Priming bottles with a syringe

[evil.soup]

It might be dextrose or glucose or some other sugar that's not table sugar, which the yeast would find easier to ferment. However, they find table sugar pretty easy to ferment, and the differences of different priming sugars have been shown to make no noticeable difference to the beer.

Though over the course of 5-10 batches that comes out at about a penny a pint... I wouldn't worry too much about the cost of it

Lol yeah that is a fair financial point!

 

[MashBag]

Using a funnel, I generally put my finger near the neck of the bottle so the funnel spout doesn’t touch anything

Or put the sugar in first, then the beer?

 

[Rugby Fan.]

Or put the sugar in first, then the beer?

I assumed that's what everyone does so you'll still have head space after you pull out your wand.

 

[MashBag]

It does leave me wondering, have a been fleeced paying around £3.50 for 1kg of priming sugar when 1kg of table sugar is under £1? Not the greatest loss in my life of course, again, just curious.

Run the same recipe again with tate and lyle (cane) table sugar. If you can't taste the difference you have your answer?

 

[Neale]

That is pretty much what I will be doing, should be far easier and my split into 200ml of water will give me 5ml fluid per dose.
How much sugar do you normally mix with 200ml?

I usually do 12L batches so I dont actually mix 200ml of water, I use an appropriate amount of water for the batch size I'm bottling.

So if its a 12L batch I would typically assume a bit extra just in case, so I recently made a Porter and made a solution of 78g of table sugar and topped the water up to 125ml.

To calculate it easier if you use Brewfather, (this is what I use), or similar it will tell you the amount of sugar required for the bottling volume that you have. So for example

My porter had a bottling volume of 11.68L and brewfather said I needed 73g of table sugar to reach 2.4 volumes of CO2.

First I work out the concentation of sugar to wort in g/L

73g / 11.68L = 6.25g/L

Then to work out the volume of sugar solution required you simply take the bottling volume of 11.68L and times by 10 to get 116.8ml, (what you should actually do is take 11680ml and divide by 100, but you get the same answer by multiplying the bottling 'litres' by 10 and taking the anwser as ml). Remember that you are not adding 116ml of water, you are topping up to the volume to 116ml.

Then use 5ml of solution for a 500ml bottle or 3.3ml for a 330ml bottle etc

As someone mentioned above it a good idea to make slightly more solution just in case you squeeze an extra bottle out of the FV.

So to do this I add an extra 500ml to the bottling volume so that makes a total volume of 12.18L so the maths go like this.

73g / 11.68L = 6.25g/L Concentration of sugar required
11.68L + 0.5L = 12.18L Total bottling volume
12.18L x 6.25g/L = 76.125g Weight of sugar required
12.18L x 10 = 121.8ml Volume to top up to

I have it all in a spreadsheet if your interested? I have made an easier to follow version here

Carbonation Spreadsheet

 

[dad_of_jon]

I used to put around 160g in a bottling bucket mixed with about 400ml. (not 60g) as I previously posted.

then racked the beer on top.

however this meant that either the first or the last beers in a batch were under or overcarbonated as it took a while to get through a batch.

so I started individually injecting priming solution per bottle. I typically divide the dosage into 3 batches. A bit more for the first 1/3 and a bit less for the last third. This keeps the carbonation level more uniform over 6 months or so it takes to get through a batch.

Also only one bucket to clean and no racking time either from fv to bb which evens out the time taken to individually prime.

I use the notes below to decide how much of the solution to add to each bottle...
I appreciate when you add 160g of sugar to 400ml of water you don't end up with 400ml of sugary water you end up with a bit more solution but its close enough for me.

7gm/l is
160g/400ml = 0.4g/ml = 7/.4 = 17.5
160g/350ml = 0.45g/ml = 7/.45 = 15.55 = 4.7 per 330 so 5 or 8 per 500
180g/400ml = 0.45g/ml = 7/.45 = 15.55
180g/350ml = 0.51g/ml = 7/.51 = 13.72 per litre = 4.57(4.5) per 330 or 6.86 (7) per 500

PRIMING RATES AROUND 7gm per l.
350ml in 20 liters = 17.5ml per litre 5.775 per 330 = 6
350ml in 19 litres = 18.42ml per litre 5.582 per 330 = 5.5
350ml in 18.5 litres = 18.91ml per litre 5.73 per 330 = 6
300ml in 20 = 15ml per litre = 4.95 per 330 = 5
300ml in 21 = 14.25ml per litre = 4.71 per 330 = 4.5

 

[Justin Dean]

So much easier to batch prime

 

[MashBag]

I can only assume there are lot of peeps wanting to spend more time in the shed than the house . What are you running away from...the wife or the kids

 

[Rugby Fan.]

