priming sugar distribution

I've seen couple different methods of adding priming sugar to beer prior to bottling. Anything from adding sugar to each bottle separately, to boiling sugar in water and adding it to bottling bucket before racking the beer.

This is what I did for my first batch.

I really didn't believe that sugar would be evenly distributed in 5 gallons of beer.

So I did a small experiment. I prepared my bottling bucket and added the boiled sugar that I coloured with some red water colour (kids paints). I racked 5 gallons of clear water over it.

And guess what?

At first 5 minutes after racking, I had very uneven distribution, the sugar was at the bottom half of the batch. Very small amount of it was in the upper half of the batch. After 15 minutes, it all went down to lower 1/4 of the batch, sedimenting on the bottom.

Since my bottling session lasts for more then 1 hour, it is obvious that first bottles will be over carbonated while last bottles will be under carbonated.

I emphasize that my sugar was completely dissolved, which means that it was liquid after boiling....

So I don't see a different way to make it right, but stiring it gently untill it's all evenly distributed! What do you guys think?

Interesting experiment. I see nothing wrong with gentle stirring of the wort and priming solution. I usually rack onto the sugar and try to reverse the direction of the swirl once or twice during racking, and have not had much of a problem. I do sometimes end up with over and under carbonated bottles. Never had a bomb though.

I just did my first bottling on saturday. I boiled the sugar in water, put it in the bucket, and racked the beer over it. Before bottling I gave it a gentle stir with the racking cane.

I never stir. I just rack, from the bottom, with the tubing set in a circle at the bottom of the receiving vessel. It fills, and mixes, from the bottom. I never had a problem with incomplete or uneven carbonation. It's swirling in a circle pretty well, though, so it is mixing without aerating.

YooperBrew said:

I never stir. I just rack, from the bottom, with the tubing set in a circle at the bottom of the receiving vessel. It fills, and mixes, from the bottom. I never had a problem with incomplete or uneven carbonation. It's swirling in a circle pretty well, though, so it is mixing without aerating.

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how much water do you use for boiling the sugar? I think this is very important. more water you have, better mix it is

I never had an issue either. I've either racked on top on the priming sugar solution or when I haven't I take a sanitized spoon and gently stir a few times.

400d said:

how much water do you use for boiling the sugar? I think this is very important. more water you have, better mix it is

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2 cups of water, and usually 4 ounces of corn sugar. I just want to dissolve the sugar, not add water to my beer.

YooperBrew said:

2 cups of water, and usually 4 ounces of corn sugar. I just want to dissolve the sugar, not add water to my beer.

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of course you don't want to add water, but when it comes to mixing two different density solutions, even one cup of water more or less makes a big difference

How do you know that the sugar was settling and not just the dye?

Scimmia said:

How do you know that the sugar was settling and not just the dye?

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because I could clearly see the difference between sugar solution and water. I think this experiment was feasible even without dying, because sugar solution is much different from water (a bit in colour, and a bit in density)

400d, Did you make sure that your sugar solution was the same temperature as your 5 gallon water solution? The temperature difference can make a big difference in mixing. Hot sugar liquid will mix better than cold sugar liquid compared to the beer liquid.

I have racked on top of boiled and cooled sugar now for about 15 batches with no difficulty and no stirring using Yooperbrews method (except that one batch where I forgot the priming sugar.... Ooops). The biggest issue I find is that the uneven carbing seems to come from opening the bottles too early. With new recipes, I am trying one bottle a week and I find a great variability in the carbing until I get about 6 weeks out from bottling, then it seems to level out. Also, carbing varies greatly based on the temperature your conditioning at and how much time you put it in the fridge before opening it. I carb at 70 degrees for 3 weeks now, then can lower the temp if convenient. For drinking, I get them in the fridge at least 1 week prior to opening. This seems to fix the carbing issues.

Also, as you just noted, the sugar density being significantly different than the water density matters. This is less an issue with wort/almost beer, since it is more dense than plain water.

