To Prime or not to Prime

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RustyMusket

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Thanks for putting up with my noobish questions. This is my question. Do I have to prime my home brew or can i bottle it before the fermentation is done and let it prime that way? This is only my third batch my first two had next to zero carbonation and no head (I did not prime). Still tasty beers non the less. I am brewing all grain my first two batches were 5 gallons 1 step mash let ferment for 1 month then bottled in 1 gallon glass bottles the let sit in fridge for a week/ Second batch fermented for 8 days racked to my glass 1 gallons and let sit at room temp (70d) for ten days the to the fridge for 2weeks (that batch turned out alot better but no head or carb. this next batch is a belgian whit or hefe not to sure just kinda makin stuff up as i go. anyway it is 7lbs white wheat malt and 6lbs pilsner malt white labs belgian whit yeast i think the number on the bottle was wpl 400. my daughter was playing with the empty yeast bottle now i cant find it to confirm. im a terrible brew master, my record keeping is horrid. anyway i tried to do i three step mash but it ended up being two 123d for 15 minutes which ended up being 20 mins. then up to 157 for the remaining 40 mins. when brought to a nice boil i added .5 oz of tettanang hops and 10 mins to flame out added another .5oz of crystal and a teaspoon of irish moss. done boiling and brought temp down to 74d, airated and added yeast the cooled wort was green like baby puke but that cleared up the next day. fermenting temp is now about 74 to 78 degrees. i have a foothold on brewing but still have many questions that i would love to have answered, i guess i answer some of my own questions everytime i brew a new batch. I have read in threads and books that certain countries have purity laws where they can only add water malt hops and yeast. So this is true, how do they prime there beers if they supposively cant use sugar?

I respect all of your knowledge and would love to hear some input
Thank you
here is a pic of my hop garden nugget left and cascade right
those are my sickly tomatoes to the left and right poor things.

P5170015.jpg
 
Cool hops. Yes you should prime with dextrose (corn sugar) to feed the yeasties some more sugar to fart out some co2 to carbonate the beer. I use about 4 ounces boiled with 2 cups or so of water per 5 gallons of beer that I am bottling.
 
RustyMusket said:
Thanks for putting up with my noobish questions. This is my question. Do I have to prime my home brew or can i bottle it before the fermentation is done and let it prime that way? This is only my third batch my first two had next to zero carbonation and no head (I did not prime). Still tasty beers non the less. I am brewing all grain my first two batches were 5 gallons 1 step mash let ferment for 1 month then bottled in 1 gallon glass bottles the let sit in fridge for a week/ Second batch fermented for 8 days racked to my glass 1 gallons and let sit at room temp (70d) for ten days the to the fridge for 2weeks (that batch turned out alot better but no head or carb. this next batch is a belgian whit or hefe not to sure just kinda makin stuff up as i go. anyway it is 7lbs white wheat malt and 6lbs pilsner malt white labs belgian whit yeast i think the number on the bottle was wpl 400. my daughter was playing with the empty yeast bottle now i cant find it to confirm. im a terrible brew master, my record keeping is horrid. anyway i tried to do i three step mash but it ended up being two 123d for 15 minutes which ended up being 20 mins. then up to 157 for the remaining 40 mins. when brought to a nice boil i added .5 oz of tettanang hops and 10 mins to flame out added another .5oz of crystal and a teaspoon of irish moss. done boiling and brought temp down to 74d, airated and added yeast the cooled wort was green like baby puke but that cleared up the next day. fermenting temp is now about 74 to 78 degrees. i have a foothold on brewing but still have many questions that i would love to have answered, i guess i answer some of my own questions everytime i brew a new batch. I have read in threads and books that certain countries have purity laws where they can only add water malt hops and yeast. So this is true, how do they prime there beers if they supposively cant use sugar?

I respect all of your knowledge and would love to hear some input
Thank you
here is a pic of my hop garden nugget left and cascade right
those are my sickly tomatoes to the left and right poor things.
Click to expand...
OF COURSE you should prime...First off I sugget you get some proper bottles to bottle your beer. Unless of course you drink a gallon at a whack AND you have lids and bottles that will withstand pressure.,,,, First off let the beer ferment until it is done then WAIT. leave it in primary a couple of weeks at least. Once you have consistent hydrometer readings THEN prime it and bottle it. Once you bottle it, let it set in a warm place ( 70 degrees or so) for a few weeks to let the yeast eat up the priming sugar. By putting it in the fridge like you did, you are putting the yeast to sleep so even if you HAD primed it, you would have gotten no carbonation. Once it has sat for a few weeks then pop a test bottle in the fridge for a couple of days and try it. if it is where you want it, then drink away.. if not WAIT.
 
1) Who drinks flat beer?
2) Why are you NOT priming?
3) Get real bottles. 12 oz, 22 oz, 1 liter.... anything. Just not 1 gallon.
4) Prime them... seriously. You're going through the work of making beer, and then doing it a huge disservice by drinking it flat. Might as well get some molson dry and move on.

Yes, prime them. ;) Let them sit for 3 weeks at 60-70 degrees while bottle conditioning and drink away!
 
To answer the original question, yes you can "prime" them by bottling before the fermentation is done. But then you'd have to be pretty sure of what your FG is going to be and not bottle too soon, or you might have the whole batch explode.

Regarding purity laws, check this out Krausening
 
thanks for all the input i really appreciate it. I can use it all. Shift the page on krausening is great exactly what i was looking for. dgsethall did you win your $100 in free gas? Cyanide, that calculator will be a valuable weapon in my ever growing arsenal of beer brewing genius. thanks again
 
fox news channel down here had a promotion to win 100 dollars in gas. They would show that picture you have as an avatar and if you had a smart phone you could scan that bar code. If you matched it you won.
 
Oh, I see. You should have a smart phone take a pic of my avatar and see what it says.
 
I don't get it? what does a smartphone have to do with an avatar that's a bunch of random black pixels and squares?
 
Yea thats cool, I checked it out with my wifes smarter than me phone. So I am going to ask an off the wall question. I pinched the growing shoot of one of my hops plants pictured, (it is the one on the left) in hops of it branching off in both directions of the twine, you guys think it will form two new shoots or just start filling out from the bottom up.

the one on the right has grown a foot in the last three days!!
 
RustyMusket said:
Yea thats cool, I checked it out with my wifes smarter than me phone. So I am going to ask an off the wall question. I pinched the growing shoot of one of my hops plants pictured, (it is the one on the left) in hops of it branching off in both directions of the twine, you guys think it will form two new shoots or just start filling out from the bottom up.

the one on the right has grown a foot in the last three days!!
Click to expand...


If you pinched the top lead growth, it will stall vertical growth for a bit while the plant recovers from it. It shouldn't randomly create new shoots, but any side branching below that pinch point will start growing out more.
 

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