Bottled with too little priming sugar

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JHamm

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Just finished bottling an IPA that I cold crashed for 3 days. Temp at bottling was 34 degrees so I used an online calculator with the following:

Volumes of CO2: 1.9
4.8 gallons of beer
Beer Temp: 34

I got 0.7 oz....which I used, but now reading more I'm finding conflicting discussions. Of course, at this point I wonder if I added enough priming sugar to even carb up the beer during bottle conditioning or what I should do at this point. I have it sitting in a room at 65 degrees but wrapped in plastic with a towel over it. meh....:confused:
 
When you use the priming sugar calculators, I think they are pretty misleading with the "temperature" question. Of course, colder temperatures "hold" onto more co2 than warmer temperatures, but if you fermented the beer at, say, 65 degrees, you should use 65 degrees as the temperature of the beer. If you fermented the beer at 34 (which is actually not possible), then that temperature calculator at 34 degrees would be correct. If you make a lager and ferment it at 50 degrees, "50 degrees" would be fine to use for the beer temperature even though it's lagered at 34 for weeks.

The reason has to do with co2 off gassing at a higher temperature. When I use the calculators, I use the highest temperature that the beer had been during the entire time. That's most accurate.

1.9 volumes is a low carb level as it is- that's pretty flat. I like my IPAs at about 2.4-2.6 volumes, and I'd use about 4 ounces of priming sugar. I'm afraid that less than an ounce of priming sugar will give you nothing but flat beer.

If it were me, I'd buy some carb tabs or drops, and add them to the beer. You can uncap, drop in the correct amount of tabs, and then recap with fresh caps. That should work.
 
YooperBrew said:
When you use the priming sugar calculators, I think they are pretty misleading with the "temperature" question. Of course, colder temperatures "hold" onto more co2 than warmer temperatures, but if you fermented the beer at, say, 65 degrees, you should use 65 degrees as the temperature of the beer. If you fermented the beer at 34 (which is actually not possible), then that temperature calculator at 34 degrees would be correct. If you make a lager and ferment it at 50 degrees, "50 degrees" would be fine to use for the beer temperature even though it's lagered at 34 for weeks.

The reason has to do with co2 off gassing at a higher temperature. When I use the calculators, I use the highest temperature that the beer had been during the entire time. That's most accurate.

1.9 volumes is a low carb level as it is- that's pretty flat. I like my IPAs at about 2.4-2.6 volumes, and I'd use about 4 ounces of priming sugar. I'm afraid that less than an ounce of priming sugar will give you nothing but flat beer.

If it were me, I'd buy some carb tabs or drops, and add them to the beer. You can uncap, drop in the correct amount of tabs, and then recap with fresh caps. That should work.
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Ok, I'll have to do that. My LHBS isn't open until Tuesday. I suppose it'll be ok to let them sit in the bottles until then? Also, how do you know how much tabs to use per bottle? This is my first batch.

Edit: Also, thanks for your help.
 
JHamm said:
Ok, I'll have to do that. My LHBS isn't open until Tuesday. I suppose it'll be ok to let them sit in the bottles until then? Also, how do you know how much tabs to use per bottle? This is my first batch.

Edit: Also, thanks for your help.
Click to expand...

I would just follow the package directions. There are a couple of brands, and I know Muntons says something like "For a 12 ounce bottle, use 2 tablets; for a 22 ounce bottle use 4 tablets", etc. Don't quote me on the amounts- I'm going by my memory, which sucks. But the directions are on the bag!

You only have less than an ounce in there, and when you open and recap you'll probably let any co2 escape that could be in there, so you should be fine following the directions. They'll be fine in the bottles until you can get the tabs.
 
awesome, looked online and my LHBS has Coopers Carbonation Drops, so I'll pick that up on Tuesday and recarb Tuesday night.
 
Coopers are good. They're one drop per bottle. Some say Muntons leave "floaters" in the beer, but I've never used them. I can say that I never got that with my Coopers drops.
 
So I'm assuming that we're all being far more exact than 3/4 cup per 5 gallons here! stupid me and my generic knowledge!
 
Corkster said:
So I'm assuming that we're all being far more exact than 3/4 cup per 5 gallons here! stupid me and my generic knowledge!
Click to expand...

I've read basically 1 oz per gallon but I also cold crashed and bottled so I had read to adjust the amount of primer needed based on temp. I'm too new to this to have even tried it and should have kept it more basic but I wanted to clear the beer more. I'll just pick up whirlfoc next time and bottle at fermentation temp.

