Priming beer; first-time brewer questions

[BenjaminL]

Hello and thanks for providing any useful advice on my next step in the home-brewing journey. Please tell me if I have these steps for bottling correct and accurate.

 

Question 1. When I come to prime the beer, I have to add sugar to each bottle?

 

This is suggested on page 11 of the Cooper's manual to prime the brew by using a sanitized container.

 

Question 2. Is this sugar priming in addition to the use of the carbonation drops which are placed in the bottles?

 

Question 3. If the answer to question 1 is 'yes' then how much water is used to mix up the 180 grams of sugar?

 

Question 4. Can I add the sugar mixture to the wort while it remains still in the fermentation chamber?

 

Thanks.

 

Benjamin Levy

sporck@windstream.net

Manlius, NY

 

 

 

 

 

[Andris]

1. Yes unless you can "bulk prime". bulk priming = transferring beer to another "bottling" bucket just before bottling and adding sugar to whole batch by boiling about half liter of beer with the whole amount of priming sugar. I usually draw about half liter of beer from fermenter into pot, add sugar, get it to boil, pour into bottling bucket and with siphon transfer beer to bucket. no need to wait till beer-sugar cools down. Do not pour beer or use tap - increases chance of oxidation.

 

2. nop, its either drops or sugar, basically carbonation drops = sugar.

 

3. better draw beer from tap or siphon, or, if thats not possible for whatever reasons, about 300g water should be enough.

 

4. no, you wont be able to mix sugar without stirring up all the yeast.

 

recently, I have become lazy and just chill my beer for couple days before bottling, then add sugar to each bottle and bottle from tap. I still cant figure correct ratio of carbonation drops for 0.5l bottles - one is too little, 2 - afraid to blow up glass bottles.

 

Can someone answer if adding 2 carb drops to 0.5l glass bottles will cause them to explode?

[Muddy Waters]

My answers vary a bit from Andris' but they both work [biggrin]

 

Question 3 - The easiest way is to add your sugar to about 1-2 cups of boiling water on the stove. You really just need enough water for the sugar to dissolve thoroughly (I use dextrose myself). Boil this a couple of minutes and add it to your empty secondary vessel. I then attach a hose to the tap of the fermentor with the beer with the other end attached to the tap of the empty fermentor and transfer the beer to the empty fermentor (empty apart from the sugar solution we have already added that it). Or if you don't have fermentors with taps you will need to siphon - The goal is to tranfer the beer with a minimum of splashing.

 

Question 4 - Yes you can do this but as Andris mentioned you will stir up the the sediment from the bottom so you'll need to mix the solution in gently. I don't recommend this method but many people use it routinely.

 

Andris' Question - I've never tried but would think they'd be overcarbed. I think it best to bulk prime when using irregularly sized bottles. I don't follow the lazy=chilling logic though [innocent] It just seems like extra work to me for negligible reward. But we all must do what makes us feel better athe end of day [bandit]