Stupid question-priming sugar related

[Moody_Copperpot]

I know this might sound dumb but I was thinking last night about the whole bottling thing, as I mostly keg. When you guys bottle and you do the whole priming sugar in boiling water for five minutes, are you cooling it before adding it to the wort? Wouldn't that boiling water added to the wort shock the yeast?

 

[Waunabeer]

Yes, boil it, cover it and let it cool before adding to the bottling bucket.

 

[Marko73]

You ideally want the priming sugar mixture to be the same temp as your beer in the bottling bucket. I put the pot in a cold water bath and it cools in about 5 to 10 minutes.

 

[RM-MN]

I let mine cool a little but I don't particularly worry about it. 1 cup of hot water in 5 gallons of beer isn't likely to do much except kill a few yeast cells. I've never noticed anything wrong with my beer, it all disappears.

 

[Moody_Copperpot]

Okay great, thanks for the info! I asked because the last beer I bottled tasted great before I bottled it. Then when I cracked the first one open, it had some DEFINITE estery notes. I know some of this is because I used a Belgian Strong Ale yeast, but the flavor was much, much more prevelant after bottling, and I never have those issues when I keg.

 

[Revvy]

You don't really have to let it cool if you don't want to....Think about this, you are dropping 2 cups of hot liquid through an air space into a bucket, that hopefully has some starsan or other sanitizer liquid hopefully in the bottom, that alone is going to cool the boiling liquid down, and mere seconds behind that you have 5 gallons of liquid colliding with it, it's going to go from near boiling to beer temp, really really fast.

And it's not going to hurt your beer or yeast to come in contact with the boiling liquid. Again it is such a tiny volume in regards to the greater volume of beer it is coming in contact with.

You can cool it if you want, I have that factored into my bottling process (as illustrated in my thread) somewhat, where it sits about 5-10 minutes on the stove or counter before I transfer it to the bottling bucket.

But it's not necessary. Like so much else in brewing, it's purely your preference how you want to do it.

I've done it both ways, and the beers carb up fine. So it really doesn't affect the process one bit.

SO do what works for you.

 

[Moody_Copperpot]

Thank you, I appreciate the feedback!

 

[mixedbrewer]

I just add a little cold water. Since the beer is already fermented and has alcohol in it, the remaining yeast always seem to find the added sugar before anything in a bit of tap water has a chance to.

 

[Revvy]

I just add a little cold water. Since the beer is already fermented and has alcohol in it, the remaining yeast always seem to find the added sugar before anything in a bit of tap water has a chance to.

Sorry but after just SANITIZING my priming solution, I'm not risking it.

Sort of defeats the whole purpose of boiling the solution.

 

[mixedbrewer]

I boil it to dissolve the sugar equally. Since I use tap-water to cool my wort initially, I am risking less by only adding a cup of cold water into already fermented beer.

 

[Moody_Copperpot]

Right and water actually sanitizes at the mid 150 degree range, so adding a bit of cold water to 212 shouldn't hurt anything.

 

[osagedr]

Right and water actually sanitizes at the mid 150 degree range, so adding a bit of cold water to 212 shouldn't hurt anything.

Probably, but it doesn't help anything either.

 

[Revvy]

Probably, but it doesn't help anything either.

Exactly, why risk it by adding anything unnecessary to the mix? We don't need to cool the solution, so there's no need to add water to cool it. And if you do choose to cool it, why not either let it sit covered, or put it in an ice bath.

 

[Moody_Copperpot]

Exactly, why risk it by adding anything unnecessary to the mix? We don't need to cool the solution, so there's no need to add water to cool it. And if you do choose to cool it, why not either let it sit covered, or put it in an ice bath.

Yeah that's very true. Why risk it is right? If the point of me cooling the water is a "just in case", why risk it? I would just let it cool, or stick it in the freezer for five min to cool it right off.

 

[mixedbrewer]

Because I can bring it down 60 degrees in 2 seconds...

 

[Moody_Copperpot]

Oh I'm not qustioning you at all. I'm just saying that for me, the point of this post was that I'm hoping to avoid any off flavors when bottling, so if I'm going through caution, I might as well just ice bath it or freezer it. Hell, I might even have an ice cube or two to throw in.

 

[mixedbrewer]

I do it that way because I make my beer with tap water anyway and it turns out good for me. Since I do partial mashes I cool my wort with tap water and haven't had a problem yet. That's the only reason I feel comfortable adding tap water to my boiling primer.

 

[Moody_Copperpot]

I actually was about to write the exact same thing. When I was extract brewing I as adding tap water to bring it to five gallons and never had sanitation issues...that I know of anyway, haha.

 

[vandeg]

I just drop the hot priming solution into the bucket, its several cups of hot liquid vs 5 gallons of cool liquid, as long as you stir it in it shouldn't matter