Thanks for all the help, just added 3 more days of wait to crack the first :mug:
 
Don't be afraid to cold crash! It does have some advantages, even though I don't always do it.

A "generic" priming sugar amount does tend to work very well, but if you use a priming calculator, use the fermentation temperature, not the current temp!
 
I bottled my first batch last night. Ive been doing a lot more reading about brewing. The instructions on my brew kit said 1/2 teaspoon per pint my batch is roughly 5 gallons not positive what a "full" 5 gallon carboy looks like but i digress. I figure there are 40 pints in a 5gallon batch so thats 20 teaspoons of sugar i need to add. 1 US cup = 48 US teaspoons so i added a little more than a 1/2 cup of DME. I read somewhere that you should add different amounts of depending if its corn sugar or cane sugar or DME. Are my bottles going to be safe. Should i duck and cover cause they may explode or should i not even worry

Thanks
 
PatrickStar87 said:
I bottled my first batch last night. Ive been doing a lot more reading about brewing. The instructions on my brew kit said 1/2 teaspoon per pint my batch is roughly 5 gallons not positive what a "full" 5 gallon carboy looks like but i digress. I figure there are 40 pints in a 5gallon batch so thats 20 teaspoons of sugar i need to add. 1 US cup = 48 US teaspoons so i added a little more than a 1/2 cup of DME. I read somewhere that you should add different amounts of depending if its corn sugar or cane sugar or DME. Are my bottles going to be safe. Should i duck and cover cause they may explode or should i not even worry

Thanks
Click to expand...

DME is not quite as fermentable as pure sugar, so you need a bit more. At 1/2 cup, you are not going to be making bombs at least.

Check out a calculator like this one. But remember to do as Yooper said and enter the temp at fermentation, not bottling.
 
YooperBrew said:
A "generic" priming sugar amount does tend to work very well, but if you use a priming calculator, use the fermentation temperature, not the current temp!
Click to expand...

I've been using the entire container of corn sugar from my LHBS and haven't had any bombs yet. Just weighed it the other day and it is 8oz worth of sugar.
 
3/4 cup of corn sugar (4 oz by weight) = 2/3 cup of white sugar = 1 1/4 cup DME/ per 5 gallons. So if you used 1/2 cup DME per 5 gallons then you would go with roughly little more than 1/3 cup of cane sugar or roughly 3/8 cup of corn sugar. Or, you can make life easy and get carb tabs from your LHBS and add half the recommended amount (which means you will probably add 1 per bottle).
 
I got generic knowledge, but is has always worked for me.

5 gallons batch=3/4cup of corn sugar or 1 1/4 cup of DME for bottling.

5gallons batch(in keg) 1/3 cup of corn sugar or 1/2 cup DME
 
how can i add a little more than a 1/3 of a cup of sugar over 50 bottles with out recombining them. but if i try and recombine them the dme sluge stuff will remain at the bottom of each bottle. And what about the CO2 that has already formed... wont i be releasing it once i open it?
 
PatrickStar87 said:
how can i add a little more than a 1/3 of a cup of sugar over 50 bottles with out recombining them. but if i try and recombine them the dme sluge stuff will remain at the bottom of each bottle. And what about the CO2 that has already formed... wont i be releasing it once i open it?
Click to expand...

Hence the reason I suggested using carbtabs. Just pop the tops of the bottles, add 1-2 tabs, recap, let sit 2 weeks.

Edit: Most people suggest the Coopers version, but those are much stronger and you could end up with over-carbonated bottles (aka bottle bombs)

OR to make things even more fun, since you would need to boil that 1/3 cup of sugar with 1 cup water, after cooling you could draw off 4ml worth with a measured dropper and add that to the individual bottles.

OR you could say screw all of the above, take a really minute risk of infection and just add a light 1/2 tsp of corn sugar directly to each bottle.
 
well ive started using just a little bit of cane sugar per bottle but when i add the littlest bit of sugar the whole beer starts to foam over. i dont really have any other choice so im capping them with the foam in there. have i got my self in a pickle? if any thing ive learned something about priming sugars :)
 
PatrickStar87 said:
well ive started using just a little bit of cane sugar per bottle but when i add the littlest bit of sugar the whole beer starts to foam over. i dont really have any other choice so im capping them with the foam in there. have i got my self in a pickle? if any thing ive learned something about priming sugars :)
Click to expand...

Don't worry about the foam. It will settle down. Actually, most commercial breweries actually fill thier bottles fairly quickly so they do foam. For them it is because they want to force out the oxygen.
 

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