them for fear of bottle bombs.

I absolutely remember now to give my bottling bucket a gentle stir, bought a nice one-piece, 21" stainless steel spoon just for that purpose.
 
I sometimes (if I remember) do lightly stir a bit with the siphon hose after I finish, but that's it. As most folks do, I just siphon on to the priming solution and let it swirl together. After 40+ batches bottled, I've had no issues with inconsistent carbing.
 
I generally don't stir. I just pour in my sugar solution first and let the racking mix it up for me and each bottle always comes out the same for me. Sometimes if I get interrupted and have to stop bottling for 5 or 10 minutes, I'll give it a gentle stir then just to make sure it's still incorporated. Probably being paranoid, but it makes me feel better. If it makes you feel better to stir yours, the go for it. Just do it gently and don't splash it around.
 
UPDATE......

Before I bottled yesterday I did, slowly, stir the wort - world did not end. :D

Seriously, thanks for all the advice.
 
just a sanitation tip for future bottling: assuming you're using an autosiphon, once you've finished using it to rack to the bottling bucket take it apart and stir lightly with the wand end! save a few bits of sanitizer and there's less to clean!
 
jeffmeh said:
If you add the sugar solution first, then lay the output of the siphon in the bottom of the bucket so that the flow creates a circular motion, then it mixes fine, IME.
Click to expand...

This has always been my method with no problems at all.
 
Bubba said:
This has always been my method with no problems at all.
Click to expand...

Well, I believed in the no-stir method until last night, and I was lucky it was a beer that I had secondaried...

So I dissolved 5 oz of priming sugar in a pint or so of water, boiled, and poured into the bottling bucket... Then I racked the beer into the bucket... the hose was laying on the bottom of the bucket, but was angled slightly upward at the end. I noticed because the beer was going a little ways (3/8") up the wall of the bucket where it was coming out, and I was worried about splashing...

What I should have been worried about was the hose was gently placing the beer on top of the dense sugar water like a black and tan...

How do I know?

I bottled 49 bottles. Had about a half cup left in the bottom of the bucket that didn't make it out... so I poured it into a glass and stuck it in the fridge while I cleaned everything.

Get done putting everything away, take a sip of beer from the bottom of the bucket... it is insanely sweet... what the heck? I pour it into the measuring tube... 1.060!!!

So I poured 49 bottles back into the bucket and re-bottled them...
 
marsdude,
i am in the same predicament u are. i just brewed my 5th batch. when i pop the cap off a bottle i can hear the carbination but i have no very little head. its not the glass because any sam adams has great head. ive been using 5oz corn sugar to prime with. no stir. please keep me updated if u solve our problem. im gunna lighty stir my next batch at bottling time.
 
PorterIdontknowher said:
Well, I believed in the no-stir method until last night, and I was lucky it was a beer that I had secondaried...

So I dissolved 5 oz of priming sugar in a pint or so of water, boiled, and poured into the bottling bucket... Then I racked the beer into the bucket... the hose was laying on the bottom of the bucket, but was angled slightly upward at the end. I noticed because the beer was going a little ways (3/8") up the wall of the bucket where it was coming out, and I was worried about splashing...

What I should have been worried about was the hose was gently placing the beer on top of the dense sugar water like a black and tan...

How do I know?

I bottled 49 bottles. Had about a half cup left in the bottom of the bucket that didn't make it out... so I poured it into a glass and stuck it in the fridge while I cleaned everything.

Get done putting everything away, take a sip of beer from the bottom of the bucket... it is insanely sweet... what the heck? I pour it into the measuring tube... 1.060!!!

So I poured 49 bottles back into the bucket and re-bottled them...
Click to expand...

same exact thing here. im gunna stir from now on
 
PorterIdontknowher said:
Well, I believed in the no-stir method until last night, and I was lucky it was a beer that I had secondaried...

