How to Prime Your Beer For Bottle Conditioning: What is the Best Way?
What’s up my people!!
Hope y’all are doing well and brewing good beer.
Brew Beer Challenge
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While creating this challenge I was reminded of a couple of things that took me a little bit of time to figure out when I first started brewing. I wanted to write some articles to go along with the challenge to address these specific topics. I hope it will help the participants and others new to brewing to get a jump start on their brewing journeys.
Today we are going to be talking about priming your beer for the bottle conditioning process.
What is Priming?
Beer is flat once it is done fermenting. “Priming” is when you put sugar back into your beer in order to reactivate the yeast in the bottle.
What is Bottle Conditioning?
When you add sugar back into your beer the yeast starts to eat the sugar, producing carbonation. This process is called bottle conditioning.
By adding the “Priming Sugar”, your beer will become carbonated during the bottle conditioning process giving it that delicious fizzy taste you expect from a good beer.
Different Priming Sugars
Granulated Sugar
You can use plain granulated sugar to prime your bottles or batch (whichever you prefer) with no problems. This will produce a great beer and it should be plenty carbonated for you to enjoy.
Dextrose/ Corn Sugar
This is a brewing sugar that is finer than regular granulated sugar. This is the sugar I use for my bottle-conditioning. I feel it makes for a better end product and I have had great results. I don’t like to fix what is not broken, so I have stuck to dextrose for most of my brewing journey.
Carbonation Tabs:
Amazons choice
I have never used Carbonation Tabs myself, but I have seen them on Amazon. These are sugar tabs (think of a cough drop looking thing) that you drop in each bottle to give it the right amount of sugar to properly carbonate your beer.
*I am not sure how this works with different bottle or keg sizes, but I am sure the selling company has more info on this*
Malt Spray
If you would like to brew a 100% malt (heavier and more bodied) beer, then along with replacing the beer’s sugar with Malt Spray during the brewing process, you can also use it here while priming your beer.
*WHEN USING MALT SPRAY, LIQUID MALT EXTRACT, OR CANDY SUGAR, MAKE SURE YOU BUY THE RIGHT COLOR AND TYPE FOR YOUR SPECIFIC BEER THAT YOU ARE GOING TO BREW. EXAMPLE: LIGHT MALT SPRAY/ MALT EXTRACT/ CANDY SUGAR FOR A LIGHTER BEER OR WHEAT MALT SPRAY/ EXTRACT FOR A WHEAT BEER.*
How to Bottle Condition
There are basically two ways this is done. The first way is to individually prime every bottle, and the second is to prime the whole batch. Both of these, if done correctly, will produce a great final product. One of the main differences is going to be time spent on the actual conditioning phase vs time spent elsewhere.
Individually Priming Every Bottle
This first way of bottle conditioning your beer is to place the priming sugar directly into each and every single bottle or into whatever other containers that you are storing your beer in.
For the first few batches of beer that I ever brewed this was the way that I bottle conditioned my beer. They turned out great and we were super happy with the way they conditioned. With that being said, the actual bottle conditioning process took a good amount longer than it does for me now that I prime my whole batch of beer at once.
**Although I have used this method plenty with no problems at all, I wanted to let you know that this way of priming your beer is considered to be an older technique and is suspected to have a greater opportunity for inconsistent carbonation.**
If you do choose to go this route, you’ll be fine!
Time Consumption Notes for Individual Priming
The thing that slowed me down the most was trying to get the whole scoop of sugar into the bottle without spilling too much. I use a sugar measuring scooper that is designed for this specific reason. This measuring device has 3 different small cups/scoops on it. There is a scoop for .33 cl, one for .50 cl, and one for .75 cl for you to use depending on the size of the bottles you are bottling with. I tried to use a funnel, but the sugar got stuck to the sides and in the end, did not work properly. This way of scooping each measurement into an individual bottle works ok and you can still produce great beer with this technique for bottle conditioning. Just be aware it will take you a little bit longer during this priming phase.
*If you are going to go this route, using carbonation tabs is the way to go. There are designed specifically for reducing the time it takes during this process. If you have the means and want to bottle condition individually, go for this and it will be a breeze.
When you are bottle conditioning your beer bottles individually, you can technically go about this without transferring your beer to a second fermentor. This is what I did for many of my first batches of beer. ***This is not what I recommend you do at all, but I did want to let you know that it is possible and by doing this you would cut out some time in the process.***
Transferring your beer into a secondary fermentor helps to eliminate sediment in your beer. This process leaves you with a clearer beer for your final product.
Priming the Whole Batch
The second way is called Batch Priming. This is when you calculate the amount of sugar you need for your whole batch of beer and then you go ahead and add your priming sugar directly into the fermentor. Priming your beer using this technique may save you some time during the priming phase, but there are a few things to consider when using this technique.
