I Borked Bulk Priming

[Narcolepsy]

I made another dark beer that I oh-so-love. This time it's a coopers stout kit with some dextrose, dark malt and brown sugar (pre-packaged 'stout' fermentables from my local home brew shop). No hops this time as I haven't used a stout kit before. Just to make another land-mark, I thought I'd give bulk priming a go with my newly acquired second fermenter. Here's the problem:

I put 175g of dextrose in the bottom of the second fermenter, poured in the brew (using some food-grade tubing, avoiding aeration) and had the tubing set so it would push the wort over the dextrose. I then gave the brew a good stirring with my stirrer, again avoiding agitation. When I finished bottling it all I found dextrose down the bottom. I reckon there was 1/3 to 1/2 of the dextrose still left on the bottom.

Just how flat is my beer going to be? Is there anything I can/should do to fix it? Is this the end of the universe???

 

[wee stu]

New to this game myself - but I understand that you should dissolve the priming sugars in boiling water b4 adding to the secondary container.
That way you know the sugars are already in solution before you start introducing the brew.

 

[GSRman]

narco: what was the gravity of the brew when you bottled?

 

[THE DRUNK ARAB]

Narco, wee stu is correct. You should dissolve the priming sugar or malt with boiling water in a glass, add to the bottom of the fermenter then rack your brew on top of this, the swirling action of the beer going into your fermenter will ensure you don't need to stir.
As for the amount of sugar, personally I don't like stout too gassy so I would have used around 60-80 grams of castor sugar. I reckon yours will be fine, just give it 3-4 weeks to carbonate.
A good online calculator for working out sugar or malt amounts for carbonation is here:http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator/carbonation.html?3493970#tag

Good luck
TDA

 

[joecast]

did a similair thing with my pilsner i bottled about two weeks ago.

first i dissolved the dextrose (about 180g) in about 500ml of hot water. just stirred it on the stove until it was just about all dissoled. then poured that into the bucket and racked the brew on top of it. when i finished, i didnt see any sediment left over from the dextrose, or anything else really.
joe

 

[deebee]

Narco, I would be worried about a few bombs amongst the pack. Don't want to be a fear-monger but it's likely that a few of the last bottles got a bigger slurp of dextrose sucked through. Is it possible to identify which bottles you filled last? If so open them after a week or two and check carbonation. You can just prise up one crimp on the crown seals to see the Phhhhst then run the capper back over it.

Otherwise, follow what TDArab says.

 

[Narcolepsy]

I didn't check the gravity of the brew because someone *cough* managed to stand on my little floaty guage thingo. I smashed two bottle and was unable to get a third one clean, so the last part of the brew went into a hurredly sterilised 1.25L PET bottle. They're indestructable. Before that bottle, I didn't move the fermenter at all after stirring so all of the bottles should have a similar amount of sugar.

Thanks for your answers though. Next time I'll be dissolving the dextrose first, as well as measuring the gravity. A thick stout doesn't need a lot of fizz, just enough bubbles to make that lovely creamy head...

 

[deebee]

Another thing Narco,

I don't know about stouts, but I have experimented a couple of times with not priming dark ales at all, just letting the conditioning put some bubbles in. After 1 month they are virtually flat. After 3 months they have a little carbonation. After 6 months they are pretty good with some head and a nice light carbonation.

And the beauty of bottling stouts into PET bottles is that they look like coke in your esky when security search you going into the footy!

 

[wee stu]

A good dark ale or porter passes as sarsparilla in a coke PET bottle too!
The footy has never looked so good since I started home brewing!
Never tasted as good either!

 

[Jethro]

Here is the website that put me on to bulk priming,http://www.homebrew.com.au/bulkpri.htm
Since then I have had perfect carbonation I often use diferent size bottles and so it has been partriculary useful
Jethro

 

[jayse]

deebee
have you tried doing that same thing but bottle before the ferment finishes like 90% done.this is a techniquie used for real ale casks

 

[RobW]

A tip for PET bottles. When you put the cap on squeeze all the air out. This does 2 things: removes oxygen and tells you when the bottle is primed because it regains its original shape from CO2 pressure.

 

[Trough Lolly]

Ahhh Haa!

I bought a second brew kit (coopers I think) the other day (for ciders) and it came with 2 dozen brown pets. I used them for a brew and found the whole lot were flat as a tack - the couple of stubbies I also used were fine when I opened them so I suspected the plastic bottles rather than the brew itself...

Perhaps I should have squeezed the air out before capping and let the CO2 do its stuff?? :huh:

 

[RobW]

It should still be OK, just that the bottle can go out of shape due to the pressure. Sounds like your lids leaked.