Individual Bottle Priming Instructions with Cane Sugar

[dawn_kiebawls]

Well, fingers crossed. I just got a cider transferred to secondary and bottled the remaining 10, 12oz'rs with a bottling wand attached straight to the autosiphon. I used 1/2 tsp table sugar per 12oz bottle and they're currently sitting in my ferm chamber incase of any unexpected explosions. Cheers!

 

[TwistedGray]

Well, fingers crossed. I just got a cider transferred to secondary and bottled the remaining 10, 12oz'rs with a bottling wand attached straight to the autosiphon. I used 1/2 tsp table sugar per 12oz bottle and they're currently sitting in my ferm chamber incase of any unexpected explosions. Cheers!

Lol, that's how I carb all my ciders. I'm sure you'll be fine ; )

 

[dawn_kiebawls]

Lol, that's how I carb all my ciders. I'm sure you'll be fine ; )

Beautiful carb in my cider, thanks! Next time I will likely go with a touch more sugar (I tend to like my beers and ciders on the higher end of the carb levels) but I'm stoked with how it turned out. Now I just wish I bottled more than 10 bottles!

edit: forgot to ask this question:

You mentioned using brown sugar to carb as well. Have you tried this in a cider? I know there won't be any sweetness contributed but I'm wondering if it contributes any sort of a molasses flavor at all? Thanks again!

 

[day_trippr]

Be careful putting significant molasses in beer as it is uber high in minerals - including iron - and often contributes a metallic character that doesn't go away...

Cheers!

 

[dawn_kiebawls]

Be careful putting significant molasses in beer as it is uber high in minerals - including iron - and often contributes a metallic character that doesn't go away...

Cheers!

Would that include brown sugar? I'm happy with how these bottles turned out so I definitely don't feel the need to change anything.

Also, I hate to bother you with questions like this since I'm getting my keezer (re)constructed now and I'm sure I'll have plenty of annoying questions to bug you with

 

[day_trippr]

Brown sugar should be ok - I used to use it quite a bit and can't remember any off notes from it.
But I did a stout years ago with a pound of black molasses at FO and it had a hint of blood in the finish that took away from the beer all the way to the end. No - didn't dump it over that - it was otherwise a great stout

Cheers!

 

[z-bob]

Brown sugar is more expensive and is harder to measure, and I don't think you'll be adding enough to affect the flavor -- and that might be good. I think it's only about 2% molasses, so I don't think it will make the beer taste like iron, but it still won't taste like you imagine it unless you add some kind of nonfermentable sweetener.

 

[BassElement]

I used to only do batch priming (boiled sugar mixed in the bottling bucket), but I had huge variations in and between batches, with under-carbonation on a regular basis, even weighing all things carefully. A few years ago I switched to the significantly more expensive Cooper drops for bottle priming, and every batch since has been consistently and appropriately carbonated. For me it's been an acceptable cost to ensure carbonation is not something I have to worry about.

 

[davidabcd]

Looks like a nice way to do it--individual measure of sugar with funnel.
I haven't had any problems regarding consistency with batch priming though, using the siphoning beer to "stir" the priming sugar/water or beer mixture.
I've been using corn sugar but as soon as I blow through the giant of it, I'm going to switch to table sugar.

 

[IronMan Brew]

not sure this would help but - I know Mr Beer, you don't have to tell me.

https://www.mrbeer.com/sugar-measure

 

[Jonakr]

I never had a problem with batch priming. Kegging is even easier, though.

 

[TwistedGray]

Beautiful carb in my cider, thanks! Next time I will likely go with a touch more sugar (I tend to like my beers and ciders on the higher end of the carb levels) but I'm stoked with how it turned out. Now I just wish I bottled more than 10 bottles!

edit: forgot to ask this question:

You mentioned using brown sugar to carb as well. Have you tried this in a cider? I know there won't be any sweetness contributed but I'm wondering if it contributes any sort of a molasses flavor at all? Thanks again!

I have tried brown sugar but not a cider. The carbonation seemed identical, and you really couldn't tell much of a difference between the two beers (I think it was a brown ale). You're better of sticking to white, table sugar and adding whatever you want as an adjunct in my opinion.

Brown sugar should be ok - I used to use it quite a bit and can't remember any off notes from it.
But I did a stout years ago with a pound of black molasses at FO and it had a hint of blood in the finish that took away from the beer all the way to the end. No - didn't dump it over that - it was otherwise a great stout
Cheers!

Agreed.

I never had a problem with batch priming. Kegging is even easier, though.

Some of us prefer bottle conditioned beer (myself being one of those people).

