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Priming question: per bottle, or all at once?
Hey Everyone,
I'm working on my first batch of beer. It is an American Ale made from a recipe kit that I got at my local brew store and I'm at the bottling stage. The instructions say that I should either 1) boil 3/4 cups of corn starch with 2 cups of water and add it to the bottling bucket or, 2) add 3/4 tsp of corn sugar to each bottle (if not using a bottling bucket).
I don't have a bottling bucket so I started filling each bottle using the 3/4 (4.1 oz) bag of corn sugar that was provided in my recipe kit (making sure to level off each spoonful before putting it in the bottle, and I used a funnel so there was no spillage). However I got about half way through my 48 bottles and ran out of corn sugar. I had another 3/4 cup portion of corn sugar, and starated using that to and that still wasn't enough!
are my conversions off?
48 bottles x 3/4 tsp = 36 tsp total
36 tsp = 3/4 cup
So now I've used twice the amount of corn sugar called for in the recpie and I'm not even done yet? How did this happen? Do I need to do something to the corn sugar first, like "fluff" it? I never verrified the measurements in the ingredient kit I got... wishing I had now...
I guess my main question here is what are the pros/cons to priming per bottle vs the whole batch at once? and does it matter that I don't have a bottling bucket?
Thanks,
Priming per bottle slows things down and increases the possibility of contamination on a per bottle basis. Priming in a carboy or bucket is faster.
That said you can use carbonation tablets to prime per bottle instead if adding sugar to each bottle. I've used carb tabs made by muntons many times and the results have been great. It is slower than bulk priming but every bottle is primed the same. If you use muntons carb tabs use 4 tablets per 12 oz bottle or 8 per 22 oz bottle. I use a plastic spoon or fork, sanitize the handle and hold by the spoon or fork tines and plunk the tablets into each bottle with the handle until all the bottles have tablets in them, then syphon the beer into the bottles and cap. Advantage of using the carb tabs is not having to boil sugar and not having to transfer beer into bottling bucket or carboy. You can bottle right from primary that way.Just syphon into bottles so the time saved makes up a litte for the time it takes to put tablets in bottles. I haven't had contamination issues using the carb tabs either and I've used car tabs for my last 10 batches of beer.
HINT: If bottling from primary, sanitize an extra bottle, no carb tabs, and syphon into that bottle first. The sludge around bottom of bucket or carboy will go into first bottle and rest should be fairly clear until you get to bottom of bucket/carboy.
DC
I used to carb per bottle, instead of the bucket, but it is time consuming, and it seems like you overcarbed here. 3/4 cup of priming sugar is perfect for a 5 gallon batch, when I carbed per bottle, I used table sugar, the problem comes, because per bottle measurements are for weight, not volume, and the light in weight corn sugar throws off your measurements. If you havn't put beer in your bottles yet, rinse them out, and try again with the bucket method, or go to the LHBS, and get a little measurement spoon specifically designed for priming individual beers, and use table sugar.
I recommend using a bottling bucket and batch priming for a few reasons. By siphoning the beer out of the primary/secondary and into a bottling bucket you should leave most of the yeast at the bottom of the primary/secondary and end up with a clearer beer. Also, by placing the priming solution in the bottling bucket first and then racking ontop of it, the priming solution will mix evenly in the beer. This will give you consistant carbonation throughout the batch. You can prime all the bottles seprately, as you did, but I feel batch priming would give you better results. And as Deafcone said batch priming is faster.
Also, what size bottles did you use? Usually I brew five gallon batchs and use 12 oz bottles. 48 bottles usually isn't enough if you did the same. I always prepare more like 72 bottles (3 cases of 24), and end up using 50-52 bottles for a normal batch. Better to have too many than not enough.
TwoHeadedCyclops wrote:
are my conversions off?
48 bottles x 3/4 tsp = 36 tsp total
36 tsp = 3/4 cup
You math is fine. But you are caught in the snafu of using volume measurements (cups) for measuring a dry ingredient, sugar. Because the sugar can pack in or be "fluffed" its impossible to be accurate. What has to happen is that you need to weigh out (grams) sugar for each bottle. NOW that would be time consuming. Not to mention you probably don't have a scale accurate for a bottle of priming sugar.
Anyhow...bottling bucket is the way to go.
Thanks for the advice, everyone.
When I had gone through a 1.5 cups and still didn't have enough, I knew that something was wrong, so I washed out all the bottle and made this post. No beer bombs for me! You all comfirmed my suspicions that the tsp measurements were thrown off because the corn starch volume isn't constant (probably got packed down while in storege).
I got a new bag of corn sugar, boiled it and added it to the fermenter before I bottled. Everything seemed to go smoothly, A bottling bucket sounds like a good idea, but I don't have the cash for it, after the holidays. I'll make do with just a fermenter for now. I'm looking forward to some delicious american ale in a few weeks!
And, wouldn't you know it, as I was reading wired magazine this morning I found a gadget that would have helpe me a lot a few days ago - a digital measuring spoon that also displays weight. http://www.wired.com/reviews/product/pr … poon_scale
TwoHeadedCyclops wrote:
A bottling bucket sounds like a good idea, but I don't have the cash for it,
I made my own for 5 bucks. I went to the bakery dept at my local grocery store and asked for any empty 5 gallon buckets. They gave me a couple and I picked up a spigot at my LHBS for 5 bucks drilled a hole in my bucket put in the spigot and viola instant bottling bucket. It fills close to the top but usually the amount of volume I loose to transfers and gravity samples keeps it from overflowing.
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