Priming bottles with a syringe

[Gggsss]

Afternoon all
Got a quick question as per the title.

Basically I prime directly in to each 500ml bottle with 3/4 teaspoon of dextrose. Provides my preferred carbonation. But sterilize the funnel and teaspoon with StarSan and try and wait for it to dry, but takes too long so I crack on and the sugar gets stuck/clogged up. End result is satisfactory but its a bit of a mess.
Want to try using a sugar solution/syringe to see if it's any easier. Question is what is the water/sugar ratio and method. Figuring out how much sugar I need is straight forward enough, but as mentioned ration & method (I assume heating is required, so do I need to calculate for evaporation or are factors like that negligible??) ....

I appreciate any feedback.....

 

[An Ankoù]

I appreciate any feedback.....

Too much like artificial insemination for my liking!

It's easy: count up how many bottles you want to fill and multiply that by 3/4. The answer will tell you how many teaspoonsful of sugar to dissolve in a volume of water. So if you've got 40 bottles, say, dissolve 30 teaspoonsful of supgar in 400 ml of warm or hot water and when it's cooled, syringe 10 ml of syrup into each bottle. You might have a bit left over but it doesn't matter.
I've never tried it, it might not dissolve in 400 ml, if not add another 200 ml to dissolve the sugar and syringe 15 ml of syrup into each bottle. And so on.

 

[Ezza]

Dissolve the sugar in freshly boiled water

 

[Rochefort]

Question is what is the water/sugar ratio and method.

As others have said, dissolve in freshly boiled water. The sugar will displace some of the water so it will affect the final volume.

Greg Noonan suggests that adding 100 g of sugar to water will displace 62 ml of water once it dissolves. So 100 g sugar + 100 ml water = 162 mls in total. He didn't state whether the sugar was sucrose or glucose but it probably doesn't matter that much.

I bet you can figure out the rest!

 

[moto748]

I detailed the procedure I used on the "Batch prime" thread in this folder.

 

[dad_of_jon]

Too much like artificial insemination for my liking!

It's easy: count up how many bottles you want to fill and multiply that by 3/4. The answer will tell you how many teaspoonsful of sugar to dissolve in a volume of water. So if you've got 40 bottles, say, dissolve 30 teaspoonsful of supgar in 400 ml of warm or hot water and when it's cooled, syringe 10 ml of syrup into each bottle. You might have a bit left over but it doesn't matter.
I've never tried it, it might not dissolve in 400 ml, if not add another 200 ml to dissolve the sugar and syringe 15 ml of syrup into each bottle. And so on.

I've dissovled up to 60g of brewing sugar in 400ml of water - I do that only it goes into a bottling bucket

 

[Broken Toe]

I do this based on feedback here. I add sugar and water in equal mass and then cover with cling film and bung it in the microwave. Then just divide mass of sugar by remaining volume, load into a 5ml syringe to the volume I need. Did the job.

 

[Scottyburto]

This is becoming far too complicated.
For a 20l batch
Put a jug on a scale and zero.
Weigh sugar eg 5g x 20l = 100g
Add boiling water UP TO 200ml INCLUDING the volume of the sugar.
Stir and you end up with 200ml of sugar solution.
5ml of sugar solution per 500ml bottle is the same as 2.5g of sugar per 500ml
As long as you top up to 200ml you will have 40 x 5ml doses.
Increase or decrease the amount of sugar to your carbonation preference. Eg 3/4tsp per bottle would be 7.5g x 20l = 150g.
Still top UP TO 200ml.

 

[Gggsss]

Thanks all. As mentioned I can work out the sugar needed just wondered the sugar to water ratio. Sure all will be fine...

 

[Clint]

Buy a bottling bucket for goodness sake!

 

[steve123]

I make my sugar/water mix pour into a granulated cylinder for an accurate measurement and divide the volume by number of bottles
Definitely easier than batch priming less cleaning, transferring the wort between vessels takes longer than it does to add solution to bottles using syringe, and no requirement to shake bottles to mix sugar added directly

 

[steve123]

Thanks all. As mentioned I can work out the sugar needed just wondered the sugar to water ratio. Sure all will be fine...

