TwistedGray
El Jefe Brewing Company
Individually priming bottles is simple, easy, and fast. It solves many of the frustrations that homebrewers have including inconsistently carbonated bottles, smashing sugar cubes into bottles and making a mess, dealing with "expensive" and somewhat unreliable Fizz drops, under or over calculating the sugar needed for a batch, relying on the swirling action of moving beer from the carboy to bottling bucket to combine the simple syrup into the beer, and others.
Priming bottles one at a time, on paper, seems like it would be daunting and time consuming. In reality, you should be able to easily prime, bottle, and cap a five gallon batch in under 5 minutes (I did it in 3 minutes and some change). If you are going to spend weeks brewing beer, you can spend a few "extra" minutes on one of the most crucial steps.
Advantages
Disadvantages
Here is what you will need:
Photo instructions are provided below because I am sure some of you need it (giggles), and posts without photos are lame.
Step 1: Gather your equipment (noted above). You will want to prime all of the bottles with sugar before adding the beer and capping. All of the equipment should be sanitized, and both the funnel and the spoon should be dry.
Step 2: Insert the funnel into your bottle as shown below.
Step 3: Prepare one measured 1/2tsp spoon full of cane sugar. In this example I am using white sugar, but I have also used brown sugar.
Step 4: Empty the measured spoon of sugar in to the funnel and thus into the bottle (repeat on all bottles, fill with beer, then cap).
The history behind this...
I bottle primed my first few batches of beer using simple syrup in a bottling bucket and allowed the beer to mix into the simple syrup during the siphoning process. I was not pleased with the consistency throughout the bottles from the five gallon batches. Around that time I then started to do smaller three gallon batches more often, and that is when I began looking into alternatives like the Fizz Drops. However, at $0.10-0.20 per bottle, I felt that they were over priced, and I am also cheap. I decided not to go with the Fizz Drops partially due to cost, but I also read a handful of negative reviews. Again, if I have spent hours brewing and weeks fermenting, I want consistency!
On a few forums including HBT, I found a number of homebrewers touting sugar cubes as an inexpensive alternative for individual bottle priming. However, we never use sugar cubes at home. Like everyone else here, we have regular old cane sugar from the 4lb or 10lb bag. Anyways, I went out and bought a box of sugar cubes, for the first and only time. In fact, we still have them years later (my wife will sometimes pop one in her coffee). They require excessive (relatively) force to get into the bottle, and they don't fit. You will lose sugar from the corners of the cube as you jam it into the bottle. I was happy with the more consistent carbonation; however, I was unhappy with a sad little thumb after about a dozen bottles in. There had to be an easier way.
There was an easier way, and it was staring me in the face! I measured the weight of a sugar cube, and I then matched that weight from the container of cane sugar that we use for anything that requires sugar. The volume of sugar ended up being 1/2tsp. I have bottled hundreds of bottles since then using the method above.
~Cheers~
Priming bottles one at a time, on paper, seems like it would be daunting and time consuming. In reality, you should be able to easily prime, bottle, and cap a five gallon batch in under 5 minutes (I did it in 3 minutes and some change). If you are going to spend weeks brewing beer, you can spend a few "extra" minutes on one of the most crucial steps.
Advantages
- Consistent
- Cheap (about $0.02 per bottle)
- Household item (you don't need to buy anything you don't already have)
Disadvantages
- It takes more time (we're comparing seconds to minutes)
- You're not supporting your Fizz Drop manufacturer
Here is what you will need:
- bottles (12oz or 16oz)*
- 1/2tsp measuring spoon
- cane sugar
- funnel (plastic or paper)
Photo instructions are provided below because I am sure some of you need it (giggles), and posts without photos are lame.
Step 1: Gather your equipment (noted above). You will want to prime all of the bottles with sugar before adding the beer and capping. All of the equipment should be sanitized, and both the funnel and the spoon should be dry.
Step 2: Insert the funnel into your bottle as shown below.
Step 3: Prepare one measured 1/2tsp spoon full of cane sugar. In this example I am using white sugar, but I have also used brown sugar.
Step 4: Empty the measured spoon of sugar in to the funnel and thus into the bottle (repeat on all bottles, fill with beer, then cap).
The history behind this...
I bottle primed my first few batches of beer using simple syrup in a bottling bucket and allowed the beer to mix into the simple syrup during the siphoning process. I was not pleased with the consistency throughout the bottles from the five gallon batches. Around that time I then started to do smaller three gallon batches more often, and that is when I began looking into alternatives like the Fizz Drops. However, at $0.10-0.20 per bottle, I felt that they were over priced, and I am also cheap. I decided not to go with the Fizz Drops partially due to cost, but I also read a handful of negative reviews. Again, if I have spent hours brewing and weeks fermenting, I want consistency!
On a few forums including HBT, I found a number of homebrewers touting sugar cubes as an inexpensive alternative for individual bottle priming. However, we never use sugar cubes at home. Like everyone else here, we have regular old cane sugar from the 4lb or 10lb bag. Anyways, I went out and bought a box of sugar cubes, for the first and only time. In fact, we still have them years later (my wife will sometimes pop one in her coffee). They require excessive (relatively) force to get into the bottle, and they don't fit. You will lose sugar from the corners of the cube as you jam it into the bottle. I was happy with the more consistent carbonation; however, I was unhappy with a sad little thumb after about a dozen bottles in. There had to be an easier way.
There was an easier way, and it was staring me in the face! I measured the weight of a sugar cube, and I then matched that weight from the container of cane sugar that we use for anything that requires sugar. The volume of sugar ended up being 1/2tsp. I have bottled hundreds of bottles since then using the method above.
~Cheers~
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