So much easier to batch prime

Batch priming involves more risk of infection for me.

And with my 200ml syringe, I only need to draw once and I can dose every bottle in the same amount of time as a batch prime. And less washing up.

And the maths is really simple. Calculate sugar same as batch priming, top up with boiling water to an easily divisible number and that's it.

 

[evil.soup]

So much easier to batch prime

I won't be transferring to a bottling vessel so batch priming is an issue. I don't want to add the primer to the fermentor as I am concerned it won't mix evenly and I don't want to disturb the sediment.

 

[moto748]

It seems moot to discuss the minutia of how we calculate priming, when we have little common ground on what the actual amount of sugar could/should be. I look at the last couple of posts, and I think, 7 g per litre, 3.5 g per bottle? That's not even in the ball-park as far as I'm concerned. But clearly, guys, it works for you. So it surely must be very dependent on individual method?

My range of priming goes from 2.3 g per bottle (stouts) to as low as 1.5 g per bottle for bitters.

 

[evil.soup]

It seems moot to discuss the minutia of how we calculate priming, when we have little common ground on what the actual amount of sugar could/should be. I look at the last couple of posts, and I think, 7 g per litre, 3.5 g per bottle? That's not even in the ball-park as far as I'm concerned. But clearly, guys, it works for you. So it surely must be very dependent on individual method?

My range of priming goes from 2.3 g per bottle (stouts) to as low as 1.5 g per bottle for bitters.

I have based my 8g per ltr on some charts on coopers I think it was. Plus, it is recommended 1.5 carbonation drops per 500ml which which is around 4g.

 

[Rugby Fan.]

It seems moot to discuss the minutia of how we calculate priming, when we have little common ground on what the actual amount of sugar could/should be. I look at the last couple of posts, and I think, 7 g per litre, 3.5 g per bottle? That's not even in the ball-park as far as I'm concerned. But clearly, guys, it works for you. So it surely must be very dependent on individual method?

My range of priming goes from 2.3 g per bottle (stouts) to as low as 1.5 g per bottle for bitters.

I just use this Beer Priming Sugar Calculator | Brewer's Friend

For 2.5 vols CO2 I need 3.5g per 500ml bottle

 

[moto748]

Well, I don't really care what calculators say. Nor am I interested in "vols of CO2". I just want an amount of sugar that gives me the level of carbonation I like for a given style. And, as I said upthread, different brewing methods must have their effect. But I am a little surprised that some posters are effectively using two or times the amount of sugar that I am.

 

[Agentgonzo]

Nor am I interested in "vols of CO2". I just want an amount of sugar that gives me the level of carbonation I like for a given style.

"level of carbonation" is measured as "vols of CO2". There are handy charts around that tell you typical values for given styles. You then use with a calculator to determine how much sugar to add.

eg:

But I am a little surprised that some posters are effectively using two or times the amount of sugar that I am.

Some people let their fermenter completely ferment out before bottling. Sometimes you can think it's done, but it still has sugar in there left to ferment, so you need to add less sugar to the bottles in order to get the carbonation desired. Some people also like flatter/fizzier beer.

 

[evil.soup]

"level of carbonation" is measured as "vols of CO2". There are handy charts around that tell you typical values for given styles. You then use with a calculator to determine how much sugar to add.

eg:
View attachment 85440


Some people let their fermenter completely ferment out before bottling. Sometimes you can think it's done, but it still has sugar in there left to ferment, so you need to add less sugar to the bottles in order to get the carbonation desired. Some people also like flatter/fizzier beer.

Now that is pretty much what I have based my primer weight on, although the one I saw had also been pre-calculated to show the range of grams per ltr based on the style of beer.

I went in the upper middle ground of the lager range at 8g per ltr because I like a bit of fizz in my lager, pretty simple really.

 

[Rugby Fan.]

Naturally a German engineered something for this. You stick it on a bottle (after bottling) to measure your carbonation throughout the conditioning phase.

http://www.mattmill.de/manometer/

 

[Agentgonzo]

Naturally a German engineered something for this. You stick it on a bottle (after bottling) to measure your carbonation throughout the conditioning phase.

http://www.mattmill.de/manometer/

Low tech solution. Use a pet bottle and give it a squeeze every so often to "measure" the carbonation

 

[Rugby Fan.]

Low tech solution. Use a pet bottle and give it a squeeze every so often to "measure" the carbonation

Accurate to within 2 decimal places!

 

[MashBag]

Low tech solution. Use a pet bottle and give it a squeeze every so often to "measure" the carbonation

I agree. But its nice to see they have caught up

You can do this with a drilled crown cap, a pressure gauge and a jubilee clip.

You would have thought it was digital by now, with a phone app and data logging.