Briggery16
Member
Im bottling for the first time tomorrow. I just wanna know what some of you did wrong so that maybe I won't..I've removed all labels but am yet to sanitize. Tips? Stories?
bottling for the first time..what did you do wrong?
- Thread starter Briggery16
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terrapinj
Well-Known Member
Didn't mix the Priming sugar with boiling water = very uneven carbing
when i first started, i bottled. i read all these stories about people who'd washed and sanitized their bottles in the dishwasher. i did, and the first time i opened those beers was at 1 of my brew-clubs get-togethers. most of the beers were infected, and i was embarassed as **** in front of everyone, as i was led to believe they'd be cleaned, too. they're not cleaned, as the neck is too small to allow powerwashing. clean them, then sanitize them in the dishwasher
The first time I bottled I didn't realize my spigot was open and I lost about a six pack all over the dining room floor. I had to mop 4 or 5 times until the floor was no longer sticky.
Also, once I got the entire bottling bucket filled, filled my first bottle and capped it I realized I had boiled my sugar, but left it on the stove. I did my best to circulate the boiled sugar through my bottling bucket without oxidizing it, but it wasn't good enough. I didn't oxidize my beer, but I didn't get even carbonation either.
BTW, the beer turned out great.
Also, once I got the entire bottling bucket filled, filled my first bottle and capped it I realized I had boiled my sugar, but left it on the stove. I did my best to circulate the boiled sugar through my bottling bucket without oxidizing it, but it wasn't good enough. I didn't oxidize my beer, but I didn't get even carbonation either.
BTW, the beer turned out great.
KevinW
Well-Known Member
I did not mix the priming sugar well enough on my first batch and some pretty uneven carbing.
Soak the bottles in Oxyclean free and very hot (but not boiling) water for about 2 hours but the longer the better, I usually leave mine in for about a week. Rinse very well with hot tap water then sanitze and fill and you should never have contaminated beer.
The labels and all the crud that can build up on "not rinsed" bottles comes right out!! No scrubbing!
Soak the bottles in Oxyclean free and very hot (but not boiling) water for about 2 hours but the longer the better, I usually leave mine in for about a week. Rinse very well with hot tap water then sanitze and fill and you should never have contaminated beer.
The labels and all the crud that can build up on "not rinsed" bottles comes right out!! No scrubbing!
KRamey
Member
The first time I bottled I used a measuring cup to measure my priming sugar. Ended up with undercarbonated beer. From that point on I've weighed my priming sugar with much better results.
Clean clean clean...sanitize sanitize sanitize!!
If you want to make sure your sugar mixes well, just boil the water with the sugar, cool it off, then pour it in the bottling bucket BEFORE you transfer the beer into the bucket. Seems to get a good mix that way. You could also save half of the sugar water for once the bucket is halfway filled, then add the rest. Some people GEEEENTLY stir the sugar into the beer also, just to be safe. The first method has worked fine for me so far.
Make sure you always clean the bottling equipment very good. If you ever use your bottling bucket as a fermentor, be sure to take apart the whole spigot and clean/sanitize very well, or it will haunt you with tainted batches!
ALSO, I really suggest you look at Revvy's bottling post in the bottling/kegging section. The vinator and bottle tree are a godsend!! Here is a link to it.
Good luck! Its going to be hard to be patient and not crack any bottles early, but if you wait 2-3 weeks, you'll be happy you did! You also better start planning your next batch, if you haven't already! That first one will be gone before you know it!
If you want to make sure your sugar mixes well, just boil the water with the sugar, cool it off, then pour it in the bottling bucket BEFORE you transfer the beer into the bucket. Seems to get a good mix that way. You could also save half of the sugar water for once the bucket is halfway filled, then add the rest. Some people GEEEENTLY stir the sugar into the beer also, just to be safe. The first method has worked fine for me so far.
Make sure you always clean the bottling equipment very good. If you ever use your bottling bucket as a fermentor, be sure to take apart the whole spigot and clean/sanitize very well, or it will haunt you with tainted batches!
ALSO, I really suggest you look at Revvy's bottling post in the bottling/kegging section. The vinator and bottle tree are a godsend!! Here is a link to it.
Good luck! Its going to be hard to be patient and not crack any bottles early, but if you wait 2-3 weeks, you'll be happy you did! You also better start planning your next batch, if you haven't already! That first one will be gone before you know it!
Please explain.
Problem is priming sugar or mixing it with boiling water?
My 1st batch is fermenting and I am preparing for bottling in couple of weeks.
I was thinking to use dextrose or cane sugar, boil them and put them into racking carboy, and after that add beer to mix it.
Revvy's bottling system is the way to go, but if you don't have a dishwasher to set up over and your sink is full, be sure to put a butter dish on the floor or counter while filling your bottles. Set your bottles inside the butter dish and it will catch all the overflow. I always start out really well, but start to get complacent about 2/3 through the batch.
diS - Your method is correct. Since you shouldn't stir the beer before bottling, just adding the sugar; rather than a sugar solution, leads to inadequate mixing and variable carbonation between bottles.
diS - Your method is correct. Since you shouldn't stir the beer before bottling, just adding the sugar; rather than a sugar solution, leads to inadequate mixing and variable carbonation between bottles.
