It's time to bottle, but of course, it's complicated

[N4teTheGreat]

Well, my stout has been sitting in primary for just about 4 weeks now. This was my first beer a several dumb things were done by me. Most notably, not taking an OG reading and dumping the wort into my bottling bucket as opposed to my carboy.

Given that it's in the bottling bucket already, given that I'm new to this and given that I'm lazy I'm not going to bother transferring to secondary in order to clean the bucket and then transfer back, I'm just going to cross my fingers and bottle away. I figure I'll need to consider the following:

-- Get the bucket up on a table and allow it to settle for 24 - 48 hours before bottling
-- Get priming tabs for bottle conditioning as mixing in DME would stir up the trub
-- Take an gravity reading today and another on Sunday to make sure fermentation is actually complete
-- Sanitize the crap out of everything including using a plastic bag to soak the spigot

So a few questions:

-- I have a stainless steel sink, can I clean it and fill it with sanitizer (kit my so/o got me came with an iodine based sanitizer) in order to soak everything?

-- I'm bottling in 24oz bombers - any priming tabs that are best for those?

-- Anything else I'm not considering?

Thanks in advance!

-- Nathan

 

[Pappers_]

Sounds good to me, Nathan! You might still get some trub out of the bottom of the bottling bucket, depending on how thick the trub layer is and how low the spigot is. If you do, one idea would be to just run it off until the beer is running clear then bottle.

I use Iodophor also, an iodine based sanitizer, and the only issue you have is staining, which shouldn't be a problem with a stainless steel sink.

 

[eadavis80]

Why would you mix in DME on bottling day?

 

[Pappers_]

Why would you mix in DME on bottling day?

To prime. Although sugar is a more commonly used option. What he's saying is that he's not going to prime in the bucket.

 

[N4teTheGreat]

Sounds good to me, Nathan! You might still get some trub out of the bottom of the bottling bucket, depending on how thick the trub layer is and how low the spigot is. If you do, one idea would be to just run it off until the beer is running clear then bottle.

I use Iodophor also, an iodine based sanitizer, and the only issue you have is staining, which shouldn't be a problem with a stainless steel sink.

Thanks! The bucket of course, is opaque so I can't tell for sure, but it looks like the trub may be sufficiently below the spigot so hopefully it'll work out, if not, I'll plan to drain it off.

-- Nathan

 

[Sailingeric]

Don't be lazy. If you want good beer, take the time and do it right. My process is easy and it gives me time to prep stuff as I bottle.

1) boil some water with sugar based the beer style/ CO2 volume needed
2) While that is cooling I fill my sink with hot water and star sans.
3) Put in a half dozen or so bottle along with my bottling wand, tubing and racking can so it they can get sanitized.
4) get a bowl and use some of the water/ starsans to soak the bottle caps.
5) pour the sugar water into my bottling bucket
6) rack the beer from the fermenter to on top of the sugar water with the racking cane and tubing, done offset so it creates a slight swirl to stir the sugar water.
7) bottle and cap
8) while capping put some bottles in the sink to santize
9) repeat until done
10) wait a few weeks and then enjoy

 

[C-Rider]

Here is my two cents on bottling....from emptying a full bottle to refilling it. Sorry the volume is kind of low.

 

[eadavis80]

Oh, I've heard of corn sugar, table sugar, brown sugar, molasses and honey for priming, but not DME - sorry.

 

[MindenMan]

Most brewers don't use DME to prime for carbonating, but anything fermentable will pretty much work to prime the wort.

 

[CJ-3]

I have found DME helps with head retention.

 

[Daynada]

Just make another bottling bucket and rack to it with your boiled DME.

 

[N4teTheGreat]

Just make another bottling bucket and rack to it with your boiled DME.

I've considered this, but I'm already out of storage in my apartment (whopping 640sq ft is all I have) so I'd prefer not to acquire more clutter, which I'll admit is me making things harder on myself. I'd kill for a basement or garage but something tells me the HOA would frown on a fermenting bucket being placed in the bike storage room.

-- Nathan

 

[aprichman]

Most brewers don't use DME to prime for carbonating, but anything fermentable will pretty much work to prime the wort.

I found that dextrose gave my beers a "sweet" taste on the finish. After I switched to DME I haven't noticed the problem anymore. A lot of people seem to have good luck with dextrose though so YMMV.

 

[slym2none]

I've heard it takes a little longer to carbonate using DME. IDK if that is true, but I have heard it numerous times.

 

[Calypso]

I don't see anything wrong with your plan. Some people (not me, but some) do what you did, but on purpose. By fermenting in their bottling bucket, they don't have to transfer the beer except to the bottle/keg. A couple of things:

1) Yes, you can sanitize your sink and use that. That's what I do with my bottles - clean and rinse the sink, stopper, fill it with StarSan, and let bottles soak in it.
2) It depends on the conditioning tablet, some are 1 for 12 ounces, others are 3-5 for 12 ounces. Either way, just double the number for a 24 ounce bottle.

