Hello! I am a pretty new brewer and just tried my second brew! I scaled down a recipe (belgian trippel) that was for 5 gallons (didn't have the equipment for it) down to 1 gallon. I measured out everything pretty well using a kitchen scale and did everything the same otherwise. -Stage one fermentation 4 days -Stage two fermentation 10 days -Bottle condition 2 weeks @65-68 degrees When I cracked open one of the bottles, no carbonation (I used a bottle with a swing top for convenience). Grabbed a different bottle and shook it a little and saw bubbles. Cracked that open and *POP*. The taste wasn't bad. Better than I hoped for, given the first one was sort of a dud. I shook the other ones and it looked like the rest were OK. My question is, should I use the sugar drops for the carbonation or use the sugar that came with the kit? I can at least figure that the drops, you know what you're getting every time in terms of the amount. Versus one or two might be more/less than the others. I guess also the "authenticity" of the brew. Thanks!
You should decide how much carbonation (i.e. the "volumes" of CO2) you want for your beer, perhaps depending on the style. Then figure out how much sugar (table sugar or corn sugar) you'll need to get that level of carbonation for the amount of beer you are bottling. There are several calculators out there. Here's one: http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator/carbonation.html Just make sure your priming solution is well mixed with the beer you are bottling. That's the key to even carbonation. I doubt many people will say that using drops is the way to go for best control. By the way, for a beer as big as a Tripel, carbonating at 65-68F for only 2 weeks, there's a fair chance it's not finished yet.
I am pretty new to brewing beer too (6 months) but have found that mixing the priming sugar (the 5ozs that most kits come with is usually too much - 2-4 ozs seems to be plenty good for most ales) with boiling water then let cool for 5 minutes and dump in your bottling bucket then add the fermented beer to the bucket - the two will mix as they transfer so no need to stir too much. Also you dont want to agitate the beer too much at this stage since the added oxygen can cause infections.
This is not quite accurate. Oxygen post-fermentation will cause oxidation and more rapid staling of the beer. Infections are caused by microbes other than your yeast getting into the beer. A gentle but adequate mixing is recommended. A little bit of oxygen into your beer is much more desirable than uneven sugar content in your bottles causing some to be too flat and other to be overly carbonated, sometimes dangerously so.
