Ever Pre-made A Bottle of Priming Syrup?

[scottmd06]

I'm going to be bottling a 24 pack worth of brew from a batch but will be sending the rest to secondary, so this is the best plan I could think up:

Rack the whole batch, give it a nice mix, rack whats not being bottled into secondary, and go ahead and prime and cap whats being bottled now.

So I made up my priming syrup ahead of time (12tsp destrose) for 24 bottles of beer, funneled it into a bottle and capped it up until I'm ready to mix it in on Thursday.

Anyone see a problem with this?
(other than the fact that I'm only bottling half-its for a friend whos impatient, but i like my brews in secondary for a long time).

 

[Misplaced_Canuck]

There's no ill effect, provided that it's all sanitary.

Personally I don't see the time gained...

M_C

 

[NorCalAngler]

I boil my priming sugar and throw it in the bottling bucket hot. Racking 40x as much room temp beer over the priming sugar cools it down very quickly. Point is, you're not saving any time by doing it beforehand and are introducing another opportunity for contamination. You're essentially making an excellent food source for any wild yeast or bacteria. If you practice good sanitizing technique you should be fine, but I wouldn't risk a case of homebrew on something with no time/cost benefit.

 

[JJL]

No problems, but as the others said, it's just another opportunity for contamination and you aren't gaining any time. If you mix you priming sugar and water together, boil for 10 mins, you can cool that down in about a minute. Just fill your sink with cold water, dip the bottom of your pot full of priming syrup into the water and swirl the syrup around in the pot. Takes about a minute to cool.

 

[TheMan]

I guess I don't understand what you are trying to accomplish here by making this ahead of time. I also don't understand this:

Rack the whole batch, give it a nice mix, rack whats not being bottled into secondary, and go ahead and prime and cap whats being bottled now.

Why are you mixing the beer?

Put your priming sugar into the bottling bucket, rack the beer from the primary into it until you hit 2.5 gallons. Then rack the remainder of what's still in the primary to secondary. There is no need to rack the whole batch, then rack half of it again, this just increases chances of oxidation.

 

[nutty_gnome]

I do this. I pressure can a pint jars of water with 5 ounces of corn sugar. I do it when I am pressure canning wort for starters. Works like a charm and seems to keep forever.

Pressure canning the stuff IS a time saver when you can, in one stroke, make a dozen jars of priming sugar at once and have them at room temp at your beck and call whenever you need.

For each pre-made jar I save (on bottling day) 20 to 25 minutes in the kitchen watching a flask boil when I could be in the basement sanitizing the bottling line or racking to the bucket or any number of odd jobs that need to be done prior to bottling. Factor in not carrying hot sugar water down tight, twisted 100 year old basement steps and then multiply that by 12 jars at a time and I think I save a whole lot of time and inconvienence.

You have to evaluate your own system and needs. Dont discount your intuition about what might make your brew day easier for you.

You can learn more about pressure canning wort/sugar in some of the lenghtly threads covering the topic on this site. There is even a picture based thread.

 

[RIT_Warrior]

I think if you wanted to save some time, you could create a big dextrose/water solution, put premeasured "priming" amounts into individual mason jars, and then boil the jars in a pressure cooker to seal them. No chance of spoilage as the mason jars would be sterilized in the canning process, and even if they were spoiled the mason jar pop top would alert you. You would also save some time, as priming would just involve grabbing a jar out of the fridge and dumping its contents into the bottom of your bottling bucket/corny and racking on top.

I think I might do this, actually. It would certainly save some time on bottling day, and there would be less chance of screwing something up.

 

[scottmd06]

I just wanted to have a bottle of my syrup ready to go, pre-measured. I'm currently a disabled cancer patient and sit around looking for stuff to do. I'm splitting this batch with someone but I want my half to go to secondary and I know if I rack the whole thing i'll get a better mix of ALL the beer, requal PPM of the alcohol and and such by getting it all and once, racking my half off to secondary and just tossing in a syrup "starter" for their half and bottling... That's all. I was very clean and "1 Step"ed everything through the process. I guess I was just wondering if the sugar water would "keep" for a few days in the bottle like that, or if I was oxidizing something or other..

 

[theredben]

Just throw it in the fridge, no concerns.

