priming

[william2010]

What are the reasons for boiling your sugar before bottling. Cant you just put it right in the bottle? You would think boiling it would delute the sugar not giving you enough. But I'm probably wrong. Just looking for good answers

 

[philjohnwilliams]

You boil your sugar to sanitize it. I would alsoimagine that boiling, which will dissolve your sugar, will help it to mix more evenly with the beer in your bottling bucket.

 

[mxpx5678]

What are the reasons for boiling your sugar before bottling. Cant you just put it right in the bottle? You would think boiling it would delute the sugar not giving you enough. But I'm probably wrong. Just looking for good answers

If you are just putting it in bottles you can. Don't need to boil it.

 

[william2010]

Is there a chance it might get contaminated? What's the most common and most.effective way. I just put it straight into my Mr beer kit bottles before. But now I'm at a bigger batch

 

[mxpx5678]

Most common for priming is to boil water then add the sugar, then add that liquid to a secondary or bottling bucket. Then rack your beer over the liquid so it gets mixed in well.

 

[duboman]

You boil your sugar to sanitize it. I would alsoimagine that boiling, which will dissolve your sugar, will help it to mix more evenly with the beer in your bottling bucket.

+1
This is the proper way to do it and you get a better mix throughout the batch, if you try to accurately measure the minuscule amount of sugar for each bottle you will ultimately fail and some bottles will be over carbonated, some under.

 

[shawnbou]

Also, to address the concern about the boil diluting the sugar ... actually, the opposite happens. Boiling water with sugar dissolved in it actually boils off some of the water. The sugar will not go anywhere.

This is the same concept behind boiling wort to increase the SG, which full-boil brewers do every brew day.

 

[william2010]

My chinook ipa instructions don't say anything about cooling your sugar down after boil before you rack your beer on top of it. Yay or nay

 

[matt-tastic]

My chinook ipa instructions don't say anything about cooling your sugar down after boil before you rack your beer on top of it. Yay or nay

Don't put it in boiling (if you're bottling from a carboy, you risk thermal shock to the glass for one), but you don't need to bring it down to room temp. I will usually make my priming sure first, while I'm sanitizing everything. By the time I'm ready, i can put it in my bottling bucket, rack over it, and be sure of a good mixture.

 

[helibrewer]

My chinook ipa instructions don't say anything about cooling your sugar down after boil before you rack your beer on top of it. Yay or nay

Even if it's boiling hot, dumping it in the cool bottling bucket starts to cool it, then the 5 gallons of beer dilutes it pretty quickly so that there essentially is no temperature impact.....1 cup of boiling water in 5 gallons won't come close to changing it's temp by any means that most of us can measure.

 

[william2010]

Any advice or peference on conditioning tabs or carb drops?

 

[duboman]

Any advice or peference on conditioning tabs or carb drops?

Never personally used them but many people do. There are a lot of threads you can search for opinion, some people swear by them and others have mixed and unsatisfactory results. They can be easier to use for sure but some people have reported inconsistent results in carbonation.

 

[firebirdude]

Pretty sure the #1 reason people boil the sugar water is just to help the sugar dissolve. Then it takes 2 minutes to set the small pot in a bowl of ice. That will take a good 50+ degrees off it right there. Pour the sugar water in a bottling bucket then rack your beer on top of it. The beer flowing in will create enough motion to mix the two fine. Then bottle using a bottling wand. This ensures each bottle has exactly the same amount of sugar and that it's fully dissolved.

 

[cullen]

A 250g bag of carbonation drops costs $5 and is good for 60 bottles at 1 drop per bottle.

Four pounds (1.8 kg) of corn sugar is about $6.

 

[Calder]

Boiling dissolves the sugar, to make sure the yeast can easily get at it.

Boiling sugar and putting it in the bottling bucket, ensures it is evenly mixed.

Boiling drives off any O2 that is entrained in the water you dissolve the sugar in.

Boiling sanitizes it (although plain sugar is not normally a problem).

Boiling the priming sugar, gives you a method to use any type of priming sugar , such as syrups, honey, or extract.

A 250g bag of carbonation drops costs $5 and is good for 60 bottles at 1 drop per bottle.

Four pounds (1.8 kg) of corn sugar is about $6.

Ten pounds of cane sugar is about $6, and is good for about 2,000 bottles.