Bottling from Carboy or Bucket?

Happy Weekend Everyone,

Getting ready to bottle the batch in my secondary this weekend. It is currently in a 5g carboy. What is the added value of transferring into a bottling bucket prior to bottling versus bottling directly from the carboy (after stirring in the dissolved sugar obviously?) My bucket now has a valve at the bottom of it which would make siphoning easier I suppose, but I worry about scratches in the bucket containing undesirable materials...

Thanks!

Jason

stirring the sugar into the carboy will stir up all that sediment you've been letting settle for all this time...

bottling via the bucket is a LOT easier than bottling straight from a carboy, IMHO.

Were you planning to start a siphon out of the carboy and just use that to fill the bottles from the carboy? It should work, but I'd be worried about any sediment that might be in the secondary. If there is some in there, it will be stirred back into suspension when you add the priming solution, and will end up in your bottles.

-walker

I always bottle from the bucket, its much, much easier and you wont stir up the sediment. Sure its one more thing to clean but the quality of your beer will be much higher

Whitay said:

I always bottle from the bucket, its much, much easier and you wont stir up the sediment. Sure its one more thing to clean but the quality of your beer will be much higher

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yeah, but you can kill two birds with one stone there. You have to sanitize your bottles in SOMETHING, so why not make that something be the bottling bucket?

I really want to start kegging, because bottling day is the only thing I HATE about homebrewing.

-walker

The purpose of a carboy/secondary is to allow your beer to clear. If you do not rack to a bottling bucket then you'll have to re-stir the sediment into the beer when you prime.

Use a bottling bucket.

ive done this recently and one problem ive had is that their wasnt enough room in the carboy for the priming sugar, so i had to 'thief' some beer out first...i didnt have a problem stirring anything up though, just pour in the sugar/water, and stir slowly w/ the racking cane for 2 minutes. you dont stir any more sediment up then you would by transfering to a bucket...

but i do recommend getting a bucket...its easier, you dont have to stir anything, and its easier...did i mention its easier? especially if you have a spigot...

Walker said:

I really want to start kegging, because bottling day is the only thing I HATE about homebrewing.

-walker

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The Truth.

Jesus does bottling day suck! It seems like you would be excited to get the beer into bottles, one step closer to drinking, but it's such a pain. I've finally got it down to a science that eases the pain a bit. The night before I fill my bottling bucket with a solution of cleanser and water, and toss any bottles that have labels on them in there. The next morning the labels come right off. Then I dunk the rest of the bottles in there, shake them a bit and rinse them. Then I fill the bucket with sanitizer solution. Repeat dunking bottles, but this time I don't rinse, I leave them upside down in a box. Put sugar in bucket, siphon beer into it, and FINALLY I'm ready to bottle.
Kegging sounds easier.

rewster451 said:

Jesus does bottling day suck! It seems like you would be excited to get the beer into bottles, one step closer to drinking, but it's such a pain.

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Amen, brutha...

The only batch I ever aged in the secondary for longer than 6 weeks was a brown ale that I just couldn't motivate myself to bottle. Every time I thought about bottling it, I would groan and find something else to do. It only went into bottles when I realized I was down to a 12 pack of my stash and needed to get something conditioning PDQ.

-walker