Worried about bottling

My brew has been fermenting for nearly a week now and I know that the bottling time is growing near. I'm fairly clueless on this but I've read up and watched videos in a few different places online and got the general idea. As far as I can tell you - transfer to a second bucket, not taking sediment. add sugar. siphon to bottles and cap.

I'm scared of all the stories of exploding bottles! I'm sure you've explained this many times before but... What is the correct process to transfer it from the fermenting bucket to the bottles without having them exploding in my face and keeping my eyeballs intact?

Also will any bottles be ok to place it in that have the regular caps on?

You need the style bottles that use pop tops, not twist offs.

Here's a step by step. You don't need to worry about bottle bombs until AFTER you bottle it, even then it's slim. I've never had one. It's caused by adding too much sugar or bottling too early. I'm assuming you have a 5 gallon batch. If not, you'll need to adjust the amount of sugar below.

1. Boil 3/4cup of corn sugar with 2 cups of water. As soon as sugar is dissolved, cool to the same temperature as your wort.

2. Pour cooled sugar mixure into your bottling bucket.
3. Siphon beer from fermentor into bottling bucket (make sure to keep the hose below the beer level so you don't splash). Try to keep the hose toward the side of the bucket. This will make sure the beer circulates around the bucket and gets mixed with the sugar well.

4. After all the beer is siphoned into your bottling bucket, it's time to bottle. Make sure all your bottles are sanitized and fill from the drain on your bottling bucket. I use a bottling wand that you can get fairly cheap at your LHBS. It uses gravity to fill your beers from the bottom up (no splashing). It also stops filling as soon as you pull it off the bottom of the bottle. Fill the bottles to about an inch under the mouth. You want a little airspace so it can carbonate well.

5. Cap your bottles with sanitized caps and set them in a cool dark room for 3-4 weeks.

6. Don't post in 1 week wondering why your bottles aren't carbonated.

Couple things...

Most people leave their brew in the primary fermenter for several weeks. No rush to bottle.

The only tried and true way to know whether its ready to bottle os to take a hydrometer measurement. Wait a couple days, take another. If its around your expected FG, and stable, its probably ready to bottle.

Check into a tool called an autosiphon. You should not siphon with your dirty dirty mouth.

Look into a bottling wand as well. It fills bottles with a minimum of aeration, and when you remove the wwand, there is the correct amount of headspace.

Bottle bombs only happen when you bottle before fermentation is complete, and there is an excess buildup of pressure.

Rush to bottle usually means bombs. Don't think about bottling for a couple more weeks then you don't have to worry about bombs.
+1 on autosiphon and bottling wand. Makes the chore a breeze.
Also, if you have the money, a vintner and bottle tree work great to make bottling faster and easier.

Thanks for all the helpful tips, they will definitely come in handy! The main thing I didn't know about was they type of bottles I could use but thats cleared it up.

This made me laugh :

s3n8 said:

You should not siphon with your dirty dirty mouth.

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You'll find more info and tips, here;

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/revvys-tips-bottler-first-time-otherwise-94812/

Also, I would not worry too much about cooling the priming solution. It will cool very fast once your beer hits it, and although it will kill a few of your yeast, it will be a tiny fraction of the total amount of yeast in your beer before it cools down enough. There will still be plenty of yeast in suspension to do the job. I find it easier than messing with cooling and the potential for infection from handling the stuff too much.

Revvy's tips are great! He's saved me lots of time while bottling.

I've heard that you get more or less carbonation depending on bottle size.
I've only got very small bottles to use this time (10oz) mainly due to running out of money for equipment! Will smaller bottles be more or less carbonated and should I adjust the sugar to compensate for this?

scuv said:

I've heard that you get more or less carbonation depending on bottle size.
I've only got very small bottles to use this time (10oz) mainly due to running out of money for equipment! Will smaller bottles be more or less carbonated and should I adjust the sugar to compensate for this?

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No that's not true at all, you get the same amount of carbonation no matter what size you bottle it in, it's just that larger bottles may take a little longer than smaller ones and vice versa. (and that's prolly where whoever told you that got that idea, because they tried a bigger bottle early and it wss not fully carbed yet.)

If I bottle anything larger than 12 ounces (pints, bombers, champagne bottles) I always do at least one 6 pack of 12 ouncers for contest entries...and they are usually carbed a week ahead of the bigger ones.

But you don't have to do anything "different" for bigger bottles.

thanks revvy... there sure is a lot to learn hah

scuv said:

thanks revvy... there sure is a lot to learn hah

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But the learning curve is really fast.....and fun....because most of the time, even if you make a mistake, you still usually end up with......







Beer.