Carbonation Advice

[JumpR]

Hi there,

 

have been lurking for a while, but need some specific advice...  I am on to my 6th brew, which is due for bottling.  I have previously used carbonation drops, but on my last brew I tried the bottling bucket approach where I dissolved 112gr of sugar in 1.5 cups of water, boiled for a bit, cooled, then added it to the bottling bucket followed by the beer (20L ).  I have just cracked a bottle (3 weeks later) and it is rather flat.  It was a coffee porter, and I was aiming for 2.3 carbonation level.

 

Currently I have 38L of pale ale ready to bottle and I don't want it to be flat (or conversely over carbonated)?  My last ratio accorded to beersmith and the John Palmer recommendation.  Any obvious errors in my previous bottling bucket approach?  Comments / thoughts?

 

Cheers and beers,

JumpR.

[Paul Fraser]

Sounds like you're doing the right thing. I boil the dextrose sugar in about a pint of water, let it cool a bit, then add the bottling bucket. Then i rack the beer on top. I've never had a problem. 2.3 is fairly low but i think it would be good for the style. Did you bottle the volume of beer that you predicted on beersmith - if not did you adjust the value on beersmith? That's all i think the issue could be. It may just seem low if you're used to carbonation drops as the only time i used them i thought my beer was over carbonated. Hope this might help.

[MrC]

Yeah sounds like you did everything right and I would expect it to be well carbonated at that priming rate.  I suspect it will continue to carbonate over the coming weeks.  What temp did you store the bottles at?  If the temp was lower that around 15-16C then it will carbonate very slowly.  Get them around 20C for a 5 days and see how they are then.

[Kelly Milligan]

Yea my bet is on temp. I had a pale ale which failed to carbonate after about 6 weeks when I first started brewing. Had been sitting at about 14c in my garage. Brought it upstairs to ~20c and after a week it was perfecto!

Another thing could be if it's been conditioning or aging in the fermenter for too long (2-3 months at room temp, or a month or so cold crashing). Causes more yeast to settle out. There will still be enough in there to carbonate it eventually, would just take a bit longer.

[JumpR]

They have been in the garage (tauranga) - up to 20-22C during the day, but down to 11C overnight recently.  Might be time to move them into the passage cupboard to keep the carbonation going strong.  The change is season happens to conincide with my change in priming technique so hadn't factored that in.  Cheers!

[Kelly Milligan]

Cool as man, let us know how it's looking in a couple weeks :)

[Chad Keven]

you could go "old man school" and put a level teaspoon of table sugar in each bottle i do this if i dont have the time or cant be arsed racking, cheaper than carb drops by heaps aswell.

doesnt adversly affect the outcome, also another technique i use is put all the bottles in my thermostat controlled fridge at 20deg for 1 week,that way theres no temp ups and downs

[jt]

Go the old man method, but only 1/2 teaspoon sugar. Get one of those scoop/measure things from your local shop

[Sam]

I use the small scoop on the measure for 500ml bottles, I find the small scoop over carbonates 330ml bottles, and I think the large scoop might carbonate 750ml bottles a bit to much

[jt]

When you've got bottles that don't fit with the drop, the teaspoon measure, or whatever, that's when you bulk prime

[MrC]

Yep, 1/2 tsp per 750ml bottle gives a standard, middle of the road carbonation good for pale ales.

[JumpR]

I have tried the sugar cubes before (when I ran out of carb drops), didn't quite fit through the neck of the bottle and needed a bit of encouragement.  Added 3 to a 750ml bottle and was way over carbed...  I managed to secure some space in the hot water cupboard which is sitting around 22deg, so that should work. 

[Ralph]

Also there is a difference between "corn sugar" which is dextrose and table sugar. You need to add slightly more table sugar than dextrose to get the same carbonation. It is a setting under "Fermentation" in BS.

I bucket prime and get consistently good carbonation using Beersmith values and using "Corn Sugar" (dextrose)

Anyway a porter should not be overcarbonated... low carb on a porter seems ok to me!