Bottle-priming vs Secondary-tank priming

I have a 15-g Sanke fermenter but would like to avoid pumping to a secondary tank to add priming sugars. And priming bottles individually sounds to me like one could end up with inconsistent carbonation due to the tiny quantities being measured.

Does anyone have a way of priming the ferment on route to the bottle without the extra step of a secondary tank?

In the past, I've always used a secondary tank, but I'm lazy when it comes to cleaning, and frankly prefer limited exposure to infection if some brilliant brewer out there has figured this out for me.

I can understand not wanting to measure priming sugar for eac bottle, but what about those primetabs or (coopers?) priming balls. The prime tabs (they have them at American Brewmaster) are probably all uniform in sugar content, so the precise measuring is already done for you.

Other than that, I can't think of anything that doesn't involve a second tank except for stirring the sugar into the fetmenter directly (which would kick up a buttload of trub).

The air exposure thing could be solved, but would require kegging equipment, which I'm guessing you don't have since you are bottling the beer, right?

Thanks - I definitely see one of those priming tabs in my future. Do you have any suggestions for purging oxygen from the bottles? I recently viewed a youtube video of the bottling line at Stone Brewery where they shot some gas into each bottle prior to filling (I don't think it was CO2) and wondered if home-brewers were doing something similar nowadays. I thought of a quick blast of CO2 in each bottle might help, but this could be just so much waste of time.

i just keg my beer, less fuss less time and if need be you can still bottle.

Dennisusa said:

Thanks - I definitely see one of those priming tabs in my future. Do you have any suggestions for purging oxygen from the bottles? I recently viewed a youtube video of the bottling line at Stone Brewery where they shot some gas into each bottle prior to filling (I don't think it was CO2) and wondered if home-brewers were doing something similar nowadays. I thought of a quick blast of CO2 in each bottle might help, but this could be just so much waste of time.

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For people who just bottle, I don't think anyone does any kind of purge. People that bottle from kegs sometimes use fancy-schmancy "beer guns" that have two tubes that you insert into the bottle and two triggers. One trigger blasts CO2 in for a purge and the other trigger lets the beer flow in.

i use a ghetto beer gun, number 2 stopper racking cane and picnic tapper. Bam beer in bottle. I see no need to purge never did and beer tasted great, get the bottle caps that absorb o2.

I second the coopers tablets, I've used em before and they are real easy. I've been forgetting to order some so I currently just stir in the sugar in my primary and let the trub settle(doesn't take long) before I bottle. But if your trub is higher than the spigot and you don't have a bottling bucket the coopers tabs are where its at.

Hmmm, doesn't the simple, but tried and true, bottling wand work just fine by filling the bottle from the bottom up - thereby allowing the liquid to push the oxygen out with mixing with it?

I think I'll eventually go with kegging, but until then these replies were helpful with my bottling. I did use the bottle wand for years, but always thought the way it splashed so vigorously on the bottom of the bottles was counter-intuitive to keeping oxygen out of my ferment - even though I swear it never seemed to affect them. Mrbugawkagawk, I need something like your ghetto gun (even though I suspect yours transfered carbonated beer from your corny's, not from fermenter-to-bottle, right?). Thanks to all.

Carb tabs work great.