 

[flars]

I've considered this, but I'm already out of storage in my apartment (whopping 640sq ft is all I have) so I'd prefer not to acquire more clutter, which I'll admit is me making things harder on myself. I'd kill for a basement or garage but something tells me the HOA would frown on a fermenting bucket being placed in the bike storage room.

-- Nathan

Without the spigots installed, one bucket can be stored inside the other. Will need to add paper or bubble wrap to prevent scratching the bucket interior.

 

[N4teTheGreat]

Without the spigots installed, one bucket can be stored inside the other. Will need to add paper or bubble wrap to prevent scratching the bucket interior.

Your logic makes my laziness all the more apparent. I think I will still attempt to bottle form this bucket for the sake of simplicity. Took a gravity reading last night 1.021, a little high, but given my idiot move of adding all my bottling sugar to the boil, I probably started off with a higher OG anyway. Assuming the reading is the same Sunday I'll sterilize everything and bottle away. Appreciate all the input so far!

-- Nathan

 

[TxBigHops]

Your logic makes my laziness all the more apparent. I think I will still attempt to bottle form this bucket for the sake of simplicity. Took a gravity reading last night 1.021, a little high, but given my idiot move of adding all my bottling sugar to the boil, I probably started off with a higher OG anyway. Assuming the reading is the same Sunday I'll sterilize everything and bottle away. Appreciate all the input so far!

-- Nathan

Is this an Imperial Stout? I don't recall if you stated your OG. What are you expecting FG to be? I have an Imperial Stout in secondary right now. It's at 1.026, and I'm quite sure that it's done. Started out at 1.098, and had lots of unfermentable sugars by design. So you're probably OK, unless this is a lighter Guiness style of stout and your were expecting 1.01 or thereabouts.

Also, with regards to equipment, have you considered joining a local brewing club? Once you have several friends who also brew, sharing and borrowing equipment can be an option, or can help you to get out of a bind.

 

[N4teTheGreat]

This was not quite meant to be an imperial stout, but, as it's my first brew I managed to screw up a number of things, one of which being dumping my priming sugar into the boil assuming it was meant to go in (instructions, how do they work?) the other being not taking an OG reading. Given it was mean to be a west coast style stout, and the additional sugars, it's probably close to, but not quite an imperial stout. Fermentor has been around 70 - 74 degrees (admittedly a little high, but fermentation started overnight so ambient temp would have been around 65 - 68 then) so the yeast has had ample time to munch on the sugars. I'll take an FG reading on Sunday and pull a sample to taste. If the FG is stable and it's not super sweet, into the bottle it'll go. If not, I'll have to figure out a backup as I'm leaving for a weeks vacation at the end of next week and won't be around to keep wetting the towel I use to keep temps down during the day.

-- Nathan

 

[TxBigHops]

This was not quite meant to be an imperial stout, but, as it's my first brew I managed to screw up a number of things, one of which being dumping my priming sugar into the boil assuming it was meant to go in (instructions, how do they work?) the other being not taking an OG reading. Given it was mean to be a west coast style stout, and the additional sugars, it's probably close to, but not quite an imperial stout. Fermentor has been around 70 - 74 degrees (admittedly a little high, but fermentation started overnight so ambient temp would have been around 65 - 68 then) so the yeast has had ample time to munch on the sugars. I'll take an FG reading on Sunday and pull a sample to taste. If the FG is stable and it's not super sweet, into the bottle it'll go. If not, I'll have to figure out a backup as I'm leaving for a weeks vacation at the end of next week and won't be around to keep wetting the towel I use to keep temps down during the day.

-- Nathan

4-5 oz of dextrose in the boil is not going to make a significant impact to your OG, and shouldn't have any impact on your FG. What I'm asking is, what did the recipe, or instructions say that your OG and FG should be? So in other words, how far off is your reading of 1.021 from what you expected? Also, was this an extract recipe, or all grain. Extract will typically finish higher than AG.

Once you are several weeks into your ferment, you don't need to be quite as concerned about your temps as you were early in the ferment. Is the bucket with the towel around it inside of another container? If so, just fill it with several inches of water and the towel will absorb the water and stay wet for quite a while, probably all week while you are gone, if you decide not to bottle before you leave town.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

I, along with several others on this forum, bottle directly from primary rather than transferring to secondary. The reasons for me are that I'm lazy, it is one less chance for oxidation and it works really well (I find it to be less work than bulk priming in a bottling bucket). I don't sanitise the spigot before bottling and haven't had an infection (I've brewed hundreds of batches), but it is still probably a good idea to do so.