So I dissolved 5 oz of priming sugar in a pint or so of water, boiled, and poured into the bottling bucket... Then I racked the beer into the bucket... the hose was laying on the bottom of the bucket, but was angled slightly upward at the end. I noticed because the beer was going a little ways (3/8") up the wall of the bucket where it was coming out, and I was worried about splashing...

What I should have been worried about was the hose was gently placing the beer on top of the dense sugar water like a black and tan...

How do I know?

I bottled 49 bottles. Had about a half cup left in the bottom of the bucket that didn't make it out... so I poured it into a glass and stuck it in the fridge while I cleaned everything.

Get done putting everything away, take a sip of beer from the bottom of the bucket... it is insanely sweet... what the heck? I pour it into the measuring tube... 1.060!!!

So I poured 49 bottles back into the bucket and re-bottled them...
Click to expand...

Wish I did this on my second beer ever. Six gushers, the rest almost still.
 
I sure hope that when you say "I added corn sugar" you mean you boiled it in a cup of water and then cooled it and racked the beer on top of it. This is the best way to ensure even dispersion of sugar.
The reason being (chem 101) is that a solid(corn sugar) has a higher solubility at higher temperatures (the boiled water)
And mixing a solvent (sugar/water) into the solution(beer) will yield even dispersion.
 
JewBrew said:
I sure hope that when you say "I added corn sugar" you mean you boiled it in a cup of water and then cooled it and racked the beer on top of it. This is the best way to ensure even dispersion of sugar.
The reason being (chem 101) is that a solid(corn sugar) has a higher solubility at higher temperatures (the boiled water)
And mixing a solvent (sugar/water) into the solution(beer) will yield even dispersion.
Click to expand...

Sugar/water is not a solvent. Water is a solvent. Beer is a solution of a lot of different stuff in water... you need to mix two solutions, one dense sugar water, the other the less dense beer.

The problem is that 5 oz of sugar in 1 pint of water is much more dense than beer... my syphon tube was on the bottom, but pointing slightly up and I had good circular motion in the bucket, but the sugar solution didn't mix very well with the lighter beer solution...


You need to either be very sure that your siphon tube is pointing down, or just give it a little stirring action along the bottom...
 
i always stir when i bottle. start with the sugar water mix in the bucket and rack on it. the one time i didn't stir cause i forgot to sanitize a spoon so i just figured it swirled enough. well 3 weeks later and a couple bottle bombs and lots of under carbed beer is what i got. ive sinced moved to kegging :)
 
I stir.
From reading some of these posts I think I may stir too much.

If I stir and get bubbles in the whirlpool when and how do I know I have messed the beer up? What are the symptoms of oxygenated (or whatever is bad that I did) beer?

I think I need to stir a little but don't want to stir too much.

I've done about 10 drinkable (some still conditioning) batches lifetime and so far it seems stirring helps with bottle bombs and consistency. I just may be overdoing it.
 
We've always put the priming sugar in the bottom of the bottling vessel and let the siphon mix the beer. But I'm about to start the gentle stirring from now on, after our abbey trippel has had very inconsistent results.

Four bombers have lived up to their name and exploded. And we sampled two surviving bombers last week--one was fantastic, clear and golden and perfect, like a slightly spicier Duvel. The other was just awful. Dark & cloudy, ridiculously foamy, like the result of a urinary tract infection or something.
 
I do. I get a whirlpool going naturally and then half way through get the whirlpool going same direction a little better and thats it. No splashing. Go with the flow. I didnt stir twice. Once was ok. Got a bomb on the second.
 
I have had good results bottling both ways. I think everyone experiences differences in C02 between bottles and IMHO, it has more to do with how well that particular bottle sealed when capping. Just my 2 cents...:mug:
 
Bubba said:
Stir and your guaranteed a good even mix.
Click to expand...

Totally agree. This is what it comes down to. Stirring gently mixes, I wouldn't trust my bottles or floor or ceiling to the "swirled" method. Just stir it with a plastic spoon. SS can scratch your bottling bucket.
 
I usually add the priming sugar to my bottle prior to bottling. Is this bad? I always get a good carbonated beer and an even taste.
 

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