Major bottling screw up... advise needed

[Mothman]

Jebus, I just did something realllly dumb.

Just got done bottling my latest batch, just finishing cleaning everything up... and I just now realized that I accidentally made my priming solution with... wait for it... lactose. >_<

So, I obviously back sweetened my beer... and obviously the lactose wont carb the bottles.

So... whats going to be the easiest way for me to dose the bottles properly with dextrose?

I don't have access to the carb tabs, or to the Domino sugar dots... all I have is dextrose (or table sugar, but might as well use dextrose).

Most of the bottles are 650 ml bombers, only a couple are the standard smaller bottles.

I ahve an accurate scale, so I can measure out, by weight, small amounts of dextrose... but don't know how much per bottle for a medium (2.5 vol) carbonation.


Damn... can't believe I did this...

 

[Mothman]

Let me know if my math is correct...

I bottled 3 gallons, and my priming calculator had me use 2.5 oz of sugar to get 2.4-2.5 volumes of CO2.

3 gallons = ~ 11300 ml

2.5 oz for 11300 ml = ~ 0.14 oz for 650 ml

0.14 oz = 4g ... so I should measure 4 g of dextrose into each 650 ml bottle?

 

[chickypad]

Your numbers agree with Brewer's friend calculator - 4 g of table sugar per 650 ml beer to get 2.4 vols when using the room temp figure.

 

[Mothman]

I'm using Dextrose though, not table sugar. But looking at carb tables, the difference between the two at such small scale is minimal.

 

[Mothman]

Well, I dosed each bottle, 4 g dex for the 650 ml, and 2 g dex for the 330 ml.

Hoping all works out, I've never dosed individually, with dry sugar.

Yeesh, what a rookie mistake. lol

Might work out ok (as long as the bottles don't blow up or end up under-carbed), as I was disappointed the beer dried out quite as much as it did... and the recipe had lactose anyways, I just boosted it some... so the back sweetening with a bit more Lactose might work out in my favor.

Still mind-boggled that I did this... note to self... make the bags of Lactose and Dextrose VERY obviously different from one another.

 

[passedpawn]

Don't bother with dextrose and you'll never make that mistake again. I bottled for many years using table sugar.

Table sugar does exactly the same thing as dextrose. But you need 9% less of it, by weight, which isn't enough of a difference to worry about IMO.

 

[Mothman]

Interesting point. I'm not sure why, I've always used dextrose.

 

[IslandLizard]

Interesting point. I'm not sure why, I've always used dextrose.

Dextrose is a little easier to ferment than sucrose, which needs to be broken down first inside the yeast cell. If the yeast is really tired from the large binge, or has been cold crashed for several days and went dormant, it will carbonate a little faster with dextrose. In the end, both will result in the same fine beer after 2-3 weeks.

 

[Saunassa]

What style of beer, a stout of some sort? Hard to imagine a sweetened IPA.

 

[BitterSweetBrews]

It has been a bit, I don't know if you have a good answer yet. The question about the kind of beer you have is a good one.

At this point I am not sure you can be that specific and I bet you don't really care and just want some carbonation.

If you google "Mr Beer Carbonation chart" it will tell you how much table sugar you can use to get your beer carbonated. You will obviously have to un-cap and re-cap your bottles. I have been using table sugar for years.

I will follow with a screen clip, which may come across. You should be OK, Good luck.

 

[Mothman]

Thanks all.

In the end I confirmed my dextrose weight by putting in a bottles volume (~0.17 gal) into a couple online carb calculators, and they returned approx. 4g of dextrose, so that's what I went with.

For those asking about the beer itself, it's the Toasted Coconut Milk DIPA recipe from the Recipe's forum here at HBT. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/coconut-milk-dipa-i-have-clues-but-need-help.586243/

 

[Mothman]

One question... in a normal situation (priming with a sugar solution in the bottling bucket), I gently agitate/roll the bottles a couple times over the conditioning time, just to help the yeast finish eating up the sugar (don't know if it helps, I just do it).

When adding dry sugar, as I did this time, I agitated the bottles after recapping them, but will I need to agitate them more frequently during the conditioning to keep the sugar in solution? Or will the yeast "find the sugar" just fine without me bothering?

 

[passedpawn]

I never agitated, and never had carbonation problems. I don't think it's necessary.

 

[BitterSweetBrews]

I have never agitated in the bottle except when I rinse the bottles immediately after capping. I dip them in a bucket of water to rinse off any over-poured beer and give them a quick shake (to stir in the sugar if I didn't put it in the bottling bucket) and wet the oxygen absorbing cap. There will still be plenty of yeast in suspension throughout the process.

Leaving it alone gives it more time to settle and clear.

 

[Mothman]

Thank you.