Max time allowed between priming sugar addition and bottling? What a moron!

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

dndlyon

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 3, 2010
Messages
69
Reaction score
1
Location
Ohio
Hi All,

I was getting ready to bottle a cream ale that has been in the bucket for almost 2 months (total between primary and secondary). While unloading the bottles from the dishwasher, I realized that they didn't get as clean as they need to be. Stupid me! I already racked and added the priming sugar.

How long do you think I can go before all is lost?

The dishwasher has a nice sanitize cycle, but it takes almost 2 hours to do the wash and sanitize, so I'd like to go to bed and bottle around 5 am. It's 10 local time now. Any ideas / suggestions?
 
Carbonation takes at least a week. If anything, there is not going to be any co2 lost in the time that it takes to sanitize your bottles. Just put a lid on the bottling bucket, and wait for the bottles. No big deal here. I would bet you can wait about a day after priming sugar now that I think of it. RDWHAHB
 
But I also thought that primary fermentation is usually completed within 3-5 days depending on the temp (could be faster or slower). Givin that there is very little sugar to consume for priming there is a chance that most of it could be eating up within the next 7 hours. If you wanted to be sure I would wait for a few days, recheck the hydrometer reading and then start the bottling process fresh. Just my thoughts and I could be completely wrong.
 
There is less sugar to consume, but also a lot less active yeast. The situation is not at all comparable to primary fermentation.

Go ahead and run the dishwasher, then bottle. No worries.
 
There is less sugar to consume, but also a lot less active yeast. The situation is not at all comparable to primary fermentation.

Go ahead and run the dishwasher, then bottle. No worries.

But I also hear of starters that finish overnight
 
So, I guess I'm turning this into an experiment now and hope it turns out ok. I ran the bottles and over 1/2 of them still came out awful. My fault for trying to shortcut the process - I knew I should have brushed them out first...anyway, I ended up with a case of bottles that were ok. So, now I've got freshly brushed bottles in the dishwasher, and the bucket sitting in the kitchen full of beer + priming sugar.

Unfortunatly I am not a mega millions winner, so I've got to go to work today. I'll take a hydrometer reading, and bottle when I get home. We'll see what happens!
 
The safest thing to do would be to wait for it to ferment out completely (hydrometer reading should match your FG) then reprime and bottle. If you don't, I'm thinking you're going to get severely under carbonated bottles.
 
I don't think you will loose too much CO2. Probably you won't notice a difference. But it depends on teh mount of active yeast. If it is a light beer bottled 2 weeks after pitching yeast, the difference will be more noticeable then if you had a high gravity beer with a month of cold lagering.
 
The safest thing to do would be to wait for it to ferment out completely (hydrometer reading should match your FG) then reprime and bottle. If you don't, I'm thinking you're going to get severely under carbonated bottles.

I agree. By waiting to bottle that long, you may have very little carbonation. That very small amount of priming sugar in such a large volume is probably already nearly finished fermenting.

I'd wait a few days now, to make sure the priming sugar is completely fermented out, reprime and bottle.

Sanitizing in the dishwasher works fine, but of course it doesn't clean the bottles. Even though using the dishwasher for sanitizing can be labor-saving, the darn bottles still have to be cleaned first. I like to rinse the bottles very well when I use them, and turn them upside down to dry. Then they don't have to be scrubbed at all- just a dunk in star-san and they are ready to go.
 
Sanitizing in the dishwasher works fine, but of course it doesn't clean the bottles. Even though using the dishwasher for sanitizing can be labor-saving, the darn bottles still have to be cleaned first.

Yeah, like the subject says, what a moron! I cleaned them, just not really well. I guess this kind of stuff happens when you try to rush and get out of the normal routine (*smacks her forhead*). I normally wash and rinse the bottles after I empty them the first time. That way I don't have a bunch of stinky bottles in the closet. Then I put them in warm water with a small bit of dish soap to soak the labels off. Then they go in the dishwasher - one round with soap and water, one round with just water and the sanitize cycle. Probably overkill, but it works.

HWMBO was in a hurry the other day and convinced me that soaking the bottles in a dirty bucket out on the back porch would be ok because I was going to clean them later...Opps! I forgot to clean them again later and didn't realize it until I removed them from the dishwasher (*smacks her forhead again*). This board is great for the amount of information you guys have, but someone should really put a banner up that says be careful with the RDWHAHB...One too many and you do stupid things! Guess I was just excited because this is the first time I could drink my own beer while bottling! What a monkey!

Oh well, I brew therefore I learn :D

I'll see what my hydrometer reading is when I get home tonite and decide what to do then. I'll either wait until I get more priming sugar in the mail to bottle, or try to bottle again tonight without more sugar. In the humble words of most of you out there...let the beer tell you what to do (although that might have been what got me here in the first place!).

Thanks for all the advice!
 
Trust me. I can relate!

One last thought- you don't have to order more priming sugar, and you don't have to bottle today. You could just wait a couple of days, and use table sugar. 4 ounces of sugar in a 5 gallon batch really is negligible, and the taste won't be affected at all if you use table sugar. It'll save having to get priming sugar, at least.

I found a place near me that has a deli, and they have a little LHBS. They don't have much, but they sell priming sugar by the pound for $.99. I have a little scale, so I like having it on hand. But if I didn't have the priming sugar already, I'd use table sugar.
 
Thanks, YB! I didn't know table sugar would work. I really need to get some of the "staples" in stock. My LHBS is an hour and 45 minutes away. I wish I had the guts to walk away from the day job and open a brew shop. But, the bills need to be paid :)

Thanks again!
 
Let me add a second "What a moron!"...I left the caps in the bleach water and they became rusty caps...imagine that! So, no problem letting the beer sit...I'm out of caps! This is what I get for being cheap and not keeping the "staples" on hand :)

Guess it's ok though. The airlock is bubbling a little bit, so I probably wouldn't have bottled tonight anyway.
 
Let me add a second "What a moron!"...I left the caps in the bleach water and they became rusty caps...imagine that! So, no problem letting the beer sit...I'm out of caps! This is what I get for being cheap and not keeping the "staples" on hand :)

Guess it's ok though. The airlock is bubbling a little bit, so I probably wouldn't have bottled tonight anyway.

Murphy's Law, I guess. Oh, well, by the time you get new caps (and priming sugar if you want), you'll have the bottles all ready! ;)
 
Back
Top