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HI all
Have just joined the forum and have a question.
I have been brewing for 4 months and have had some failures and successes and have settled on Cascade spicey ghost.
The last 2 brews foam when primer is added (sugar) .....any sugestions???
Cascade base
1 Kg sugar
FG 1006
10 days
low activity in airlock and brew is clear

1moreplees wrote:HI all
Have just joined the forum and have a question.
I have been brewing for 4 months and have had some failures and successes and have settled on Cascade spicey ghost.
The last 2 brews foam when primer is added (sugar) .....any sugestions???
Cascade base
1 Kg sugar
FG 1006
10 days
low activity in airlock and brew is clear

Welcome 1moorplees.....

Add sugar to bottles before adding beer, are you adding after?

Cheers

Boonie

Thanks Boonie
Adding sugar after filling,will try reverse
Regards

Capping on foam is good - I wish I could get it to happen when I cap.

If the beer doesn't foam, the headspace is full of air - including an amount of oxygen. If the beer does foam, that headspace will be CO2 and beer moreso than atmospheric air. So, you should be getting less oxygen in the closed bottle and so perhaps longer-living beer.

I've taken to adding sugar after filling when bottle-priming as it means I get less headspace in each bottle.

Some of my brews foam when they contact the priming sugar when filling, some don't. Hasn't really bothered me either way. Haven't noticed any difference in the beers.

The courser the sugar grains the better, so don't use dex or caster sugar for priming. I normally use standard table sugar for bottle priming. Or you could try bulk priming.

rwh wrote:The courser the sugar grains the better, so don't use dex or caster sugar for priming.

Sorry to disagree there, but I`ve used nothing else but caster sugar for priming bottles for 17 years with no probs. And I always add it to the bottles BEFORE filling. In fact, with the Tapadraft 6l. bottles, I add 40g. of caster sugar to each bottle {depending on f.g.} and fill them , they never froth over.
Tapadraft is handy thing- Three 6l. bottles and 4 tallies and the bottling`s done.

ryan wrote:

rwh wrote:The courser the sugar grains the better, so don't use dex or caster sugar for priming.

Sorry to disagree there, but I`ve used nothing else but caster sugar for priming bottles for 17 years with no probs. And I always add it to the bottles BEFORE filling.

Caster sugar is all I use now. Never a problem. Never a bottle bomb.
I use the plastic measure thingy, and pour the sugar into the bottle through a small funnel, before bottling. Easy as, and it ensures there are no grains on the top of the bottle to interfere with the capping.

warra48 wrote:

ryan wrote:

rwh wrote:The courser the sugar grains the better, so don't use dex or caster sugar for priming.

Sorry to disagree there, but I`ve used nothing else but caster sugar for priming bottles for 17 years with no probs. And I always add it to the bottles BEFORE filling.

Caster sugar is all I use now. Never a problem. Never a bottle bomb.
I use the plastic measure thingy, and pour the sugar into the bottle through a small funnel, before bottling. Easy as, and it ensures there are no grains on the top of the bottle to interfere with the capping.

Bulk Priming is even better

No grains, no funnels and 1 measurement.

I tried bulk priming once, and found it a total pain in the proverbial.
For me, personally,it is just as easy to prime each bottle.
I don't normally rack my beers, except lagers etc, so bottle straight from the fermenter.It also means I only have to clean one fermenter, rather than a fermenter and a racking bin.
However, whatever floats your boat has to be right for you.
It would be a boring world if everyone agreed on everything.

Boonie wrote:

warra48 wrote:

ryan wrote:

rwh wrote:The courser the sugar grains the better, so don't use dex or caster sugar for priming.

Sorry to disagree there, but I`ve used nothing else but caster sugar for priming bottles for 17 years with no probs. And I always add it to the bottles BEFORE filling.

Caster sugar is all I use now. Never a problem. Never a bottle bomb.
I use the plastic measure thingy, and pour the sugar into the bottle through a small funnel, before bottling. Easy as, and it ensures there are no grains on the top of the bottle to interfere with the capping.

Bulk Priming is even better

No grains, no funnels and 1 measurement.

I would have to agree with that but i know an even easier way.........

Whack it in a keg and carb it up overnight! Done

no way=no way in the world. Unless I had lots of different sizes to bottle in one batch. But I never have. Two minutes to prime 28 tallies. Compare that to dissolving sugar in boiled water, sanitising a racking hose and another fermenter, racking to that fermenter {and there`s always blokes moaning on different forums they got infected beer thru doing that} and then you`ve got a racking hose, extra fermenter and whatever else you used to clean again.
So if you`re using the same size bottles in a batch save yourself a lot of work and just prime your bottles. Once you`ve done it a few times it`s a breeze!

