I don't Prime

Hi all!

First post! Whoooo

I have just got back into brewing. It has been about 8-9 years since I last did and I can tell you that a lot has changed in homebrew

When I first started I read that I did not have to prime for bottling if I didn't use a secondary. So far I haven't had a flat brew yet.

Now after much reading...I have decided to leave it in the primary for 3 weeks instead of two. I still don't plan on using a secondary since I can't seem to find a concensus on if this actually makes the beer better and I hate risking infection from the transfers (and the small inevitable loss of beer ).

My question is should I now worry about using a priming sugar for bottling? Was the reason my beer was coming out carb'd because of stopping fermentation in the primary before it was complete?

Thanks for help and opinions!

You have been playing with fire so far. Two things:

1) Many beers require longer than 2 weeks to ferment and reach their maximum flavor potential
2) You are almost making hand grenades. It is just a matter of time before you bottle too soon and they start exploding on you from too much carbonation

Priming bottles is cheap, easy, and accurate. I strongly suggest you change up methods.

If you didn't prime and your beer had carbonation then chances are it wasn't finished with fermentation. That's always a risk for bottle bombs because of the unknown amount of malt sugars left to ferment.

Conventional wisdom says to make sure your beer has finished in primary by taking gravity readings. When the reading stays the same for a day or so, rack to secondary or to your bottling bucket and add your measured amount of priming sugar so that you have some control over the volume of carbonation.

Welcome aboard!

You were bottling before fermentation was complete. While this does work, you run the risk of bottle bombs, in addition to flat beer.

Waiting for the fermentation to complete and the beer to clear gives you a better product. Priming a fully fermented beer gives you control of the carbonation level.

Should I give the obligatory: "or you could keg." ?


Woops....too late.

If the gravity doesn't change for a couple days but still finishes a little high could that be the reason. Unfortunatly I have never had much success in the past of getting that final gravity down to suggested levels.

To help change this I am going to start pitching yeast with a starter. I never used to.......

Does the aggitation of going to the bottling bucket help those lazy yeasties to get started again for the bottle conditioning?

rtbroze said:

Does the aggitation of going to the bottling bucket help those lazy yeasties to get started again for the bottle conditioning?

Click to expand...

It does to a certain extent. That and adding in more, easily digestible sugars