 

[kenmcchord]

So I'm a bit confused by the on line calculators and whatnot involved with bottle conditioning. I've been away from brewing a few years, and prior to that I was only kegging so I'm not very experienced at bottling. Now I'm back and have 6 gals of what hopes to be a nice IIPA SMaSH that just about ready for the keg/bottle.

I'd like to start kegging roughly 4 gals and then bottle the remaining 2 gallons. As these numbers are fairly imprecise it seems bottle priming might be my best solution. I visited the More Beer priming calculator and saw that the lowest calculation variable was measuring per gallon, and that there's a variable for fermentation temperature. So I plugged in the following...

Bottling two gallons at 80° fermentation for a 2.2 vol of CO2 = 49.01 grams of corn sugar (I'm in my garage and the temp is around 80° give or take)

Two gallons equals 256 ounces, which yields roughly eleven and a half 22 ounce bottles (11.63 bottles). If I divide the 49.01 grams over the 11.63 bottles, that should be 4.2 grams of corn sugar per 22 ounce bottle.

That seems a bit light as compared to the comments listed above. Am I doing something wrong? I could totally be screwing this up, and there may be a better on-line calculator that I'm not finding, so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

 

[TwistedGray]

So I'm a bit confused by the on line calculators and whatnot involved with bottle conditioning. I've been away from brewing a few years, and prior to that I was only kegging so I'm not very experienced at bottling. Now I'm back and have 6 gals of what hopes to be a nice IIPA SMaSH that just about ready for the keg/bottle.

I'd like to start kegging roughly 4 gals and then bottle the remaining 2 gallons. As these numbers are fairly imprecise it seems bottle priming might be my best solution. I visited the More Beer priming calculator and saw that the lowest calculation variable was measuring per gallon, and that there's a variable for fermentation temperature. So I plugged in the following...

Bottling two gallons at 80° fermentation for a 2.2 vol of CO2 = 49.01 grams of corn sugar (I'm in my garage and the temp is around 80° give or take)

Two gallons equals 256 ounces, which yields roughly eleven and a half 22 ounce bottles (11.63 bottles). If I divide the 49.01 grams over the 11.63 bottles, that should be 4.2 grams of corn sugar per 22 ounce bottle.

That seems a bit light as compared to the comments listed above. Am I doing something wrong? I could totally be screwing this up, and there may be a better on-line calculator that I'm not finding, so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

I would recommend 3/4tsp per 22oz bottle and not 1tsp as your calculations suggest.

 

[z-bob]

4.6 grams of table sugar is about the right amount for a 22oz bomber. (two 2.3 gram sugar cubes) Corn sugar probably takes a little more, but not much more. And if you're using corn sugar you will want to weigh it because it's fluffy.

Just last week I weighed the sugar using several different kitchen measuring teaspoons and they were all different; some by quite a bit. I picked the one that was closest to the grams I wanted and used it. (it was the cheap stamped aluminum one I bought 30-ish years ago)

 

[kenmcchord]

4.6 grams of table sugar is about the right amount for a 22oz bomber. (two 2.3 gram sugar cubes) Corn sugar probably takes a little more, but not much more. And if you're using corn sugar you will want to weigh it because it's fluffy.

Just last week I weighed the sugar using several different kitchen measuring teaspoons and they were all different; some by quite a bit. I picked the one that was closest to the grams I wanted and used it. (it was the cheap stamped aluminum one I bought 30-ish years ago)

Thanks for your input, I'll be measuring the weight of the sugar when it comes in tomorrow. The 4.6 grams sounds about right.

And thanks to @TwistedGray too. Here's to hoping for zero bottle bombs

 

[Birrofilo]

I see that nobody mentioned another system, which I use with satisfaction so far.

I prefer to avoid the batch syrup method because it requires another racking.
I prefer to avoid the direct priming in the bottle because it doesn't allow for equal priming: I can use, in a 22 litres lot, bottles of 33, 50, 66 and 75 cl.

With direct priming using sucrose or dextrose it's not easy to carbonate for some exact desired volume (such as 1,2 volumes, corresponding to 5,1 grams of sucrose per liter) and also to keep into account the different bottle sizes.

The method is illustrated in the videos and it's decently fast and easy. I clean everything with hot water with soap by recirculating the hot water inside the "pistol". The pistol is a tool which is used to vaccinate chickens and chicks.

A syringe can be used as an alternative. The logic is to inject into each bottle a solution of known priming "power".

An example is here (videos in Italian, but Google should translate them).

First video:
Second video:

The first video is about a Gose but also shows, at the end, the priming method. You can skip to 4:20 for the priming method, 7:20 for the syringe.

The second video contains added explanations, some easy mathematics, and some advertising for "patreonage".