Rather than using priming tabs (convenient, but expensive and limited size range) you can make up a sugar (or DME) solution and use a syringe to add it to each bottle. It is really quick and easy (remember to sanitise the syringe). This will allow you to get the carbonation you want for a stout rather than being limited to a particular number of tabs. If you'd like help with the quantities of sugar/water/syringe to get a certain carbonation volume, I'd be happy to help.

 

[N4teTheGreat]

4-5 oz of dextrose in the boil is not going to make a significant impact to your OG, and shouldn't have any impact on your FG. What I'm asking is, what did the recipe, or instructions say that your OG and FG should be? So in other words, how far off is your reading of 1.021 from what you expected? Also, was this an extract recipe, or all grain. Extract will typically finish higher than AG.

Once you are several weeks into your ferment, you don't need to be quite as concerned about your temps as you were early in the ferment. Is the bucket with the towel around it inside of another container? If so, just fill it with several inches of water and the towel will absorb the water and stay wet for quite a while, probably all week while you are gone, if you decide not to bottle before you leave town.

Unfortunately my failure to take an OG reading is not helped by the recipe not including an estimated OG or FG. I have the ingredients but I haven't been able to wrap my head around the math to figure out these estimates but I do have the ingredients.

1.5lbs Domestic 2 row
.5lbs Roasted Barley
.25lbs Black Roast
.25lbs Carafoam
.25lbs Flaked Barley
6lbs Malt Extract

I'm not sure how each of these contributed to the total fermentable sugars however.

-- Nathan

 

[Gnomebrewer]

What was your approximate post-boil volume?

 

[btbnl]

Assuming you've got about 5G post-boil (since it's a bucket full), and assuming it was DME in the recipe, and assuming you mashed the grains that need mashing, I'm getting an OG in the low 1.060's - far short of Imperial Stout territory - and most yeast should bring that down to 1.015 or lower.

Depending on the temperature/time you soaked those grains, it may be that there's further to ferment or it may be that you've got lots of unfermentable sugars.

 

[TxBigHops]

Unfortunately my failure to take an OG reading is not helped by the recipe not including an estimated OG or FG. I have the ingredients but I haven't been able to wrap my head around the math to figure out these estimates but I do have the ingredients.

1.5lbs Domestic 2 row
.5lbs Roasted Barley
.25lbs Black Roast
.25lbs Carafoam
.25lbs Flaked Barley
6lbs Malt Extract

I'm not sure how each of these contributed to the total fermentable sugars however.

-- Nathan

Ok, I entered these ingredients into recipe software and got OG of 1.051 and FG of 1.013. I assumed the Extract was Dry. If It's liquid that might make a difference. ABV is 5.07%. Then I added the 4 oz of dextrose. OG went up to 1.054. No change to FG and ABV is 5.27%. This was all assuming a 5.5 gal batch. Hope that helps. Let me know if there were any incorrect assumptions.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

I'm with btbnl, OG in the low 1.060's (assuming a bit more than 5G post-boil volume, DME and 80% efficiency).

The amount of base grain looks a little too low to me to allow conversion given the high amount of specialty grain. That could result in some residual starch. I'm not a partial masher though, maybe somebody with more PM experience could help out?

 

[N4teTheGreat]

Thanks all,

I ended up with 5 gallons. Grains were soaked at 155 degrees for 45 minutes with on packet of hop pellets added right away and one added in the last 10 minutes of the boil. I chucked the dextrose in at the very end. Yeast was Safale US-05.

I'm not sure how much dextrose they gave me, but I think it was more than needed for one batch as the full bag was essentially a palm full. Guess I'll taste test Sunday and see.

If it's super sweet would it be risky to swirl it a bit and let it sit unattended (no cooling if the apartment gets over 75) for 10 days while I'm on vacation. I'm just worried the more I open it and leave it sitting the greater the risk of an infection. I'm happy to leave it for longer and be patient, I just don't want to come home to an infected fermentor.

-- Nathan

 

[N4teTheGreat]

Oh and extract was liquid.

-- Nathan

 

[btbnl]

Changing the DME to LME I'd expect an OG in the mid- to high- 1.050's depending on your mash efficiency. Either way you should still get a much lower FG than you're seeing now; brewersfriend predicts 1.010-ish with US-05.

155F is certainly on the higher side for the mash and will give you more unfermentable sugars, though 10 points seems like a lot - you'd essentially have to have got all unfermentables from your grains to make up that difference.

So my guess is that you're measuring your gravity with a refractometer and haven't allowed for the alcohol in the FG sample - if the OG was 1.055 then an actual FG of 1.008 would read 1.021.

 

[Singletrack]

I, along with several others on this forum, bottle directly from primary rather than transferring to secondary. The reasons for me are that I'm lazy...
Rather than using priming tabs (convenient, but expensive and limited size range) you can make up a sugar (or DME) solution and use a syringe to add it to each bottle.