 

[Misplaced_Canuck]

Who's the one that wrote that it takes 20-25 mins to boil corn sugar primer?

When I decide to start bottling, there's a LOT of stuff that happens while the corn sugar/water solutions boils. And... I don't even let it cool.

M_C

 

[TheMan]

Who's the one that wrote that it takes 20-25 mins to boil corn sugar primer?

When I decide to start bottling, there's a LOT of stuff that happens while the corn sugar/water solutions boils. And... I don't even let it cool.

M_C

Ditto...it takes like 2 minutes to bring the water to a boil, you boil it for 5 minutes and then dump it in the bucket. Takes less than 10 minutes to do all this. All the while I am preping the rest. All this takes place in my kitchen though, so maybe for others that is an issue.

And to the OP, What you are thinking will work. It just seems like unneccessary steps that increase chances of a problem.

 

[Rivenin]

why not use carbonation drops? i have some that are used for my smaller batches when i don't feel like using math... it's like 2-3 per 12oz bottle and it's a pretty good sized pack for when stuff like this happens

 

[nutty_gnome]

Who's the one that wrote that it takes 20-25 mins to boil corn sugar primer?
M_C

I said it. And for me it does take that long. Well not anymoe, I pressure can the priming sugar now so now on bottling days its 10 secs to sanitize, open, and pour.

But, when I did make it up, I used a 1 liter borosilicate flask over the 'simmer' burner on my gas range. I prefer the flask over my cooking pans because I can get that thing really really clean. I dont like to abuse the flask with a monster flame or by dunking it in ice water hot off the stove, so for me it takes a while. I also don't like to walk around with hot sugar water, my basement steps are insane. So I have to let it cool.

Everyone has there own way; most ways are viable. Choose what works best for you.

 

[scottmd06]

i might invest in the drops for the future.

 

[Misplaced_Canuck]

When you have a boiling/steaming hot glucose solution in a pan, the last of your worries is that the pan is not 100% clean.

Last night I did this:

Bring a cup of water to a boil while getting the carboys from the closet. Add 161g of corn sugar to the pan, darn-near burning my fingers in the steam.

Started transferring apx 1 gallon of English mild to my bottling bucket (leftover from 6-gallons I had, 5 of which went to a keg).

Finished transferring that 1 gallon. Added boiling hot water/corn sugar solution to bottling bucket.

Added 6 gallons more English mild to the bucket. Moved bucket across the kitchen, start filling bottles.

Of course it all depends on your set-up, but I don't really see a need to sterilize a pan or vessel when you pour the boiling hot solution into the bucket.

The drawback with having canned priming solution is that I often bottle different size batches, and often at different levels of carbonation.

In fact I measured my total volume at 6.75g last night and used Brewsmith to find my corn sugar weight.

M_C

I said it. And for me it does take that long. Well not anymoe, I pressure can the priming sugar now so now on bottling days its 10 secs to sanitize, open, and pour.

But, when I did make it up, I used a 1 liter borosilicate flask over the 'simmer' burner on my gas range. I prefer the flask over my cooking pans because I can get that thing really really clean. I dont like to abuse the flask with a monster flame or by dunking it in ice water hot off the stove, so for me it takes a while. I also don't like to walk around with hot sugar water, my basement steps are insane. So I have to let it cool.

Everyone has there own way; most ways are viable. Choose what works best for you.

 

[scottmd06]

Well I bottled up the 24-pk worth about an hour ago. Went well, only had about half a beer left in the bottling bucket so all of my measuring went well too. I added the remaining beer back to what is now tertiary to age a few more weeks. Just had to have that 24-pk bottled in time for a friends birthday in a couple weeks and wanted to make sure I was fermented and bottle carbed in time. Thanks for all the input everyone.

 

[nutty_gnome]

The drawback with having canned priming solution is that I often bottle different size batches, and often at different levels of carbonation. M_C

You do own a measuring cup right? The sugar solution is homogeneous. So, once you know your concentration (for me it is 5 ounces sugar to 16 ounces of water) you can measure out exactly the amount of sugar you need.

Anyway, horse for courses and all that jazz; but that issue doesn't qualify as a detriment IMO.

 

[scottmd06]

Id like to find a small digital scale to weigh out the dextrose in the future. Measuring cups and tea spoons aren't exactly accurate for the amount of sugar, but do ok for now.