How long should I wait before bottling after I have added the priming solution ?

[meaulnes2]

Generally I use bulk priming after the cold crash. I add the priming solution (boiled and cooled) and let the fermenter in the fridge at about 5°C (41 °F).
I wait for one hour before getting the fermenter out of the fridge and beginning my bottling.
My thinking is not to stir the beer in order to avoid ruining the cold crash effect and that an hour is enough to let the sugar diffuse in the beer and get an homogeneous liquid.
I also think that it could be more than one hour as, at this temperature, the yeast is absolutely dormant and the carbonation does not start.
Am I right when I think the solution will be homogeneous after one hour ?

 

[dmtaylor]

Priming sugar might never fully dissolve in the beer over time if not mixed in. It will just form a layer at the bottom.

You should instead be racking the finished beer into a bottling bucket, then stir the priming solution thoroughly into the racked beer, and bottle it immediately.

Otherwise you will almost certainly have inconsistent carbonation between different bottles.

 

[bailey mountain brewer]

Option 2 would be to use carbonation tabs or measure appropriate amount into each bottle first then fill them from your fermenter.

 

[meaulnes2]

Option 2 would be to use carbonation tabs or measure appropriate amount into each bottle first then fill them from your fermenter.

OK, I agree. Nevertheless this solution is a bit more expensive and less adjustable.

Priming sugar might never fully dissolve in the beer over time if not mixed in. It will just form a layer at the bottom.

Is this true if the solution is boiled beforehand, meaning the sugar is already dissolved ?

You should instead be racking the finished beer into a bottling bucket, then stir the priming solution thoroughly into the racked beer, and bottle it immediately.

I am a bit afraid of doing so because of contamination and oxygenation contingencies.

I would be interested in knowing which part of the community do one way or the other.

 

[dmtaylor]

OK, I agree. Nevertheless this solution is a bit more expensive and less adjustable.

Is this true if the solution is boiled beforehand, meaning the sugar is already dissolved ?

I am a bit afraid of doing so because of contamination and oxygenation contingencies.

I would be interested in knowing which part of the community do one way or the other.

If the priming sugar is boiled AND is very dilute, your method might work okay. But if it is a high gravity priming solution, then it will sink and form a bottom layer, and will not dissolve as easily. Imagine pouring honey or maple syrup into a water vessel. Most of it will not dissolve, but will sink to the bottom. So unless your priming sugar is very dilute and very easy to dissolve, it will have a tendency to sink to the bottom. As I said before, this can lead to inconsistent carbonation.

Most people keg their beer, and force carbonate with CO2 tanks, so then priming is not a problem for them at all.

For those who bottle all their beer, I can speak for the USA at least when I say that almost everyone racks to a secondary bottling bucket and bulk primes, stirring well, on bottling day. Does this cause oxidation? Yes, it does. You could try getting clever with racking to a vessel filled with CO2, or add sulphite to minimize the oxidation, if you so desire.

A minority uses carbonation drops, and very few use other priming methods. I do not know very many who would bulk prime in the fermenter itself, and almost certainly not without stirring.

Hope this helps.

 

[meaulnes2]

Thanks for these information. I probably need to revise my way of doing things.

 

[Rish]

You could cold crash in the fv then transfer to the bottling bucket with the priming solution in bottom. Gently stir without splashing to incorporate the solution evenly then bottle immediately. I rarely cold crash but this is the way I do it.

 

[glick]

Definitely rack the beer onto the priming sugar. A quick gentle stir then bottle.

 

[Teufelhunde]

Thanks for these information. I probably need to revise my way of doing things.

I bottle everything. I boil my sugar in about a cup and half of water, let it cool. I gently pour it into my bottling bucket just after I have started to drain the beer into the bottling bucket with my hose curled around the outer edge on the bottom to force a whirlpool into the beer as it goes into the bucket. Once that is done, I stick a sanitized SS spoon (long handled) in and stir very gently (to avoid spashing air into the beer) for 1-2 minutes. This step is likely overkill, as I have forgotten it before and all bottles carbonated just fine.

Don't seem to have any oxidation issues, but, then again, my beers never get more than a couple of months old...

YMMV

 

[Dancy]

I am a bit afraid of doing so because of contamination and oxygenation contingencies.

I would be interested in knowing which part of the community do one way or the other.

I stir my priming solution into the bottling bucket but because I’m also concerned with oxygenation, I make it appoint to stir rapidly/thoroughly but without breaking the surface with the stirring spoon so as not to create splashing. I cant say I’ve noticed oxygenation in my beers. I also use oxygen absorbing bottle caps.

