2nd batch done, have some starsan questions

[Omnislash]

Hi,

Noob brewer here. I recently bottled my first batch 2 and then brewed my 2nd batch last night (both extract kits). I'd read about how to brew beforehand but now that I've done it I have some questions.

First, bottling. I bottled 2 nights ago, and it was a huge mess. I'm using starsan which as everyone knows foams vigorously. So I sanitized the bottles, boiled the priming sugar and put in in the bottling bucket, and then racked the beer on top of it.

Now, as I'm filling the bottles, the (starsan) foam is overflowing on every single one of them. to get the beer within 1" of the top, most of the foam has to come out, so I have like 80% starsan foam and 20% beer foam pouring out of the top of every single bottle, running down the side. Is this normal? I know people say "don't fear the foam", but this was a real sloppy mess.

I know you can sanitize bottles using the dishwasher, but my dishwasher will only hold about 36 bottles, so the rest will still need to be star-san'ed.

2nd question. I did NOT stir my priming sugar into the beer before bottling like I intended. I'm worried that this will result in wildly un-even carbonation in my bottles. How critical is stirring in priming sugar?

3rd question, again foam related. Last night I brewed a red ale and decided to try to use a 6 gallon glass carboy as the primary instead of my big bucket. My extract kit tells me to aerate the wort before pitching. So I have 2 6 gallon carboys, both of which I sanitized using star-san by pouring it back and forth and agitating it.

So now both carboys have a ton of starsan foam and I want to aerate the wort by pouring it back and forth between the 2 carboys. After pouring it into the first carboy there's like 1.5 gallons of foam volume in there and I really can't even get all the (5 gallons) of beer in there. Foam was spurting out between the carboy and the funnel.

So, I guess same question as before. Is this normal? I could just pour half of the beer in there, wait for 5 or 10 minutes for the foam to subside a bit, then pour the rest, but if I want to do that multiple times to really aerate the hell out of it that's a lot of time where the wort is exposed at room temperature which is bad, no?

does this sound normal? thanks!

 

[kh54s10]

Foam = normal. Pour out as much as you can. I use a Vinator to inject the Starsan in the bottles then put them upside down on the dishwasher rack to drain. I get a little foam out of each bottle.

For the priming, if you put the hose into the bucket so that the beer eddied your priming solution should have mixed well enough.

The Starsan is an acid solution so clean it up fairly soon or it may discolor what it gets onto.

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

1) If we're talking just foam here, don't fear the foam
2) pretty useful. I add my priming solution to the bucket first, then rack the beer on top. It mixes quite well.
3) See answer #1

When I rack from kettle to carboy after cooling my wort, if there's enough foam to come out of the top, I let the wort displace the foam as it fills. The way I see it is that if the foams coming out of the carboy, no nasties are getting in.

 

[boscobeans]

Close your spigot down till you get a slower more controlable flow into the bottles.

When the beer hits the top of the bottle (the Starsan will float out and spill over) pull it off the wand and you have the right headspace. Maybe a little beer will spill over once in a while but if your filling is controlled you can keep that to a minimum.

Lots of foam in the carboys is normal.


bosco

 

[ludomonster]

I use a 5 gallon home depot bucket for sanitizing my bottles. After 30 seconds, I put them upside down in cases. Most of the star san drains out.

 

[Omnislash]

thanks for the replies. I think I need to get slightly larger carboys for this back and forth racking because it's not just star-san foam, it's beer foam too, which I would rather keep inside. Maybe 6.5 gallon would be just enough room.

and i'll just repeat the mantra: don't fear the foam...

 

[unionrdr]

I have a vinator on top of a 45 bottle tree. That way,excess liquid & foam can drain out. They have these plastic bowl lookin things that you can set your carboys upside down on to drain.
And as was said,I also let the bottling wand fill the bottles to the top,then pull up on the wand to close the pin valve. Then,removing the wand creates the right headspace for any bottle by way of volume displacement. And 6.5G carboys would be better for fermenting in. Gives more head space for krausen.

 

[Uziyahu]

As far as aerating the wort goes, I'd like to suggest that you not pour the wort back and forth. It seems like that method would increase the chance of infection. It's also extra work in cleanup and sanitizing.

Instead, shake the crap out of your carboy. That was the method I used prior to buying an aquarium pump to aerate. Obviously, if you're happy with the method you use, stay with it, but I think the change would make life easier. And you don't have to think about the foam so much.