If you think dosing a syringe into each bottle is easier than bulk priming in a bottling bucket, you need laziness lessons!

 

[N4teTheGreat]

Changing the DME to LME I'd expect an OG in the mid- to high- 1.050's depending on your mash efficiency. Either way you should still get a much lower FG than you're seeing now; brewersfriend predicts 1.010-ish with US-05.

155F is certainly on the higher side for the mash and will give you more unfermentable sugars, though 10 points seems like a lot - you'd essentially have to have got all unfermentables from your grains to make up that difference.

So my guess is that you're measuring your gravity with a refractometer and haven't allowed for the alcohol in the FG sample - if the OG was 1.055 then an actual FG of 1.008 would read 1.021.

Just using a hydrometer actually, so it sounds like I'm a bit on the high side. I think I may just let it sit in the bucket while I'm out of town and bottle it when I get back.

-- Nathan

 

[Homercidal]

You're good. Carb tabs and filling from the primary is a fine course of action at this stage. After some more experience you will get the process down the way you like it.

Revvy has a fantastic sticky on bottling.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=94812

 

[Homercidal]

You're good. Carb tabs and filling from the primary is a fine course of action at this stage. After some more experience you will get the process down the way you like it.

Revvy has a fantastic sticky on bottling.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=94812

 

[Gnomebrewer]

If you think dosing a syringe into each bottle is easier than bulk priming in a bottling bucket, you need laziness lessons!

I find it's more work to sanitise and clean a new vessel than to syringe the solution. I've tried both. Have you tried syringing the solution? It seriously only takes a few minutes for an entire batch of beer.

Regardless, the OP has accidentally fermented in his bottling bucket. I'd strongly recommend syringing over using carbonation tabs (which I've also used, they are expensive and don't allow any flexibility in carbonation levels).

 

[GHBWNY]

@ Nate:

I'd prep your fermentor by immersing it half way in a water bath (tub?) ~ 70F with wet towels draped over it and go on vacation. Just before you leave, take an FG reading. Take another when you return. If they are the same, regardless of higher FG, it is what it is and you're good to bottle. Re: using 24 oz. growlers, if they're twist-off caps, be sure the seals on the caps are good or get new caps to be sure. You don't want to lose your carb via bad cap seals. After carbing/bottling, let the beer condition at ~ 70F for at least 3-4 weeks (or more being a stout) and then into the fridge for 1-2 weeks. Chalk up your mistakes (we've all made 'em!) on this batch to experience and move on to the next. Sounds like you're well on your way into the Great Obsession. Have a great vaca, and while you're at it...

RDWHAHB

 

[btbnl]

Just using a hydrometer actually, so it sounds like I'm a bit on the high side. I think I may just let it sit in the bucket while I'm out of town and bottle it when I get back.

-- Nathan

Damn ... I was sure I'd solved it!

Not sure why it would still be so high after 4 weeks, but I agree with leaving it while you're away and re-checking the gravity when you get back.

 

[N4teTheGreat]

Damn ... I was sure I'd solved it!

Not sure why it would still be so high after 4 weeks, but I agree with leaving it while you're away and re-checking the gravity when you get back.

If I had to guess (which is all a noob like me can really do) I supposed I could have gotten more unfermentables than expected from the partial mash, I dipped it in an out (didn't squeeze) per instruction before removing it from the kettle.

That said I'd guess I pitched the yeast a bit on the warm side and stressed them. While I did get fermentation signs that night, it didn't really get bubbling till the next day and only seemed really active for a few days so I think the yeast are just taking their time.

Moving the fermentor onto the counter in prep for bottling may have woken them up as I have pressure in the fermentor again in spite of the lid being removed for the reading on Thursday. I can barely touch the lid and get bubbles in the airlock so I think something is still going on in there. It smells like a stout through the airlock so that's promising at least.

Hopefully another few weeks ought solve this. If things are still high when I'm back I might try a forced fermentation, if nothing else, it sounds like an interesting test.

-- Nathan

 

[N4teTheGreat]

Well it's definitely done now, checked gravity tonight and it's the same 1.021. Took a sample to taste and it tastes like a stout, body is a bit light (if that's a thing) but of course it's warm and flat. Didn't taste anything noticeably off, at least nothing that will prevent me from drinking it. I'm going to bottle it on Sunday and let the bottles sit for 6 weeks or so to see how things go.

-- Nathan

 

[C-Rider]

So not complicated. Just bottled 3 six packs in 1 1/2 hours including clean up time. It's just a matter of doing it a few times and getting a system worked out.

 

[MadHomebrewer]

You will be fine with your idea. I would just use table sugar if you don't already have the carb drops. Just learn from this for your next batch.