Sorry lethal, you posted while I was still typing

warra48 wrote:posted against bulk priming

With some valid points to consider.

lethaldog wrote:Trotted out the Keggers 'So Ner'

Surprised it took that long. Nearly posted it m'self.

ryan wrote:posted something about bottle size

If using one bottle size consider this

Cheers,
Greg

I've noticed that when I dry-hop, there is some variation in the amount of hopping across the batch. I take this to be because the dry-hoppy goodness hasn't distributed itself throughout the fermenter in which the dry-hopping was perpetrated.

If I was to bulk-prime, I would get another opportunity to mix the nicely-hopped stuff with the not-at-all-hopped stuff.

Today, I pitched yeast into a fermenter full of BVIP, into which I will mix a quantity of oak- and vanilla- infused bourbon. People who win awards for their beers reckon I should be adding the oak and the vanilla as I rack to secondary and the bourbon as I prime. I don't win awards, so today I threw some oak and vanilla into a bottle of bourbon to infuse. I figure that in a couple of weeks, I will decide if I added too much or too little an adjust accordingly before mixing it with the priming solution and bulk-priming.

How would you do this if you were bottle-priming and (for extra points) not racking your beer off the yeast cake?

I currently have a lager on the go which I do not feel I needed to rack. It was given 2 weeks in primary, I then peeled the cling wrap back just far enough to chuck in 15g of hop pellets to dry hop. After 3 days I crash chilled it to -1C and will leave it there for 3-4 days at which time I will rack it to the keg and connect it at pouring pressure. Within the next 4-5 days it will be ready to drink

I can honestly say, that in my experience, this produces a beer which is hard to pick from one that has been racked several times and aged in just the right way, but that is just my opinion of course. Life is too short to waste months of hard work when you can make excellent beers in a couple weeks with very little!

Maybe its just me but time is never a concern to me as i brew enough to have beer for the next 12 months even if i stop brewing today, and racking ccing etc gives me more of an excuse to be in the shed

I have noticed substantial difference in my beers comparing racked to those that are not which is why i now rack every brew and cold condition most of them to, maybe im a perfectionist but 5 minutes of my time is worth even the tiniest improvement ( as far as im concerned) and lets face it thats about all it takes

ryan wrote:Two minutes to prime 28 tallies. Compare that to dissolving sugar in boiled water, sanitising a racking hose and another fermenter, racking to that fermenter {and there`s always blokes moaning on different forums they got infected beer thru doing that} and then you`ve got a racking hose, extra fermenter and whatever else you used to clean again.
So if you`re using the same size bottles in a batch save yourself a lot of work and just prime your bottles. Once you`ve done it a few times it`s a breeze!

Two minutes ....quickdraw McGraw ryan
Sanitise racking hose and fermenter Put hot water in with the pink stuff from hb shop... 30 seconds,pour in fermenter... 5 seconds, Put lid on... 10 seconds, Shake fermenter and swirl... 20 seconds, leave for 1 minute...1 minute , empty through tap which also goes through racking hose back into jug 30 seconds, rinse 2 minutes......Just over 5 minutes and it is done......but add a few stops for a sip of Beer.

EDIT...forgot one thing, put sponge into jug with pink stuff and rub on the outside of the racking hose, rinse the inside and out of the hose......1 minute.....changed overall time from 4 to 5 minutes.

All this time you pot was boiling, then add 170-180 dex and give a 20 second stir......

Cleaning the rack bin I simply rinse it out, no need to scrub and I have a dedicated fermenter for racking

I've never had an infection in my bottles from bulk priming.

This thread has turned into an overall rack debate again ......love it

One time I had a leaking fermenter as I had pulled it forward by the tap....dummy, and it came partly out of the thread.......overall I reckon I sanitised the fermenter and started racking in under 2 minutes. I was like a madman ....beer emergency, the fermenter was leaking precious beer

Whatever floats ya boat as warra say's

Cheers

Boonie

Thanks all.
A great response to a minor question,again thanks.
Seems like it is great to get foaming when priming [but the mess is a problem ]so maybe i prime after filling to expel the air and get a mess or add sugar before filling and get a beer slightly down on taste or just ping another,an,another ....another ahhhh why worry
1moreplees

G'day 1moreplees, welcome to the forum...

If you use a little bottler, simply prime the cleaned bottle with sugar, fill with the bottler and when you're near the top, withdraw the bottler to the top of the bottle and fill the headspace created when you withdrew the little bottler by tilting the bottle at around 45 degrees to the little bottler. This will make the inside rim of the bottle push up the pin in the little bottler thus slowly releasing more beer from the fermenter and this way, I make sure that the headspace in the bottle is only a couple of mm from the top of the bottle. Unless you're going to go berserk and shake the bejaysus out of the bottle, a couple of mm of air on top isn't going to trash the beer - any carbonation that you achieve by priming the bottle will put CO2 between the surface of the beer in the neck and the air in the headspace anyway.

Cheers,
TL