Poorly mixed priming sugar

I bottled my double IPA last week but was also drinking one at the time (mistake #1). I cleaned and sanitized everything and racked my beer into the bottling bucket. During this time I realized that I forgot to make up my priming sugar. After racking, I boiled the priming sugar and cooled it before carefully adding it to the top of my beer, instead of the opposite. Because I did not have a sanitized spoon around, I just gave it a short slow stir with my racking cane (no auto siphon attached), as not to add any oxygen. Is this good enough, or will I have some bottles not carbonated, and others over carbonated? Any way to improve a low carbonated beer? FYI - I also added extra yeast to the bucket for a speedy carbonation.

I 've had problems in the past with some bottles being carbed well and others not, even with adding the priming sugar to the bottling bucket before racking. When I bottle I add 1/2 of the priming sugar to the bottling bucket, and the other half when the bucket is 1/2 full. Regardless, I have made it a practice to gently stir the wort after the bucket is full to ensure everything is mixed well. It sounds like you did the best you could, unfortunately only time will tell whether you mixed your priming solution in well enough.

Thanks. I have bottled with this practice before, but my only issue is stirring with just the cane for a short time, it being so thin. I then dropped the cane to the bottom to rack. At the same time, I'm always concerned about this during the bottling phase and they always seem to turn out. I'll check one out tonight to see if it's working. I met John Palmer who said in 10 days they should be good so hopefully I'll see some carbonation after 8.

trevorc13 said:

I bottled my double IPA last week but was also drinking one at the time (mistake #1).

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Uh, if that's a mistake, then dern near everybody on this board is doing things wrong. Your beer will probably be fine. RDWHAHB.

Yeah I just did the same thing last week while packing for Vegas. Bottled my Oktoberfest lager and had a six inch plastic spoon that I sanitized first, then stirred gently. I'm pretty sure I've done this 2 or 3 times before and it has turned out ok.

One other time (also when I was drinking and packing for San Diego) I put in half the sugar at the bottom and the other half was intended to go in at the halfway point of racking. Well, didn't do it of course but the beer turned out fine too. The only thing I did for that one was I spun the bottles around individually in the case to kind of rouse up the yeast at the bottom to get maximum carbonation out of only 2.5 oz of sugar. Once again, it turned out just fine.

duffman2 said:

I spun the bottles around individually in the case to kind of rouse up the yeast at the bottom...

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How often did you do this?

pvh99 said:

Uh, if that's a mistake, then dern near everybody on this board is doing things wrong. Your beer will probably be fine. RDWHAHB.

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Ha! I'm sure you're right. Should have said reason #1. Thanks.

Looks like it all worked out fine. It actually has GREAT head retention and good lacing too. From now on I will make sure to add the priming sugar to bottling bucket before the beer.