Hey everyone. I brew with extract and use corn or table sugar to carbonate. In every batch I've brewed the carbonation level often varies from bottle to bottle. Can someone please tell me what I'm doing wrong?
Without knowing your process, only thing I can recommend is to make sure you are mixing in your priming sugar evenly. When I used to bottle, I'd mix my priming sugar, boil, then cool to room temp...then I'd rack my beer on top of it in the bottling bucket and get a good circular motion going... You'll never be able to eliminate the occassional over-carbed bottle...but I never had an issue overall using this technique
Gently stir the beer and priming sugar together solution before bottling. Try to do this 'beneath the surface'', i.e. avoid splashing on top. Sometimes, relying on the gentle 'racking whirlpool' isn't enough. Ironically, the better your racking technique, the more likely you are to get uneven priming.
I prime the bottles individually with a syringe; it lets me play around with the carb levels. I usually go on the lower side (1.5-2.0), but will do a sixer that's high and another that's on the low side. I also skip the bottling bucket, and just siphon straight out of the carboy into the bottles. I found that I wasted half my time just cleaning the bottling bucket before and after bottling, when it really didn't do anything for me other than make sure I exposed my beer to a lot of air prior to bottling.
sort of off topic..but would it be detrimental if you did not cool the priming sugar solution before adding it to the bottling bucket? I do this and am wondering if it is creating off flavors.
