homebrewdad said:Nope. Never stirred, never had uneven carbonation. Dump the priming sugar solution in first, then rack the beer on top of it. Gets a nice swirl that handles the mixing for me.
ncorroy said:I'm always a bit hesitant to start siphoning beer into the steaming hot priming mixture. Should I be cooling the priming mixture first?
Katahdin said:I never used to stir until I got a batch with very uneven carbonation. Now I always give it a gentile stir.
I'm always a bit hesitant to start siphoning beer into the steaming hot priming mixture. Should I be cooling the priming mixture first?
I'm always a bit hesitant to start siphoning beer into the steaming hot priming mixture. Should I be cooling the priming mixture first?
not a hebrew stir?
beersk said:zing!
...this tells me that 83% of the brewers who responded to the poll never have uneven carbonation. ...
Regarding the "stir" debate...
I did a little experiment about a year ago. You can try this too.
Take a cup of water and add your favorite color of food coloring to it. Add a lot of food coloring so that the color is nice and dark. Dump it in a bucket. Rack 5 gallons of clear water from another bucket on top of the colored water with a siphon. This imitates racking beer onto priming sugar. You'll notice that the cup of colored water mixes in with the 5 gallons of clear water very nicely. Give it a try!
Yup. I don't know why this is so hard for people to grasp.... One of these days I'm actually going to brew an extremely light beer, like a kolsch and tint my priming sugar solution, and get the clearest bucket I can find to use as a bottling bucket, maybe one of those plastic containers from a restaurant supply store, and put 2 or three cameras on the damn thing to have three different angles, and record it mixing, and finally put this damn myth to rest.
It's one thing to be dropping dry sugar into the bucket, and another to be mingling two liquids of nearly the same density.
Revvy, I agree with your general premise, though I do have two conditional responses:
1. For me, the marginal cost of stirring (~0) < marginal cost of uneven carb (large) x probability of uneven carb (small, but non-zero); therefore, I stir
2. I have observed stratification in sugar densities when racking. Especially when using a nylon paint strainer bag for hop particles - the whirlpool doesn't work as well. Samples pulled from the spigot have been crazy sweet and samples from the top not so. Yes, I could wait and it'll eventually equalize, or I could stir for 5 seconds.
So needing to stir, perhaps that is a ridiculous notion. But choosing to stir...not so. IMHO.
*shrug*
Like I said above, if it floats your boats, fine....
I'm always amazed that I get even carbonation, and never stir. Sometimes I've even had distractions interrupt my bottling, and it doesn't stratify. On the cooling issue, to be safe, I boil my priming sugar first, then sanitize my bottles and caps, and then gently pour it into the bottom if my bottling bucket, and finally rack over. It's usually room temp by then.
jonmohno said:Why are you amazed that you get even carbonation? Is it only an act from God or miracle without stirring it,that you get even carbonation?
It's one of those ridiculous notions that anyone would need to. But if it makes you feel better, more power to you. I never have, and have never had uneven carbonation.
Most of the supposed uneven carbonation threads on here, when you ask the simple question "How long has it been in the bottle?" Usually turns out to be less than 3 weeks...
If you've boiled priming solution and are adding it to the bucket while racking the beer over, it really mixes itself better than most new brewers think it does. It's not like mixing oil and water, you're really mixing two very similar densities that want to go together.
We talk about this at least once a week on here, here's part of a discussion from before the holiday;
Just ignore the bottles for a minimum of 3-4 weeks, let them do their thing, and more than likely you'll be perfectly fine.