Bottling question..

[beer1965]

Hi Guys..

I'm thinking I'll bottle my first brew this weekend. I bought some bottling glucose and am using a carboy. I realize I'm not sure how to go about mixing the sugar into the brew? If i were using a bucket it would be easier as I could pour in the sugar, stir and bottle. But as I'm in a carboy, what's the process? I don't want to aerate the beer so I'm not sure how to best mix it in. Any recommendations? It's a 5 gallon batch. Thanks in advance.. frank

 

[Craigerrr]

When I bottled, I boiled some water, added sugar, then cooled it. I then added that mixture to a sanitized bottling bucket and transferred the brew to the bucket with an auto syphon. I gave it a good stir before bottling.

If you have a local home brew shop, they will have everything you need to do this.

Good luck!

 

[Shepington]

You could prime each bottle but this can lead to differing levels of carbination because you arnt able to be exact.

 

[Nosybear]

Hi Guys..

I'm thinking I'll bottle my first brew this weekend. I bought some bottling glucose and am using a carboy. I realize I'm not sure how to go about mixing the sugar into the brew? If i were using a bucket it would be easier as I could pour in the sugar, stir and bottle. But as I'm in a carboy, what's the process? I don't want to aerate the beer so I'm not sure how to best mix it in. Any recommendations? It's a 5 gallon batch. Thanks in advance.. frank

Generally accepted practice is to make a syrup - add the sugar to about 2 cups/250ml water, boil it for ten minutes or so, then add to your beer. I generally make the syrup while I'm racking the beer to the bottling bucket, add the syrup and stir gently. Sugar is completely soluble in water so it will disperse quickly. If you're unwilling or unable to rack the beer, the process becomes much more difficult since you can't stir in a carboy. Under those circumstances, I think I'd go with carbonation drops or something similar, too hard to measure the sugar for each bottle.

 

[beer1965]

Thanks Guys.. I was trying to avoid buying a bottling bucket.. but will go get one! Thanks for the advice!

 

[Hogarthe]

You could use carbonation tabs. They are just sugar tabs you drop in each bottle. That way you don't need to transfer into a bottling bucket.

 

[Ward Chillington]

Oooo great idea Hogarthe! ...but a qualifier if I could, is the brew a really clean and well flocculated batch?

The only downside of direct filling to the bottle from the fermenter that I can think of is that you loose the uniformity of the beer that you will get by draining the carboy into the bottling bucket with the syrup as in getting chunk of trub in a bottle. If that same chunk-o-trub was to get into the bottling bucket, it's more likely to sink or get dissolved into the bucket and be spread out more evenly amongst your bottles rather then be in just one..and a potential gusher or worse.

Take it from a fellow cheap bastard, go buy a bucket...hell, get one off of Craig's List; just be sure to smell it before you buy and clean it before you use it, you will find other uses for it too. I keep a few gallons of filtered water in mine during brew day! All this and 20 minutes on You Tube and you should be good to go.

 

[Craigerrr]

I second, or third I guess, the bottling bucket. Not expensive at all. And can come in handy for other purposes even if you move to kegging.

 

[timetobrew]

Yup. Bottling bucket is the way to go. It's an easy solution. You won't be disappointed with it.

 

[Herm brews]

I brew small batches (usually 1.5 gallons into fermenter), and when time to bottle, gently transfer beer from the fermenter (glass carboy) into my clean, sanitized brew kettle. Like others suggest, I prime with boiled solution of sugar and water that is very gently mixed with the beer in the kettle. It is always good practice to be gentle with your beer during the transfer and packaging process. And it is also good practice to make sure everything that touches your beer during this process is clean and sanitized.

 

[Over The Cliff Brewing]

You cant go wrong with extra buckets. Having said that, I bottled a brown ale this past weekend using the fizz tabs. It was a 1.5 gal batch. Any larger I'm kegging. Kegging is worth the extra equipment $$'s.