Bottling Day Procedure?

[Truman42]

What's your bottling day procedure? Curious to hear how some of you go through the procedure?
Where do you put your caps once they've been sanitized to keep them clean?
Also I used brown sugar to carbonate last time and I've kept it in an Ice cream container. Will it be ok to use this time? I'm assuming it doesn't get nasties in it?
Thanks for the help.

 

[Yob]

What's your bottling day procedure? Curious to hear how some of you go through the procedure?

first thing is to boil 300 ml water and add 120g dex, (dunno about using brown sugar) leave to cool while I sanitise racking FV and bottles.

add priming solution to FV and rack onto it.

Bottle.

Caps are left in a starsan solution right up until they go on the bottle.

Label caps with brew number and put in cellar, fast forward two months - drink

 

[1974Alby]

sanitise caps???? never done it. Do most people sanitise caps? I figure theyre celan in the bag and have never had an issue with one.

Just grab em out of the bag and put them on to of the bottle then cap!

I used to prime 30 tallies with the double sided scoop thing and then fill them all and then cap them all, but often found I didnt have quite enough beer to fill 30 and was left with a couple of empty bottles with a scoop of caster sugar in them. Now I pre-prime about 25 (caster sugar), fill each and cap each immediately, and then individually prime the remaining bottles as needed until Ive got that last useable beer out of the fermenter.

work for me!

 

[Wolfman]

Does anyone filter before capping?

 

[manticle]

1. Faff about doing other things.
2. Soak bottles in sodium percarb for a few days while I faff about doing other things.
3. Faff about then start rinsing in my HLT full of water
4. faff about a bit more, maybe add some sodium metabisulphite solution to each if I feel I need to be extra cautious (often depends on how clean the bottles were before adding the percarb).
5. Rinse again after some faffing (sometimes a day or two later)
6. Get serious, calculate priming solution, boil and cover with glad wrap
7. Starsan each bottle.
8. Starsan clean fermenter, plastic butterfly valve/tap and silicon hose
9 Add priming solution, rack beer from vessel a to vessel b
10. Bottle

I rarely sanitise the caps although if it's an open bag that I haven't closed properly I may either spray with starsan or soak in starsan in a stainless bowl.

My procrastination regime suggests I may start kegging sometime within the next 5 years.

 

[peaky]

sanitise caps???? never done it. Do most people sanitise caps? I figure theyre celan in the bag and have never had an issue with one.

I never used to sanitise caps but these days I do. At the start of bottling I just tip some caps from the bag into a small plastic container with Starsan solution in it then take them out as I go. It's become a habit I suppose.

 

[matti]

In my bottling days long time ago, after I sanitized and drained my bottles, I'd Bulk prime.

1. I calculated the sugar required and disolved it in near boiling water and tipped it into a sanitized spare fermenter.
Then I decanted the finished beer from the primary fermenter into the fermenter with the sugar using a long food
grade hose from tap that reached the bottom and curled around the edge. ( I would clear the tap first approximatelly 150ml to get clear beer and sanitized the hose with boiling water and ethanol)

2. Slowly I decanted the beer into the lower fermenter without introducing too much air.

3. Once the beer had been totally mixed up I would bottle in the usual way.

The caps I would keep in a jar of pre-boiled water with sanitizer.
Pretty basic but effective.
​

The benefit of bulk priming is that I got consistent carbonisation in every bottle.
I never had an exploding bottle either.
It was little tricky first time around but wiht tip from friend at Grumpy's and AHB saw me through.

Cheers.

 

[logie]

i always just steralise my bottles in boiling water as they had already been rinsed after use, and the same with the caps just in a bowl and pour boiling water from kettle over them,you can never trust the caps from the packet as you don't know where they were packed, brown sugar is good for priming as it is a more natural form of sugar and doesn't affect taste, the less work you make for yourself bottling the qucker you can put down another brew.

 

[manticle]

, the less work you make for yourself bottling the qucker you can put down another brew.

Or you could just increase your number of fermenting vessels. I don't rely on bottling quickly for fermenting space.