Missed a step with bottling...

Bottled my first batch ever last night, and think I may have screwed it all up... For some reason I completely forgot to boil the priming sugar - I just tossed it into the bottling bucket and stirred it up... How screwed am I?

it dependson if it was dissolved or not.. did you toss in dry sugar or was it dissolved in water? either way is not a great idea but I would think your chances of uneven carbonation is far greater if you just dumped it in dry.. also was the beer cold or room temp?

Nothing you can do about it at this point. How big of a beer was it? I mean you do have PH and alcohol on your side. I am gonna bet you will be just fine... But just in case start your next batch pronto!

CHEERS
Jay

Ohio - it was not dissolved. Stirred as I dumped it in and then stirred some more. Beer was at room temp. Jay - hoping to get the next brew started tomorrow night

From what I know, it's to get rid of any nasties and to get it into solution so it mixes better. Now, if it dissolved well and mixed well, you probably won't have any issues but if it didn't dissolve fully, you may have a few bottle bombs and some with no carbonation.. I'm sure others here can help with some solutions. I might also put a towel over the top of my bottles in Condition as well to slow down a projectile. if all goes well in a couple of weeks. You may try sampling and let us know what happened.

Oh and Jay it was a relatively large beer, I suppose - FG of 1.024

Divrguy - good idea on the towel. I'll be sure to let you know how it turns out!

Hello, I would put them in an ice chest to carb up, that way any bombs are contained and clean up is very easy.

Cheers

I add a teaspoon of dry brewing sugar to each bottle and add the beer, cap the bottles and then invert them and shake them. Never had an infection problem in 40 years...sometimes bottle after 4 days fermentation and let the yeast finish off its work in the capped bottle.

WileECoyote said:

Hello, I would put them in an ice chest to carb up, that way any bombs are contained and clean up is very easy.

Cheers

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Great idea Wile!

3 weeks after bottling. The bottles from the top of the barrel (the last ones bottled) are duds - the sugar definitely settled. The bottles from lower in the barrel are finally starting to show decent carbonation (I've been trying 1 or 2 bottles each night to see how bottle aging works). Noticing that the flavor continues to evolve and mature. At the most I'm getting maybe .25" of head with a pretty aggressive pour, and below-average carbonation - I think I may have under-primed the whole batch (only yielded about 3.5 gal for bottling, so I did not use as much sugar as a 5 gal yield calls for - unfortunately I got lazy about taking notes so I don't remember exactly how much I used). At any rate, as long as I drink it while it's nice and cold, it's more than halfway decent. I've also learned a valuable lesson - take care to prime properly!!