 

[mac_1103]

You could try getting clever with racking to a vessel filled with CO2

This is what I (try to) do. A quasi-closed transfer into a quasi-purged bottling bucket. Priming solution added first; tubing inserted to the bottom of the bucket so I get a bit of a whirlpool; then the hard part - swirling the bucket around to make sure it's all mixed as well as possible.

 

[BrewZer]

I drop my sanitized drain tubing from the fermenter spigot to the bottom of my bottling bucket. I angle the tube so the beer will flow in a circular motion, and gently pour in the boiled priming solution. Draining the fermenter into the bottler mixes the priming solution from the bottom up as the fermenter drains.

Then I bottle immediately.

 

[Miraculix]

This will never mix in the fermenter completely. The sugar solution has a different gravity than the beer and it will take days to dissolve on it's own. By then, the yeast will have kicked off again and the cold crash will be ruined. Yeast is just very slow at lower temperatures, NOT completely dormant.

You can use regular sugar,a little funnel and dose each bottle individually. I do this every time. Found myself a little spoon that fits the right amount of sugar per bottle (confirmed by weighing the sugar). In about ten minutes, I have bottles for a 18 litre batch ready to be filled.

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

When I bottle I use one of these and individually dose each bottle with the calculated amount of sugar solution and bottle straight from the fermenter. Works best if you have a spigot on your fermenter.

 

[mac_1103]

The more I brew the more I realize that I should have stolen a lot more stuff from the labs I worked in over the years.

 

[hotbeer]

Probably a little late for the OP. However I forgot to add the cane sugar called for by my porter's recipe at the end of boil. So I mixed up it up with a minimal amount of water and added it to the FV just after I'd pitched and thought I stirred it in well enough.

According to my hydrometer in the FV, it didn't fully mix to give my expected OG increase till 12 hours later when the yeast started getting active and thoroughly mixed it.

I wouldn't want to stir up the stuff on the bottom either. Although it will again just become sediment on the bottom of your keg or bottle. And proper pouring from a bottle or drawing from the keg will still give you clean beer.

However I would transfer it out to something first. Lately I have been doing somewhat of a closed transfer to a plastic bladder that has all the air squeezed out of it after adding my priming solution. Then after the beer is transferred into it, I can mash the sides of the bladder or bag and mix it completely with out worry about air. Although the agitation does cause some CO2 to come out of solution which might make you think air has gotten in.

From the bladder, the same connected hose I used to fill it can be used to fill the bottles or keg. And of course it's easier for me because I only do 2½ gallon batches. But they do make much larger collapsible bags and water containers. that can be used for 5 gallon or more quantities. Even the hot fill bags that some use for no chill brewing would work.

 

[Edward's Beer Cellar]

A question for those who rack their beer onto the priming solution in the bottling bucket,

How do you know how much beer you will transfer from the fermenter? (and therefor how much sugar you will need to add) I ferment in non-graduated carboys and my bottling volume always varies based on recipe, trub and dry hop residues.

My process is to transfer to the bottling bucket, and use that volume for my priming sugar calculations. Boil sugar in about 500 ml water - and add the hot solution carefully to the beer without splashing, then stir.

Additionally I add Ascorbic Acid 200 mg/Liter and NaMBS 15 mg/Liter to bottling bucket - it's simple, cheap and might help prevent oxidation.

 

[mac_1103]

How do you know how much beer you will transfer from the fermenter? (and therefor how much sugar you will need to add) I ferment in non-graduated carboys and my bottling volume always varies based on recipe, trub and dry hop residues.

It's not hard to put markings on your carboys, and they don't need to be perfect. If you overestimate your volume by half a gallon you'll wind up overcarbonating your beer by 0.2 volumes, which just isn't that big a deal IMHO but YMMV.

 

[NSMikeD]

It’s pretty easy to does the bottles and fill directly from the fermentor. Do your calculations to determine the sugar per ml of your solution which you can make in advance and keep sealed in a sanitary container. Then calculate the mls needed to dose each bottle. You can get syringes online in a variety of sizes and that will let you dose each bottle accurately, quickly and neatly.

While I preferred to rack to a bottling bucket when I bottled, the above method does help minimize O2 exposure as well as bottle bombs or flat beer.

 

[Ramjet]

It’s pretty easy to does the bottles and fill directly from the fermentor. Do your calculations to determine the sugar per ml of your solution which you can make in advance and keep sealed in a sanitary container. Then calculate the mls needed to dose each bottle. You can get syringes online in a variety of sizes and that will let you dose each bottle accurately, quickly and neatly.

