I have just find out that some bottle have more carbonation then others, that's made me wonder how do I carbonate my beer. What is the best way to mix the primer sugar in to the beer ? What temperature and environment I aging my beer ? How to make the primer sugar dissolve into the beer evenly ? How to carb my beer without using carb drops.
This probably isn't the answer you want, but I prime bottles individually with a syringe. Typically, I'm shooting for about 2 g of corn sugar per 12 oz bottle in about 6 ml of water solution. It's a pain in the ass, but it saves me from using a bottling bucket. I bottle straight out of my fermenter (a speidel plastic fermenter w/ spigot), and I get pretty reliable results.
Rack the beer on top of the sugar solution. Then stir very gently under the surface of the beer. Disturb the surface as little as possible. This isn't relevant to carbonation uniformity across the bottles. But in general, carbonate at room temperature, assuming that's within the recommended temp range for the yeast. You can push the temps a little higher for bottle conditioning than you would for fermentation, within reason.
When I bottle prime my beers, I use a priming calculator like this one http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html to figure out how much sugar to use. I way out the desired amount of sugar and bring it to a boil with about 250 mL of water. Then add the solution when I start transferring the beer from the fermenter to a bottling bucket. When I am finished transferring, I gently stir the beer a few times with a sanitized spoon and allow about 5-10 minutes for the sugar to solution to mix with the beer. Then I start bottling from the bottling bucket. Hope this helps.
My self always use priming calac, but i guess some bottles get more sugar then the others or maybe because I store my result at diverse location at home which lead to very carb level in my beer.
Unless you are sampling some bottles where the carbonation has finished and others where it hasn't, the diverse locations wouldn't matter. In other words, high temps can't cause over-carbonation. Final CO2 level is a function of sugars and volume, not temp. But if you open a warm bottle (without chilling to serving temp), it could sure seem overcarbonated at first, due to rapid breakout of CO2.
Storing bottles that are priming in different locations seems like an unusual practice. Storage location could affect carbonation in that it influences the rate at which priming sugar gets utilized by the yeast. You could be sampling some your bottles before they are finished carbonating, and bottles in different locations would be carbonated at different levels. Vikeman alluded to this above. His comment about serving temperature is a good idea to consider- temperature affects how much CO2 is in the headspace vs. dissolved in the beer. Other thoughts, unrelated to location, about why you have different levels of carbonation: 1. In my earliest days of homebrewing, I wasn't very rigorous in my approach to cleaning and sanitizing bottles. Some bottles developed infections and infecting bacteria were able to add carbonation be metabolizing dextrins, leading to bottles that never stopped foaming. I don't think this is your issue, but you'll know better than I do. 2. I have heard that bottle cappers can wear down overtime, leading to inconsistent sealing. Some bottles may end up with airtight seals and some may not. Although I keg now, I probably capped >4000 bottles with my capper without ever seeing inconsistency that might indicate a defect (I used this kind of capper: http://www.homebrewing.org/product....m=ProductAds&gclid=CK_xwqHHuboCFaZcMgodvGIAvA )
I add my priming sugar just like others have mentioned: · boil the sugar in water · add the sugar solution to the bottling bucket · siphon the beer into the bottling bucket · gently stirring the beer in the bottling bucket to ensure equal distribution of the sugar throughout the beer Do you gently stir the sugar solution into the beer? Cheers!
I sort of play it by ear when I'm priming. Somewhere between 4 and 5 oz for most beers seems to work for me. A bit more when I want a higher carb level, less for less. (this is 5 gallon batches, BTW) What I do is boil the sugar in water, that is, add the sugar to boiling water, let it dissolve while bringing back to boil. I let it boil for a few minutes, just to make sure, then add it to my bottling bucket. I then rack the beer onto the sugar solution, angling the hose so I get a slight whirlpool effect. Keep that up through the racking, then into bottles. I have not noticed a wide variety of carbonation in my bottles, therefore, I presume my system works well to spread the sugar throughout the beer.
Strange issue. I have forgotten on more than one occassion to 'stir' after racking onto the sugar in the bottle bucket and have not had any uniformity issues. Typically for me the very act of racking onto the sugar distributes it quite well.
On one batch of beer I purposefully did not gently stir the sugar solution. I thought that the whirlpool agitation of the siphoning would be sufficient ‘action’ to get good mixing and I thought that the elimination of the stirring would be just one way to mitigate ‘extra’ oxygen ingress into the beer as part of the bottling process. That batch experienced inconsistent carbonation. I have gently stirred every batch since that one batch. If you are getting sufficient mixing simply by the siphoning/whirlpool action then stirring is not needed. I personally need stirring for my homebrewing. Cheers!
I add the sugar solution to the siphoned beer and stirring the solution. I guess the beer needs to add after the sugar solution, this way you get better stirring and uniformity.
I was having inconsistency in carbonation for some of my bottles, so now I gently stir the beer in the bottling bucket several times over the course of bottling the 5 gallons. I think the density of the priming solution can cause it to want to sink in the bucket, so a few extra GENTLE stirs has eliminated the problem for me.
Never had an issue. I always put the priming sugar solution into the bottling carboy BEFORE I rack the beer from the fermenter. Get a good mix going and you should be golden. However, a mild stir is certainly a good idea if you've had inconsistency problems. I personally don't make the priming sugar solution SO thick that it will be ridiculously heavy, viscous, or un-mixable with my wort. And part of getting a good mix is the height differential between fermentation bucket and bottling bucket (well, I use a carboy for bottling, but whatever). Perhaps by coincidence I've always done it from a surface that is about the height of a kitchen counter, with the other container on the floor. The flow of liquid is significant, but not turbulent or otherwise overly powerful. Note that when I do small batches in my mr beer keg, I bottle straight from the primary fermenter. This is mostly laziness on my part, and probably it is better to rack to a bottling carboy or bucket first, then bottle. It's just too damn easy with the mr beer keg tho, so I take the lazy man's route. However, this requires that when the priming sugar is added, the liquid in the fermenter is given a gentle stir. No matter what your method, you must ensure adequate mixing of the solutions, or you'll get inconsistent results.
This is a good thought to start with. They're expensive and inaccurate. use a carb calculator online to find out how much sugar you need per batch of beer. 1:1 water to sugar ratio simple syrup for a bottling bucket addition (You're usually around 2.75 oz / 5 gal of beer) Start to rack your beer into the bottling bucket After you're about a gallon over, start to add the sugar syrup. After you finish racking, take your brew spoon and sanitize it. Gently use your brew spoon to stir in the sugar. No Sloshing and stir up and down, more than side to side. Bottle as usual.
Nope I wasnt advocating for not stirring it in, merely saying that Ive forgotten to do so before and not gotten abnormal results. Definitely would recommend a light stirring to be on the safe side.
Just adding a note to this Discussion, on the same batch of beer, bottle with Grolsch like top always have more carb then any other bottle.