400d said:

because I could clearly see the difference between sugar solution and water. I think this experiment was feasible even without dying, because sugar solution is much different from water (a bit in colour, and a bit in density)

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Yes, water does have a different density than sugar water. Beer, not so much. Plain water has an SG of 1.000. Beer has an SG of maybe 1.012 or so.

You can do it however you want. I'm just telling you that I've bottled over 200 batches of beer (over 1000 gallons!) and that's how I've done it.

If you don't mind wasting more sugar. You can redo this experiment but instead of plain water, bring the SG of the water to something similar to beer. 1.01-1.02.

I'm really afraid of bottle bombs. That's why I started this thread at first place.

I boiled 4 oz of sucrose (table sugar) in two cups of water for my priming solution.

I had primary fermentation at 69 F for 10 days, and secondary at 59 F (much colder) for 14 days.

The yeast was safeale US-05.

Now I'm priming the bottles at 69 F.

do you think this is ok? should I be afraid of bottle bombs? is my priming temperature too high?

YooperBrew said:

I never stir. I just rack, from the bottom, with the tubing set in a circle at the bottom of the receiving vessel. It fills, and mixes, from the bottom. I never had a problem with incomplete or uneven carbonation. It's swirling in a circle pretty well, though, so it is mixing without aerating.

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YooperBrew said:

2 cups of water, and usually 4 ounces of corn sugar. I just want to dissolve the sugar, not add water to my beer.

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YooperBrew said:

Yes, water does have a different density than sugar water. Beer, not so much. Plain water has an SG of 1.000. Beer has an SG of maybe 1.012 or so.

You can do it however you want. I'm just telling you that I've bottled over 200 batches of beer (over 1000 gallons!) and that's how I've done it.

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This is pretty much how I do it too, and I too have done 100+ batches of beer and never have had any carbonation issues whatsoever, that weren't simply a problem of patience.

I've never bought the "theory" of uneven distribution of priming sugar. It does a pretty good job of integrating itself as it is swirling and the beer is rising in the bottling bucket, especially if you let it swirl naturally around the contours of the bucket as it lifts upward.

Don't forget, as soon as the fresh sugar hits the yeast which has been kicked up by the motion of racking, they begin munching almost immediately. That's why Papazian and Palmer suggests you sit the caps loosely on the bottle for 10 minutes or so before you cap it, to let the production of co2 push out any o2 in the headspace. Some of you may have experienced, as I have, bottle caps popping off on occasion.

Like I said, I have NEVER had any batches of beer that didn't ALL carb up eventually.

And my considerable experience in helping people with bottling issue is that 99% of the folks complaining about it are opening them prematurally, and they often report back that there beer did eventually carb up fine.

I write extensively about bottle carbonation here Revvy's Blog, Of Patience and Bottle Conditioning.

And that is pretty much a result of my experience in my own bottling as well as helping other folks. So, as I've said often, I don't by the "un-even" sugar distribution theory."

I've never had a bottle bomb, but I haven't been brewing all that long. I've only made about 300 batches now, but the last 75 or so were mostly kegged. Over 200 batches were bottled, though!

I tend to agree with the experts. I've had just less than 50 batches and have done the same routine on most all of them until recently with no problems.
The only change in my method now is that I use a Tap a Draft system in addition to bottling for a portion of my batches. I have to use less priming sugar with the little kegs, but fill those first. After that I bump up the priming sugar for my remaining bottles. This forces me to do a little more stirring which I can imagine helps with priming consistency.

400d said:

I think this experiment was feasible even without dying, because sugar solution is much different from water (a bit in colour, and a bit in density)

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In all honesty I do not think you could call this experiment feasable at all. The only thing this experiment concluded is how well the sugar solutution dispersed itself in water. Which is not beer. The only way you can logically make any assumptions from one medium to another is when those mediums share identicle properties. And water and beer do not. Specific gravity being just one of the many dissimilar properties between the two.

However, if one was so inclined to brew a lightly colored beer and perform the same test I would certainly consider that a feasable experiment. It's just not going to be me.

Kudos for the effort though.