Doesn’t really matter, I add enough water so the sugar can be dissolved. For my last one maybe added 150-200ml water

 

[DCBC]

I bottled with a syringe once.

I dutifully measured out all my sugar, dissolved it in boiling water, then capped 40 bottles.

Only to find that I had forgotten to put the sugar solution into the bottling bucket.

That left me with a problem as I wanted to ensure that I had the right amount of sugar in each one, so I measured the solution in mls, divided it by 40, uncapped them all and syringed that amount into each bottle. It worked out fine but it took forever. Please don't do it to yourself.

 

[Alan_Reginato]

I use 200 g of sucrose in 500 ml (total volume). Is12 ml or 4,8 g every 600 ml of beer. I boil the mixture, evaporation rate shouldn't be an issue, and let it cool with an lid on top. The syringe is 10 mL, but if full, is nearly 12, so it's more practical. Also, scale it for a leftover of 10-20%. Because isn't nice have a couple of bottles to prime and no sugar left.

 

[Rugby Fan.]

I was thinking of using a vets/farmers drencher for this but can't get any info on how accurate you can set the dosage.

And it appears they have to be reloaded for each dose is this correct?

There's more expensive ones with feeding lines that I could attach to a bottle of syrup

These look to be much easier:

I'm just wondering what kind of bottle and cap I could use to load the syringe wit

 

[Cwrw666]

I wouldn't if I were you. All the ones I've ever used for sheep have been a pain to use. And before you start you have to oil the piston to get them to work at all. I don't imagine even food grade oil will improve your beer.

 

[MashBag]

Afternoon all
Got a quick question as per the title.

Basically I prime directly in to each 500ml bottle with 3/4 teaspoon of dextrose. Provides my preferred carbonation. But sterilize the funnel and teaspoon with StarSan and try and wait for it to dry, but takes too long so I crack on and the sugar gets stuck/clogged up. End result is satisfactory but its a bit of a mess.
Want to try using a sugar solution/syringe to see if it's any easier. Question is what is the water/sugar ratio and method. Figuring out how much sugar I need is straight forward enough, but as mentioned ration & method (I assume heating is required, so do I need to calculate for evaporation or are factors like that negligible??) ....

I appreciate any feedback.....

zevro sugar dispenser

It delivers a metered dose of sugar per press. Various dosage inserts.
Use cane caster sugar, a small funnel, takes 1 second per bottle.

No extra vessels, scales, measures, spoons or washing up.

Fill and go. Happy days

Had mine for years and would replace immediately if it broke.

 

[MashBag]

I was thinking of using a vets/farmers drencher for this but can't get any info on how accurate you can set the dosage.

Tried those first. What a PITA and inaccurate.

 

[Rugby Fan.]

zevro sugar dispenser

It delivers a metered dose of sugar per press. Various dosage inserts.
Use cane caster sugar, a small funnel, takes 1 second per bottle.

No extra vessels, scales, measures, spoons or washing up.

Fill and go. Happy days

Had mine for years and would replace immediately if it broke.

Thanks!
That looks cool but a PITA for me to get my hands on where I am.

I'll just go with a comically large syringe. I'm only doing 40 bottles at a time so I'll get over having to refill it once per batch.

Or, being they cost all of €4, I'll just get 2.

The reason I'm not batch priming is because I don't trust me and plastic buckets, no matter how careful I am. I even got one of those stainless bottle wands from ali express. I'll just use the racking arm on my brew monk conical and pray my silicone hose that has been boiled to death is sanitized

 

[MashBag]

Cripes... They have gone up in price since I purchased.

Before that I used modified small syringe to make an accurate measure with coat hanger.

The design is from an "vintage gun power measure" (Google search)



Cut the syringe (prolly a 5ml) down the the size you need. Insert wire from coat hanger into the hole to form handle.

Surprisingly accurate because it is tall and thin. Unbreakable too