- You are going to need extra brewing equipment that may or may not have been included in your initial starter kit.
You will need
An Extra Fermenting Bucket:
Having an extra fermentor allows you to transfer your beer so that you can stir in the batch priming sugar without stirring up a bunch of sediment. This sediment forms in the first fermentor during the fermenting phase.
Auto-siphon:
When you prime the whole batch you are definitely FIRST going to want to transfer your beer into a secondary fermentor. The only way to effectively do this without getting a lot of debris into your second fermentor is to transfer your beer using an Auto-siphon. You are going to have to stir in the priming agent and that means there has to be as little sediment as possible at the bottom of your fermentor.
Trust me you are not going to want to dump a ton of priming sugar in your fermentor and then stir up all the yeast and other stuff laying at the bottom of your beer. Nasty! You will have floaters galore in your beer and not a very nice final product.
Transferring your beer into a second fermentor is not only going to take more time during the transfer process but also later on when you have to clean out 2 fermenters instead of one.
** Again BEWARE that transferring your beer into another fermentor requires an auto-siphon, which is usually not included in starter kits. If you don’t own one already, pick one up from the link provided above.
Other Things to Consider
- That you calculate the right amount of sugar to put in your batch of beer. If you put too much sugar, you will over prime the batch and you could risk your bottles over carbonating. This could “blow up” your bottles or give you way too much foam in your beer. Neither of these results is going to be what you want to accomplish. If you put too little, you risk not having a fully carbonated beer. Flat beer sucks, so you definitely want to avoid this outcome as well.
- Don’t forget to stir in the priming agent!!!!!! This is super important. You want every beer to be primed evenly so take your time to stir your priming sugar enough.
How I Prime My Beer
I batch prime my beer. The way I have primed my whole batch of beer has worked great for me every time I have ever done it. This has produced an awesome final product without fail as of yet, so let me teach you how I do it.
I take my sugar measuring tool which came with my kit and I just scoop 2x the number of liters of beer that is in my fermentor into my batch with the .50cl measuring scoop (a half of a teaspoon). It is really that simple.
Here is an Example:
I usually brew a 23-liter kit.
When it is time to prime my beer I take off the fermentor lid and then transfer my beer into a secondary fermentor (using the auto-siphon). After this, I take my dextrose (or whatever other priming sugar I am using at the time) and scoop 46 of the .50cl scoops (a half of a teaspoon) into the batch. When this is done I proceed to stir the batch super well so that all the priming sugar is dispersed evenly.
Now I am ready to go ahead and bottle, cap, wipe down, mark the caps, and clean my equipment.
Click here to find out more time-saving tips from an in-depth article of my full brewing routine.
Here is What You Should Do:
I don’t know what equipment you have so here is my suggestion to you.
You can just add half of a teaspoon of sugar per pint. I know pints are a super british way to drink beer so here is a simple equation for you.
SIMPLY: Take the amount of liters in your fermentor and multiply it by 2.113 (the volume of pints in a liter) which will give you the amount of half teaspoons of sugar you need.
If you have 19 liters, and multiply that by 2.113 you get 40.147. That means you want to put 40.147 half teaspoons into your fermentor. This is more or less 3/4 a cup full.
The Complete Joy of Home Brewing by Charlie Papazian states:
“It is very important not to exceed the recommended sugar dosage of 3/4 cup (175ml) corn sugar or one 1/4 cup (300ml) plain friend malt extract per 5 gallons (19L); by no means should you ever exceed 1 cup (240ml) per 5 gallons (19L). And note that it is a measure of CUPS, not pounds.” pg 29 of 3rd edition.
Conclusion
There really is no best way of priming your beer for bottle conditioning. It mostly lays up to the brewer to choose which technique they feel is the best for them. I have used both plenty of times without any problems.
In the end when you take into account the time it takes to prime each bottle individually compared to transferring to and cleaning out a second fermenter (totally well worth it and highly advised), the time spent is going to be about the same.
Have confidence that either technique you choose is going to produce a quality beer that you are going to enjoy. Choose one and go for it! And remember,
YOU CAN BREW IT!
L’chaim
How long do you condition beer with priming sugar in the bottle and is it similar temperatures to fermenting then cold storage?
Hey Patrick, great question thanks for asking. I usually bottle condition my beer using priming sugar for no less than 2 weeks at a stable room temperature. It is best to find a cool dark place to let your beer bottle condition for a couple of weeks.
If its too cold it may slow the bottle conditioning process down and not be carbonated enough. This is less a problem than if its too hot. By placing your beers in too hot an environment for the bottle conditioning phase, it could cause your beers to create too much carbonation and explode. This has happened to some of my friends before.
If you’re brewing in a stable environment that is not exposed to direct sunlight, with no major temperature changes occurring at midday or midnight, that area should be fine to bottle condition your beers.
You can brew it,
L’Chaim