I always stir my beer before bottling. Just siphoning on top of your sugar water solution can still lead to uneven carbonating. If you use a sanitized spoon and don't splash you're not going to aerate the beer or infect it.
Scruffy1207
Well-Known Member
I forgot to sanitize my bottle caps I felt pretty dumb afterwards, but I didn't worry about it, brew and learn!
Bottling for the first time makes a HUGE mess - or at least it did in my case. You'll get your technique down with practice, but be prepared to make a mess.
And if SWMBO is the type who gets upset if you make a mess in the kitchen, flowers are nice ...
And if SWMBO is the type who gets upset if you make a mess in the kitchen, flowers are nice ...
MRbutlertron
Well-Known Member
Ya I would make sure you rack your beer on top of your priming sugar.
Using a bottling wand, I thought I had to push down on it to fill the bottles. WRONG!!
Left the wand in the 5th bottle to do something else and ended with a mess because the wand filled the bottle and more.
Learned not to leave wand in bottle the next time.
Left the wand in the 5th bottle to do something else and ended with a mess because the wand filled the bottle and more.
Learned not to leave wand in bottle the next time.
The first time I bottled, I completely sealed the lid on the bottling bucket because I was paranoid about contamination. After a few bottles, it started drawing air bubbles up in through the bottling wand and racking tube that was connected to the spigot and it oxygenated the hell out of my beer.
Set the lid on top to keep out floating particles, but don't seal it!
Set the lid on top to keep out floating particles, but don't seal it!
Make sure you actually have caps. I filled about 20 bottles and realized I had no caps. I finished filling the bottles and then sanitized some aluminum foil, laid it on top of the filled bottles and drove like hell to get caps.....
Hehehe, i just pitched the dang DME right into the fermenting bucket before racking to the carboy.
Stupid stupid stupid. I'm getting really anxious to find out in a couple weeks if it actually carbs.
If she is the type who gets upset if you make a mess in the kitchen, divorce is nice. Messes can be cleaned up, nagging wives "can't".
This is such utter nonesence.
You'll find that most folks who have "inconsistant" carbonation when we pursue it further it turns out they're opening their bottles too soon. It's quite easy to blame or assume it's because of something, rather than the truth.
I personally believe the whole "priming sugar didn't get mixed" argument is BS, if you put the sugar solution in the bottom of the bucket and racked your beer, then it couldn't help but be mixed. You're putting 2 tiny cups of liguid into a vessel and dumping 5 gallons into it and the beer is rising as it fills the bucket...believe me, it is mixing.
Most of the time when a beer is acting weired, it's just that it's not fully carbed yet. And if you're below 70, or were below 70 for any period of time during the 3weeks, then the beer hasn't fully carbed yet.
Inconsistant carbonation, simply means that they are not ready yet. If you had opened them a week later, or even two, you never would have noticed. Each one is it's own little microcosm, and although generally the should come up at the same time, it's not an automatic switch, and they all pop on.
A tiny difference in temps between bottles in storage can affect the yeasties, speed them up or slow them down. Like if you store them in a closet against a warm wall, the beers closest to the heat source may be a tad warmer than those further way, so thy may carb/condition at slightly different rates. I usually store a batch in 2 seperate locations in my loft 1 case in my bedroom which is a little warmer, and the other in the closet in the lving room, which being in a larger space is a tad cooler, at least according to the thermostat next to that closet. It can be 5-10 degrees warmer in my bedroom. So I usually start with that case at three weeks. Giving the other half a little more time.
Bottom line, it's not that the sugar's not mixed, it's just that they all haven't come up to full carb yet....Three weeks is not the magic number for finality, it's the minimum time it takes....
Briggery, just skip this nonsense and read the bottling sticky. You'll find more than enough tips and tricks and information NOT too have any problems.
Especially if you just give your beer enough time.
Hockeyhunter99
Well-Known Member
watch the bottling wand stopper. the little thing at the tip of the wand. when i started, it is suppose to shut with the pressure of the beer in the tube. mine got stuck open and when i removed the wand, it sprayed all over the place.
DumpsterDave
Active Member
The first time I bottled, I made a horrid mess trying to use a 1/2 auto siphon (with a inline clamp to stop flow) to fill the bottles. The problem was the flow was WAY to high. Since I only bottle a portion of my beer and keg the rest, what I do is completely filll my keg. I then set the CO2 to about 3-5psi and use the picnic tap to fill the bottles. It has just about the perfect flow rate, and when I'm done, I can just crank up the pressure on the keg to carb. after switching to this method, I barely spilled any beer. It worked really well for me.
