Leaving Beer in the Bottling Bucket?

I'm still pretty new to this hobby, and have packaged four batches so far. Of those four, I've been able to drink three - the fourth is still conditioning.

Two of those batches have been a pale ale, and the other a wheat ale. I started to drink the wheat ale two weeks after bottling. It tasted great, and has continued to taste great.

The two pale ales I have bottled using the same technique, but have been less consistent. I've found that they taste pretty good at two weeks, but at some point between two and three weeks some or all of the bottles develop a strong acetaldehyde flavor that makes them undrinkable. If I wait another week or two then start drinking them again, the acetaldehyde flavor seems to get cleaned up. Since I'm unwilling to pop open a bunch of bottles to test for acetaldehyde, and prefer to just wait an extra week or so in the hope the flavor goes away, I'm unsure if all the bottles are going through this transformation, or if I've just been opening the bottles that have had that flavor all along around the two-three week mark.

Is it common practice to leave some beer in the bottling bucket? My theory is that the last couple of bottles that are filled are exposed to more oxygen than the rest, due to sitting in the bottling bucket for longer, tilting the bucket, and some bubbles making their way into the bottle filler as the bucket nears empty.

I opened one of my pale ales a few days ago that had both acetaldehyde and was way over carbonated. I dissolve the corn sugar in water before adding it to the bottling bucket, allowing the whirlpool action of the siphon to mix the sugar into the wort, but I'm wondering if it's not completely dissolving, leaving a concentrated layer of sugar at the bottom of the bottling bucket that makes its way into the last couple of bottles and overcarbonates them. I don't want to stir the wort and risk introducing more oxygen however.

I'm just trying to figure out if I simply need to wait longer for my pale ales to bottle condition and for the yeast to clean up the acetaldehyde, or if I need to start leaving some beer in the bottom of the bottling bucket to avoid extra oxygen/priming sugar in the last few bottles.

Cheers!

Some random responses:

1. I don't intentionally leave any beer in the bottling bucket, and I don't think it is common practice. Some worry about sediment in the last couple of bottles or about aeration, and drink them early. I drink these early and don't pick up an off flavor.
2. Are you boiling the water before adding the sugar? It doesn't dissolve well unless it's really hot. I prefer to cool it before adding it to the bottling bucket.
3. Stirring in the sugar after racking to bottling bucket - I've done it both ways (with and without stirring). Both seem to work.
4. Acetaldehyde is usually caused by taking beer off the yeast too soon, or just green beer. Also by oxidation. If you're taking it off the yeast and bottling too soon, you could also be risking bottle bombs - a real safety problem. Make sure fermentation is complete before bottling. You can do this by checking gravity twice, 2 or 3 days apart, and making sure it is stable.

Thanks for the answers. I am boiling the water before adding sugar, and it's completely dissolved in the water, I'm just not sure if the sugar-water is dissolving uniformly in my bottling bucket.

I've opened a couple more beers and they're all pretty foamy so I may have just overcarbed this batch. I still get a really strong green apple smell/aroma from them, but I've served them to three other people now and they don't notice anything wrong. Either I'm really sensitive to acetaldehyde, or it's something different. My conversion efficiency on this batch was really low, so what was supposed to be a 1.062 beer turned into a 1.047 beer. Could be that since the beer isn't as malty as it was intended, the hops (citra) are overpowering it, and combined with the overcarbonation that's just making it taste wacky.

Just opened another one and it tastes fine. It's also significantly less carbonated than the last two bottles I opened. For this batch I dissolved the sugar in water, boiled, let it cool, then poured that mixture into the bottling bucket a little at a time as the beer was siphoning out of the fermenter. Maybe I should just dump the dissolved priming sugar in the bottom of the bottling bucket before starting the siphon? Doesn't seem like I'm getting very consistent carbonation the way I did it for this batch, so I might try that, then stir gently trying to introduce as little oxygen as possible.

As long as your bottling practices are nice and gentle, don't worry at all about the last part of the batch in the bottling bucket getting more oxidized than the rest. Just work very hard to avoid any splashing at all!!! Fill the bottles to within a half to quarter inch, trust me on that. Set the cap on and wait a half hour to fully cap, this limits the oxygen in the bottle when capped by limiting volume, and allowing oxygen to be pushed out by the co2 being produced in that half hour. I used to rack onto my sugar. But now I stir it in after racking. The reason being, I noticed many times that the bottom of the bucket had a more syrupy and sweet viscosity and taste. Obviously it wasn't getting mixed thoroughly. Just use a deep spoon and gently get that sugar mixed all over, without any vigorous swirling that could introduce oxygen. Also tilt your bottles and learn how to very lightly begin the filling until enough volume has developed where you can continue a strong flow. Then gently add more at the end to reach that quarter-half inch mark. I learned all this the hard way with my IPA's.

derekcw83 said:

Fill the bottles to within a half to quarter inch, trust me on that.

