I Have A Dirty Little Secret...

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Econwatson

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It's less exciting than it sounds I am afraid.

I have never.... bulk primed :'(

I know it's time I started, I've been brewing for a year and a half now!

So, I am brewing a blonde, could you suggest an appropriate level of carbonation for such a beer?

Also, can you recommend me the appropriate sugar to use? People always seem to say different things. One minute caster sugar is fine, then it isn't! Please recommend me a sugar :)

Thanks for your help!
 
What's wrong with dextrose?

Any decent priming calculator should have relevant volumes for you but Mr google will also find it for you... I usually went to the lower end of the scale
 
Any sugar that yeast can consume is, technically, fine. I tend to use Homebrand Raw Sugar I've boiled with a bit of water. It's what's in the sugar bowl. However, there may be folks who have experimented and found that subtleties arise from using different sugars. I am not that man. (But would be very interested to hear their results.)

You'll love bulk priming. You get much more predictable results.
 
Don't get peer pressured into bulk priming if you don't really want to. I've tried it twice and really didn't see any advantage (yes, I know, different bottle sizes and all) and it actually seemed more faffing around than usual at the time.
 
Econwatson said:
It's less exciting than it sounds I am afraid.

I have never.... bulk primed :'(

I know it's time I started, I've been brewing for a year and a half now!

So, I am brewing a blonde, could you suggest an appropriate level of carbonation for such a beer?

Also, can you recommend me the appropriate sugar to use? People always seem to say different things. One minute caster sugar is fine, then it isn't! Please recommend me a sugar :)

Thanks for your help!
I've been brewing for 5 years now and never bulk primed...
Admittedly I keg now, so the few left over bottles just get carb drops
 
yeah i don't bother either. i don't have a secondary container and i use all the same sized bottles so i can't really see it being a time saver.
 
I do it whenever I bottle instead of keg and I wouldn't do it any other way. It's quick, easy and you'll get uniform carbonation in your bottles.

Beersmith has a priming calculator and there's a priming calculator here.

Sugar or dextrose are your best options.
 
Wow, all these experienced brewers who carb-drop, but it's too late to get carb-drops now, will have to bulk prime this once!

It just feels dirty carb-dropping, like I am still doing K&K! (not that there is anything wrong with that!)
 
Florian said:
Don't get peer pressured into bulk priming if you don't really want to. I've tried it twice and really didn't see any advantage (yes, I know, different bottle sizes and all) and it actually seemed more faffing around than usual at the time.
Not really difficult.

How much volume of beer do you have?
How many g/L of sugar do you want to add?
Measure sugar - add some boiling water to dissolve - add to bucket/tub/whatever… done.
 
For a general K&K home brew recipe, for 23l my rule of thumb is 180g of dextrose. I use dextrose because it dissolves really nicely.

To be honest, I've never really been too critical of carb levels mainly due to my a) lack of variety in beers styles from off-the-shelf stuff and b) the changes in storage conditions and carbonation over the months I might finish a given brew. I was more critical of the taste than the fizz. That said, when bottling I bulk prime and never looked back.
For AG I pay a bit more attention now and calculate it. Again though... I've never cracked open a bottle and gone "hmm, 23% less cabonated than what I was expecting. Castor over raw sugar was a poor choice, will up the sugar by 27g next time". I'm too busy marvelling at how I've produced a beer at home that tastes better than stuff I've had off the shelf at half the cost. Plus I don't know enough about different styles to critique it.
 
Econwatson said:
Wow, all these experienced brewers who carb-drop, but it's too late to get carb-drops now, will have to bulk prime this once!

It just feels dirty carb-dropping, like I am still doing K&K! (not that there is anything wrong with that!)
I mostly bottle left overs in Grolsch flip top bottles
I find 1 drop gives a perfect amount of carbonation for most ales
2 in a tallie usually seems pretty fine to me too
 
I bulk primed two batches, got really bad results, and went back to carb drops. Not saying there's anything wrong with the method, rather somehow I was doing it wrong and couldn't work out why. Now I keg so let the gas bottle do it for me. I've been planning to do 23ish litre batches and bottle the leftover beer, but still having some efficiency issues on my BIAB rig so I'm only getting around 20 litres into the fermenter anyway, so no leftover. When I do sort it out and get my 23 litres I'll carb drop my handful of bottles,
 
Spiesy said:
Not really difficult.

Measure sugar - add some boiling water to dissolve - add to bucket/tub/whatever… done.
Yep, sounds easy, but you also need to clean and sanitise an extra bucket and transfer hose, and have the added risk of possible infection and oxygenation during transfer.

Each to their own, but I'm better off kegging...
 
I've never bulk primed. Don't bottle too much but I get by without it.
 
I keg, but I make batches of about 23L so I usually have 4L left over after filling my 19L keg. I just prime each bottle individually because I'm only doing 8 bottles or so and you don't get the economy of scale that you do bulk priming a full 23L batch.

When I bottled a full batch I always would bulk prime though.
 
I bulk prime and normally just pour my boiled sugar solution straight into the ferment vessel without transfer.

:ph34r: That's my dirty little secret.
 
When I first started, I used carb drops until one of my brews turned out like champagne - taste was fine but the carbonation was way too much.

First time I bulk primed it was average, the second time even worse.

Since then I have mastered it and could not think of using carb drops again - besides my LHBS sells dex at a great price.

Whatever you feel comfortable with mate, its all a learning experience
 
There are pros and cons with both ways.

With bulk priming you really need to make sure the transfer tube running from your FV to the bottling bucket is long enough to coil around the bottom to prevent splashing and oxidising your beer.

I dissolve my dextrose in about 200ml of boiling hot water, pour that into the bottling bucket and at the beginning of the transfer, I tilt the bottling bucket slightly, so that the end of the transfer tube is submerged. This minimises the risk of splashing. Also, if you have co2 it's a good idea to give a decent blast into the bottling bucket before transfer.
 
Damnit, don't think I can get dextrose either! Would raw sugar be my best alternative??
 

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