Carbonating

Google carbonation calculator. Pick the number of volumes CO2 you want and enter the other requested info. It will tell you how much sugar to use. Stay below 3 Volumes or so, and you shouldn't have any bottle problems.

If you're not sure how many volumes you want for a particular style, plenty of people here can make suggestions.

 

I strongly recommend that you add it to the bottling bucket vs. per bottle.

Boil your selected amount of sugar (by weight) in a cup of water. Add this sugar solution to the bottom of your bottling bucket and siphon the beer into the bottling bucket; make sure the siphon reaches the bottom to avoid splashing. Once the transfer is complete I personally choose to very gently stir using my racking cane. This process will ensure proper mixing of the sugar with the beer.

Cheers!

 

Adding your priming solution to the bottling bucket is 100 times better. The only time you can reliably bottle prime is if you use the individual dextrose tablets, and those are sometimes sketchy. In addition

• Boil your water. Boiling drives off oxygen. Then let it cool.
• Measure by weight not volume. Preferably measure to the gram. It makes a difference.
  
• You need to know the volume of beer you are bottling fairly accurately. It is most likely not five gallons.
  
• 2.5 vols of carbonation is typical. Try not to get too caught up in the difference between 2.4, 2.5, 2.6 etc. If it is a highly carbonated style, aim high and vice versa.
• There is residual carbonation in the beer. If the beer fermented at around 65 or above it can be safely ignored.

Start thinking about kegs. Eventually you will. Everyone does eventually.
Cheers

 

I would never suggest shooting for 3 volumes of CO2 in a standard 12 ounce long neck bottle. You are pushing the potential failure envelope at that juncture. 2.0 to 2.7 volumes of CO2 is generally plenty for nigh-on all styles. For the likes of Belgian styles at higher CO2 volumes than that, you need special bottles designed for the task.

 

Back when I was a bottler, I carbonated hefes to 3.5 volumes in standard LHBS 12 ounce bottles, with never an issue. I don't really think there's very much risk at 3.0 volumes, but we all have to draw our own lines in the sand somewhere. The fact is that defective/previously stressed bottles are more likely to burst than non-defective bottles, and that it's more likely to happen at higher volumes than lower ones. (A typical beer bottle rating is something like 45 PSI.)

 

Nothing wrong with bottling. I have been homebrewing for over 20 years (400+ batches) and they have all been bottled. I prefer beers to be bottle conditioned.

Cheers!

Edit: An article you might enjoy reading:

https://beerandbrewing.com/dictionary/iKSxvCoDdk/

 

Everyone is understandably scared of bottle bombs. But you have to really screw something up for that to happen. Kind of the same thing for infections.

 

Add it to the bottling bucket. BEFORE, and allow the coil to do all of your work for you. This prevents things like overcarbonating, and also bottle bombs.

 

My first couple years of brewing were extract and bottling then I stopped. A lot of work and the results were not what I was expecting.

I picked up the hobby years later and went into all grain and bottling again.

I’m not shittin on those practices but....

Kegging is the way to go.

A little investment and process goes along way. Everyone obviously has their own experience but I found that making a little effort, investment into equipment , trail & error has paid off.

 

Yes - I've always worried a bit about highly carbonated styles and how pressure a regular bottle can take, but at the same time, I've seen a lot more bottles that gushed than bottles that exploded and there's no style for which "all over the ceiling" is an appropriate level of carbonation. So presumably I'm being a bit over cautious?

FWIW I've been trying to get to a point where I use either decent quality swingtops (which seem fairly bombproof) or re-used Belgian bottles (which are designed for re-use and also for Belgian levels of carbonation) and that's been good for my peace of mind, too.

Agree on priming sugar - dissolved in warm water and into the bucket. I tend to stick it in once I've siphoned the beer and give it a gentle stir to disperse it.

 

I assume that those half-liter bottles used by the German breweries (I'm particularly thinking of Weihenstephaner, but I think other breweries use them too) are pretty robust, since hefeweizen is generally highly carbonated (I think like 3.5 volumes?). Those are my favorite bottles these days, it's a good amount of beer and I trust them to be highly durable. As an added bonus, the labels come off extremely easily in a little warm water.

 

I recommend those bottles as well. If you can get them. German brewers use those 500 ml bottles universally. They are cleaned and re-used, not recycled.
They are made to be particularly robust. If you see a white ring around the bottom and top, below the neck, it means the bottle has gone through the cleaning line a few times. Added bonus; they come pre-packaged with good German beer.

I don't bottle much at all anymore but I still have some of those from the mid 90s. They must have been used and re-used dozens of times.
Cheers.