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I haven't tried this, so I can't speak from experience, but the same amount of CO2 in a smaller head space would translate to higher pressure. (I understand more CO2 would be forced into the beer as well, but there would still be more pressure at equilibrium.) Since you haven't had bottle bombs (I assume), it must still be within the pressure capability of the bottles, but it would make bombs more likely.

No bottle bombs, same level of carbonation. I don't exactly know the science behind it, but I read an article that really emphasized it because only so much oxygen is used by the yeast during conditioning, the leftover begins oxidation. Limiting this variable has improved my ipa's drastically. It seems like it would increase pressure but it's the same amount of co2 in liquid as any other similar brew. Infact, its easier to get a bomb from a half filled bottle because gas pressure is more forceful than when it's in liquid (I assume that's part of the physics behind it)

derekcw83 said:

Fill the bottles to within a half to quarter inch, trust me on that.

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I can't fill them that close to the top with my existing bottle filler as it takes up too much volume in the bottle. I think I will try adding the sugar at the end and stirring as you suggested however.

Just push the plunger towards the side of the neck of the bottle or tilt the bottle in your hand and depress the plunger toward the side of the neck of the bottle, you can fill it to the brim that way, if you wanted. Obviously only necessary to stop at 1/4 to 1/2 inch

Epos7 said:

I can't fill them that close to the top with my existing bottle filler as it takes up too much volume in the bottle. I think I will try adding the sugar at the end and stirring as you suggested however.

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No, don't add the sugar at the end, and don't stir!

Add the priming solution to the bottling bucket, and rack the beer into it. Lay the tubing in a circle in the bottom of the bucket, so that it swirls to mix and fills from the bottom to stir and mix the beer and the priming solution.

Use the proper amount of head space in the bottle that the bottle filler gives you. Cap immediately, or as soon as possible.

Yooper said:

No, don't add the sugar at the end, and don't stir!

Add the priming solution to the bottling bucket, and rack the beer into it. Lay the tubing in a circle in the bottom of the bucket, so that it swirls to mix and fills from the bottom to stir and mix the beer and the priming solution.

Use the proper amount of head space in the bottle that the bottle filler gives you. Cap immediately, or as soon as possible.

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This is what I did with a batch that I'll be able to start drinking next week

Hopefully carbonation levels are consistent. Slowly pouring the priming sugar mixture into the whirlpool produced by the siphon resulted in inconsistent carbonation, so I'm hoping getting all the priming sugar in the bottling bucket first might have helped. If not, I'll just have to stir I think :/

I understand that people will always disagree about the best practices, but I can only go on what I've researched and visually experienced with bottling. I bottle brews on average about twice a week, sometimes more. Because I brew a ton of 1 gal batches. Priming sugar addition I used to do prior to racking, allowing the beer to stir the sugar. Nearly half the time I had a thicker more syrup type mixture left in the bottom, confirmed by taste and consistency. Almost as though it attaches to the surface of the bucket more that way. You could see the sugary liquid. I now stir in afterwards, with a long spoon that doesn't cause splashing at all. Not one batch done this way has had this sugary beer syrup remaining in the bottom of the bucket. As far as headspace, the less oxygen the better. Many studies show carbonation has less to do with oxygen consumption by yeast and more to do with sugar concentration. Obviously some space is necessary for gases to build pressure and any liquid expansion. But I have many times witnessed caps bouncing ever so slightly on the bottling vessel from co2 escaping the bottle. Co2 production is still occurring and more now with the addition of sugar. For me, seeing that happen gives me faith in letting caps rest on the bottle for a short while before sealing, in order to push as much oxygen out as possible.

derekcw83 said:

Fill the bottles to within a half to quarter inch, trust me on that. Set the cap on and wait a half hour to fully cap, this limits the oxygen in the bottle when capped by limiting volume, and allowing oxygen to be pushed out by the co2 being produced in that half hour.

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I have never heard of this before. I have always capped within 5 - 10 minutes of placing the cap on the bottle. Not trying to be a jerk here, but where'd you here this? I'm interested in learning more.

And the capping method is somewhat well known. But when I visually saw the co2 in action, I became a firm believer in it. Especially since I mostly brew ipa's, where oxygen is a total enemy

I have made it a practice to add my dissolved sugar to the bottling bucket first, then stir very gently and briefly to make sure it's all mixed together nicely. This has prevented any more issues with inconsistent carbonation.

On the other hand, I just cracked a few bottles I'd saved from a batch I bottled two months ago, and they're already starting to taste a little bit stale. If I want my beer to stay fresh longer, it's starting to look like I may need to keg and bottle from the keg into CO2 purged bottles. I don't have the space for all that extra equipment, so I think I'll just try to drink all my homebrew within ~6 weeks of bottling.

derekcw83 said:

www.picobrewery.com/askarchive/headspace.htm

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Based on this link (very interesting, thanks!) I'm tempted to look for a bottle filler than leaves less headspace in the bottles. Topping them up after filling from the bottling bucket just sounds like an opportunity to introduce even more oxygen.

One final thought - I'm wondering if I should allow my beer to warm up to room temperature before bottling. I typically cold crash, then bottle. The solubility of oxygen in water is almost twice as high at 32F compared to 68F.