RugerRedhawk
Well-Known Member
After using my bottle sprayer with starsan to sanitize my bottles, for many of them I forgot to dump the splash that settles in the bottom before bottling. Oh well.
JacksSpleen
Active Member
Make sure your siphon tube is securely attached, I sprayed beer all over the kitchen my first bottling experience. Oh I also highly recommend the Vinator for sanitizing bottles.
I highly highly HIGHLY recommend that you read Revvy's bottling thread. I basically made an identical set up in my kitchen - sitting on a stool where all I had to do was swivel from one side to the other to lift the bottle out of the sanitizer solution, onto a towel right next to the bottling bucket, up to the wand, and then onto the counter for capping. The whole process only took me a couple of hours my first time and I had no spills or anything - carbonation across the batch was perfect. I'm a big fan of reading a ton of stuff on things before I try to do them myself - it just feels like you've done it a bunch of times before if you soak up a bunch of knowledge on the activity beforehand.
terrapinj
Well-Known Member
i poured in the priming sugar in powder form directly into the bottling bucket and then racked the beer on top of it
sugar didn't mix well, most sat on the bottom of the bucket and I still have a bunch of uncarbed bottled I'm going to uncap and add carb drops too
your method above is correct - mix the sugar with boiling water and pour into the bucket then rack ontop
you don't even need to let the sugar solution cool since its a very small volume
Briggery16
Member
At this point, I'm not so much worried about oxidation, but the freaking oxiclean residue in my bottles. I let them sit for about 12 hours, and now maybe a 1/4 of them have white residue on the inner lip....i've heard vinegar, but i'm not sure how to go about it. Right now, I have all my bottles in the sanitation cycle of my dishwasher. If that doesn't take care of the residue, do I have to start from square one or just rinse with vinegarwater and bottle?
MPOWELLJR
Well-Known Member
Second batch I bottled a couple weeks ago I forgot to add the cooled priming mix in before starting to bottle. I remembered it about 20 bottles into the process and dumped them all back into the bottling bucket to start over... DOH!
I had similar issue when used oxy to clean up my carboys, in each one there was white layer on bottom. I rinse them, add some warm water and let them sit for another couple of hours.
After that I strongly shaken them and residue disappeared.
Hope it helps.
TheSeether
Well-Known Member
This!
I've not made mistakes while bottling. I've made many other mistakes in the rest of the process but none during bottling. I do obsessively add up the total volume of the various containers I intend to fill against the amount in the bucket and sanitize a few extra bottles and even more caps for a just-in-case moment that never happens.
I gotta find some wood to knock on.
Explain to me why after a few months I still had some bottles that were under carbed and some that were over carbed on batches that I didn't stir priming sugar into. This problem ceased once I started stirring in the sugar water solution.
BTW, thanks for basically implying I'm an idiot. I appreciate that especially coming from a pastor.
TheSeether
Well-Known Member
Were you racking on top of a liquid solution placed into the bucket first?
Yep. Medium weight beers as well. 5%-7%.
runningweird
Well-Known Member
lets see:
I left my bottling spigot open and got beer on the floor.
I didn't know what the racking cane was so I didn't use it.
I didn't use a bottling wand.
I bought dextrose in the 5 ounce packs from hbs. instead of ordering in bulk. I just got 12 pounds for cheap from some supplement online store.
I left my bottling spigot open and got beer on the floor.
I didn't know what the racking cane was so I didn't use it.
I didn't use a bottling wand.
I bought dextrose in the 5 ounce packs from hbs. instead of ordering in bulk. I just got 12 pounds for cheap from some supplement online store.
My bottling suggestion: Fill the bottles up completely.
The first time I bottled, I stopped well below the rim of the bottle so there was probably only 10 - 11 ounces in the 12 ounce bottles. I have found that the bottling wand displaces enough liquid that filling the bottles to the rim and then removing the wand puts them exactly where they should be.
That was still the best beer I have made to date, though.
The first time I bottled, I stopped well below the rim of the bottle so there was probably only 10 - 11 ounces in the 12 ounce bottles. I have found that the bottling wand displaces enough liquid that filling the bottles to the rim and then removing the wand puts them exactly where they should be.
That was still the best beer I have made to date, though.
I was doing it old school with nothing but a length of sanitized plastic tubing for a siphon -- but even still I found the same thing. Luckily I got the hang of it about 1/3 way through the first batch, so most of them are filled appropriately.
I wasn't gonna post this but since you asked...
I once knew a fella who forgot to ensure that the spigot was properly tightened on the bottling bucket prior to siphoning in his prized brew. Needless to say it was quite messy until he swiftly dove his bacteria ridden arm into the brew to tighten it....
Luckily SWMBO wasn't present to survey the aftermath.
I once knew a fella who forgot to ensure that the spigot was properly tightened on the bottling bucket prior to siphoning in his prized brew. Needless to say it was quite messy until he swiftly dove his bacteria ridden arm into the brew to tighten it....
Luckily SWMBO wasn't present to survey the aftermath.
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