What is the formula to figure out how many ml per bottle say for a 2.5 gallon batch

 

[bruce_the_loon]

You need a reasonable estimate of the number of bottles you'll end up with. Once you have that, all you need is to dissolve the priming sugar in as little water as possible, get the final volume of that (adding sugar will increase the total volume by a fraction) and then divide that final volume by the number of bottles.

For increase accuracy, run the priming sugar calculator for the bottled volume (number of bottles x bottle size) and add the volume of the priming mix in as well. Then use that priming mix only for those bottles. If you find you have more bottles that expected, then just make some more priming mix.

You also don't have to go for as little water as possible, but remember every ml you add to the bottle is one ml less of beer and it will become more diluted. So while syringing 10ml might be easier than 2.5ml, in a 330ml bottle that is a 3% dilution versus 0.75%

 

[NSMikeD]

What is the formula to figure out how many ml per bottle say for a 2.5 gallon batch

According to the morebeer calculator, 2.2 volume of CO2 @68* for 2.5 gallons of beer would require 55.8 grams of corn sugar (dextrose). Let’s say you are using 16Oz bottles. 2.5 gallons is 320 ounces or 20 x 16 oz bottles. 1/20th of 55.8. 1 cup is 240 ml. If you dissolve the 55.8 g of corn sugar in 1 cup of boiled and cooled water then each bottle should be dosed with 12mls of the syrup.

 

[Ramjet]

Thanks

 

[NSMikeD]

You need a reasonable estimate of the number of bottles you'll end up with. Once you have that, all you need is to dissolve the priming sugar in as little water as possible, get the final volume of that (adding sugar will increase the total volume by a fraction) and then divide that final volume by the number of bottles.

For increase accuracy, run the priming sugar calculator for the bottled volume (number of bottles x bottle size) and add the volume of the priming mix in as well. Then use that priming mix only for those bottles. If you find you have more bottles that expected, then just make some more priming mix.

You also don't have to go for as little water as possible, but remember every ml you add to the bottle is one ml less of beer and it will become more diluted. So while syringing 10ml might be easier than 2.5ml, in a 330ml bottle that is a 3% dilution versus 0.75%

For dosing the ease has to do with the size of the syringe, and less than the amount. While I agree less water is better, but that really should not be any different than priming by the full batch. It’s proportional so any dilution in the bucket would equal the dilution in the bottling bucket. In my example I made a 1 cup solution for the entire batch. That’s fairly normal. That equates to about 12mls per bottle.

 

[NSMikeD]

If we are doing the math per bottle, A 250 tab of conditioning tabs is $8.00. At approx 4 tabs per 12oz bottle or say 1 NB fizz tab [$6.50/60 drops) that about 12 cents a bottle, or $2.40 per 2.5 gallon of beer. Is money really the issue for using individual priming tabs?

 

[mac_1103]

What is the formula to figure out how many ml per bottle say for a 2.5 gallon batch

You need a reasonable estimate of the number of bottles you'll end up with.

Brewer's Friend has both a bottling calculator and a priming calculator. You will have to do a little arithmetic to convert priming sugar for the whole batch to priming sugar per bottle.

edit - actually, you don't even have to do the arithmetic; you can just enter bottle size instead of batch size for the volume; either weigh and add dry sugar directly to each bottle or dissolve the sugar at that much per unit volume and add that volume per bottle.

 

[jerrylotto]

The best home process I've come up with is to precharge a keg with my priming sugar solution and purge it. That way I can closed transfer from the fermenter into something that I can shake the crap out of before I bottle directly from the keg using a bottling wand. I can stop bottling at any time as long as I let the keg ferment out the priming sugar for a day or two before chilling it.

 

[BrewZer]

A question for those who rack their beer onto the priming solution in the bottling bucket,

How do you know how much beer you will transfer from the fermenter? (and therefor how much sugar you will need to add) I ferment in non-graduated carboys and my bottling volume always varies based on recipe, trub and dry hop residues.

I overprime by about 10% to cover any overage using Charlie P's advice -- 3/4 cup corn sugar for 5 gallons. So my 3/4 cup is a heaping 3/4 cup.

But I usually only get 5 gallons or slightly less out of the fermenter since I cut off the flow early enough to avoid any trub going down the tube.

 

[Civilian]

I use 5 oz. priming sugar boiled in 5 oz. water for my 5 gallon batch. Transfer into bottling bucket and add the sugar solution right away (about 1/2" of beer is transferred) and no stirring.
I've only had 1 gusher and a couple of "flattish" beers. Only about 300 bottles brewed so far (so not a huge sample).