11 votes
Accepted

How can I get more consistent carbonation in bottles?

weigh your priming sugar, don't measure the volume boil it in just enough water to dissolve it for a few minutes pour that sugar syrup into your bottling bucket rack the beer onto the sugar mixture ...
  • 33.4k
10 votes

When bottling, is it better to use corn sugar or saved wort?

Having done both, I can tell you that sugar (corn or table, doesn't matter) is the way to go. It's easy reliable and tasteless. Priming with gyle (the name for what you propose) is uncertain and ...
  • 33.4k
9 votes
Accepted

Swing-top bottles leaking carbonation

Replace the seals. Buying 100 seals from eBay should cost you something like US$10. I also use swing-top bottles, and my protocol is to replace a seal immediately after opening a bottle that turned ...
  • 1,488
9 votes

Life expectancy of swing-top bottles

It is a mechanical cap, as long as the mecanism and rubber is good, the bottle will be good. Changing the rubber seal is one way to expand the life of these bottles, however you should inspect the ...
  • 4,796
8 votes
Accepted

Sanitizing with bleach without rinsing

According to this page, which was linked to recently on Basic Brewing Radio's facebook page, you can make no-rinse sanitizer with: bleach diluted to 80 ppm an equivalent amount of white vinegar to ...
  • 2,819
8 votes
Accepted

How long should a carbonated bottle be refrigerated prior to drinking?

If bottle-conditioning is completely finished, there's no reason it won't be ready to drink as soon as it's cold, if you're only considering carbonation. The amount of CO2 in solution is indeed ...
7 votes
Accepted

Can ring crown bottles be recapped?

Give it a try-- fill a bottle with water, put a cap on, flip it upside down, and see if any water drips out. If the cap makes a watertight seal, then the next time you're bottling fill a couple and ...
7 votes

Adding Spraymalt

Compute the total amount of spraymalt required to carbonate your entire batch of beer. Dissolve that amount of spraymalt in a cup or two of water to create your priming solution. Boil it briefly to ...
  • 1,432
7 votes

how do you add yeast during bottling stage and ensure it won't burst?

I can't imagine anyone suggesting bottling at a FG of 1.042 I would return them to the fermenter and allow fermintation to complete. Those are bottle bombs. Be careful. Many yeasts don't survive at ...
7 votes

Reduce sediment in bottle for IPA

You'll never remove the sediment at the bottom when bottle conditioning. 5-6mm is not a terribly large amount of sediment either. Here are a few methods that can reduce the sediment: Use a ...
  • 411
7 votes
Accepted

Can I over-filter my beer?

If you are worried about the yeast getting through that bag, you have nothing to worry about. When we talk about sterile filtration, the generally accepted size of the filter is .45u (micron). 1000 ...
  • 3,012
7 votes
Accepted

Carbonation process - Using the carboy

You do not want to do this. Carboys are not meant to hold pressure and will break. If you want clearer beer, aging it longer in a carboy and/or using something like gelatin or whirlfloc will greatly ...
  • 3,012
6 votes
Accepted

Homebrewing Soda, Safety Concerns

I think what you made is safe, but there's no way to not produce alcohol with that method.
  • 33.4k
6 votes

Best way to avoid stirring up trub while bottling/kegging from the primary?

Just becasue you don't use secondary doesn't mean you can't rack to a bottling bucket and bottle from that. That's what I do. So, to answer the question directly, the best way to bottle from a ...
  • 33.4k
6 votes

Can I store beer in wine bottles

I agree with JesseB1234 and Mr_road. I did it myself a few times and results may vary. I had one cork poping up out of 5 bottles. It is not ideal, but if you have no other option, here are a few ...
  • 4,796
6 votes
Accepted

Filter paper pre bottling

Oi! No it would not be ok. You risk infecting and oxidising your beer. Just use one of {finings, cold crash, gelatine} or a combination of these to get all haze settled, then rack the clear beer from ...
  • 1,488
6 votes
Accepted

How to over carbonate?

Bottle bombs are usually beers that are about 10 gravity points above terminal gravity for standard 12oz bottles, then hit TG in the bottles. So 1.020 SG when 1.010 is TG. For typical normal ...
6 votes
Accepted

Bottle Bombs or Paranoia

According to this calculator, adding 1.4oz of sugar to 2gal at 35°F is equivalent to adding 5.4oz at 68°F. At 35°F the disolved CO2 is around 1.61vol whereas at 68°F it is 0.86vol. In your case the ...
  • 799
6 votes

How to avoid homebrew-cider to explode out of the bottle when opening?

The problem is that the cider is still under active fermentation - even if it does not look it. The yeast is consuming sugar, producing CO2, alcohol and flavours. The CO2 gas is over-pressurising ...
  • 2,060
6 votes

Re-using Caps in new Batches

I never considered reusing caps, in my opinion, they probably have suffered some sort of flaw in their ability to reseal a bottle and be able to retain pressure. If you want to try a few caps after ...
  • 502
6 votes

Life expectancy of swing-top bottles

If it's a quality Grolsch bottle, it will serve you for years. If it's a generic swing-top bottle from LHBS, don't expect much. Get a large pack of replacement seals off eBay and replace a seal on a ...
  • 1,488
5 votes
Accepted

Bottling vs Kegging Questions

Let's separate this out into two phases: carbonation and dispensing. Carbonation inside a keg can be done just like carbonation inside a bottle: by the addition of a specific amount of sugar, which ...
  • 10.1k
5 votes
Accepted

When bottling, is it better to use corn sugar or saved wort?

Using sugar is easier. There is no risk that you have too much gyle or too little. You can just buy extra sugar and be on the safe side. Gyle needs to be saved in sterile containers (I usually fill a ...
  • 1,226
5 votes
Accepted

How to use priming sugar

Based upon what you said, namely that you only have the one container and it is currently filled with your cider, here are what I see for the pros/cons: Adding it directly to the bucket will give you ...
  • 608
5 votes
Accepted

Oxidation during bottling

It really shouldn't be an issue for oxidation. I wouldn't worry about it. When racked properly only the surface area is exposed. At worse maybe the last couple bottles may have an issue. The beer is ...
5 votes

Bottling Bucket - really necessary?

Most of the equipment is not really necessary. It may just make it much easier. When you use a bottling bucket, you rack from fermenter to bottling bucket, leaving a layer of dead yeast cells and ...
  • 1,226
5 votes
Accepted

PET Bottle shelf life

IMHO PET bottles will keep beer very well for up to 6 months. Beer can be kept longer than that but I have noticed that "fizzy drinks" PET bottles can lose pressure after a year or so. Apparently the ...
  • 5,631
5 votes
Accepted

Is head space really necessary when bottling still mead?

Yes the head space is important. At the very least, you need the head space to cushion fluid volume expansion & contraction from temp change.
5 votes

Foam is gone after fridging, Should not I fridge?

If your beer really is stale, that would mean that you have a problem with the caps on your bottles because of the low temperature, and that somehow your CO2 escapes and oxygen enters. However, at ...
  • 3,645
5 votes
Accepted

Why are lambic and other sours/wilds bottled in green bottles?

There are very little hops in a lambic so it's much less susceptible to being light struck. They also tend to use aged hops and full duration additions. Basically there is very little alpha-acid if ...

Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible