"It can't happen to me!"

[BrookdaleBrew]

I have never had a problem with under carbbed bottles or bottle bombs. I always made sure to use the correct amount of priming sugar and let the siphoning beer swirl in the bottling bucket to mix the sugar properly.

I figured I had that part of the process down. I was wrong.

On my lastest batch I have uneven carbonation in my bottles and even had 1 bomb. This was also the first time I have cold crashed a beer. All I can figure is that because the beer was cold when I racked, the priming sugar may not have mixed as thoroughly as it usually does when the beer is a room temp.

Just a reminder to all the other beginners out there to never get too comfortable in a process. As soon as you think you have it down, another variable will get added to the mix and throw everything off.

From now on I will always stir with my racking cane to make 100% sure the sugar is evenly distributed.

 

[Teromous]

That sucks. I'm guessing the gravity was low enough when you decided to crash, but that could also be the culprit if it wasn't.

 

[Pappers_]

I have never cold crashed but I think that after you cold crash, you can let the carboy warm up to room temp before carefully racking to the bottling bucket, if you think that's the problem

 

[BrookdaleBrew]

That sucks. I'm guessing the gravity was low enough when you decided to crash, but that could also be the culprit if it wasn't.

Yeah, I was at a steady 1.010 for at least a week before cold crashing. It's definitely a sugar mixing issue because some bottles are perfect, others have very little carbonation and still others have too much.

I could definitely try letting the beer warm to room temp again before racking in the future, it just never occurred to me that the beer being cold would affect the how well the sugar was mixed, but now that I think about it, it makes sense that it would.

 

[JetSmooth]

Do you add your sugar solution to the beer or your beer to the sugar solution in your bottling bucket?

I boil my sugar (DME, actually) in water to dissolve on the stove, allow to cool down a little and put in the bottom of my sanitized bucket. Then I siphon my beer from the fermenter into this solution allowing the end of the hose to rest on the bottom of the bucket at the side pointing along the edge of the bucket. This allows the current of beer flowing into the bucket to gently swirl and "stir" the beer". I actually see this current "whirlpooling" around tn the bucket even when it's full.

I know this is how a lot of people do it. I'm no rocket surgeon, but seems to me that by adding the beer to the sugar solution, you are evenly dilluting the sugar solution with beer to the full volume as opposed to adding the sugar to the beer and then needing to distribute.

Similar concept with tea when you add the tea slowly to your milk to bring the temp of th emilk up without scalding as opposed to dumping your cold milk into a cup of hot tea and thermally shocking your milk.

 

[BrookdaleBrew]

I boil my sugar (DME, actually) in water to dissolve on the stove, allow to cool down a little and put in the bottom of my sanitized bucket. Then I siphon my beer from the fermenter into this solution allowing the end of the hose to rest on the bottom of the bucket at the side pointing along the edge of the bucket. This allows the current of beer flowing into the bucket to gently swirl and "stir" the beer". I actually see this current "whirlpooling" around tn the bucket even when it's full.

Yep, that's exactly how I've always done it. I'm assuming because the beer was cold when I racked on top of the sugar solution, that some of the sugar resolidified and did not get mixed thoroughly.

 

[JetSmooth]

Yep, that's exactly how I've always done it. I'm assuming because the beer was cold when I racked on top of the sugar solution, that some of the sugar resolidified and did not get mixed thoroughly.

Yeah, that, or you got some temperature stratification. I sanitize my (plastic) mash paddle and stir gently as well. Not enough to create any surface disturbance, but pretty thoroughly. May need to do that a couple of times.

Another thing I find that helps me with solids when racking is putting my beer on the kitchen counter (where I siphon from) the night before. That way, I'm not lifting and sirring up trub. I would think if you cold crashed, but put "staged" your bottling the night before, it would have time to come to room temp and everything that crashed should still stay at the bottom.

 

[Broncobum]

My past few batches have been way under carbed. I use the same sugar boil/swirly hose technique, and the usual 4.5-5 oz of sugar, so I dunno what is going on lately. Never had this problem before.

 

[BrookdaleBrew]

My past few batches have been way under carbed. I use the same sugar boil/swirly hose technique, and the usual 4.5-5 oz of sugar, so I dunno what is going on lately. Never had this problem before.

That is odd. You storing them in a warm enough environment (at least 70F?)

 

[Teromous]

This reminds me of one of the experiments I had to do in biology, where we studied the effect of temperature on molecule dispersion. Warmer molecules vibrate more and showed far greater dispersion rates. It would make sense that the colder temperature could have caused this, I'm just surprised you got a bottle bomb out of it. I would have figured that the swirling of liquid on top of the sugar water would have disturbed it enough to mix it more efficiently than it apparently did.

 

[BrookdaleBrew]

Since it was just the one bottle that exploded, at first I assumed its structural integrity had been compromised in some way. That still could be the case, I guess. I didn't discover the carbonation issue until last night and I just figured that one bottle got too much sugar.

 

[Broncobum]

That is odd. You storing them in a warm enough environment (at least 70F?)

for a few weeks, yeah. as usual.

 

[BrookdaleBrew]

I don't see why it'd make a difference, but maybe try priming with something other than corn sugar or use different corn sugar.

 

[midfielder5]

did you adjust the amount of priming sugar for the colder beer temp?

you need less sugar for colder beer, if I am reading this priming sugar chart correct.
http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter11-4.html

 

[Meatball358]

how cold was the beer when you added your priming sugar liquid? I did something similar this afternoon and this thread has got me worried for the sake of my fat tire clone