Brewing Master

Question:

Once I’ve gone from secondary to bottling – does it matter at what temperature I store the bottles?  Fridge ok?  It’s stout with a relatively low percentage of alcohol.

Keep it at room temperature.  If you put it in the refridgerator right away, the yeast will go dormant and your beer won’t carbonate. Anyone suggest a good-to-fair price for 16oz & 22oz Grolsh style bottles?

I buy mine used at the local distributor for ten cents each.  Just clean them out and replace the gaskets. Last but not least – other homebrewers I’ve talked to said that I didn’t nearly mix my priming sugar as much as I should have.  If a bottle is going to explode, can I expect this to happen in a particular frame of time?  (real question, really….

Do you mean stirring the sugar in the batch at bottling time?  That won’t increase the chance of exploding bottles, but it might increase the chance of oxidation. Exploding bottles are the result of five things: 1)  Too much priming sugar. 2)  Infection. 3)  Storing the beer at too high a temperature. 4)  Not filling your bottles enough. 5)  Bottling before fermentation is complete. There might be more, but I can’t think of them right now. Phil – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -Thanks, – Mickey

Response:

1) Don’t store your newly bottled beer in the fridge; it has to be at room temperature to carbonate. Once carbonated (2-3 weeks), then you can refridgerate (or at least keep as cool as possible). 2) If you are afraid of bottle bombs, put the beer case boxes into garbage bags. It will minimize the damage from flying glass and erupting liquids (sounds like a night at the honkeytonk down the street). 3) You really don’t have to violently stir up the priming sugars. Put the priming solution in your bottling bucket first, then syphon your beer on top of it. There should be plenty of motion during the syphoning to totally suspend the priming solution. Finally, don’t start making changes to your processes until you know they are broken. Get the steps down then start tweaking them and changing them if problems show up. Good luck, Dan Cole – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -Hello again! Once I’ve gone from secondary to bottling – does it matter at what temperature I store the bottles?  Fridge ok?  It’s stout with a relatively low percentage of alcohol. Anyone suggest a good-to-fair price for 16oz & 22oz Grolsh style bottles? Last but not least – other homebrewers I’ve talked to said that I didn’t nearly mix my priming sugar as much as I should have.  If a bottle is going to explode, can I expect this to happen in a particular frame of time?  (real question, really…. Thanks, – Mickey

Response:

Thanks for the replys – using honey for priming is something I gotta try! – Mickey

Response:

One week outside the fridge to carbonate, then you can put them in the fridge. I’ve had bottles take months to explode. cheers, -Alan —    "Brewers make wort, yeast makes beer"     – Dave Miller’s Homebrewing Guide http://www.magma.ca/~bodnsatz/brew/tips/

Response:

I can remember when my father used to brew beer and he had a LOT of exploding bottles. One would go and set off a chain reaction. He added a small amount of sugar to each bottle before capping. I use a small amount of honey as my bottling sugar. I use a small sauce pan and put 2-3 cups of water in it. Raise the water to a boil, stir in 3/4 cup of honey and boil for 15 minutes. let cool and skim the residue off the surface. Now stir this into the brew just before bottling. It will provide all the sugar that your brew needs. You can do the same using corn sugar, just increase it to a cup of corn sugar. I have never had a single bottle explode! J. R. Foley Jr.

Response:

I can remember when my father used to brew beer and he had a LOT of exploding bottles. One would go and set off a chain reaction. He added a small amount of sugar to each bottle before capping. I use a small amount of honey as my bottling sugar. I use a small sauce pan and put 2-3 cups of water in it. Raise the water to a boil, stir in 3/4 cup of honey and boil for 15 minutes. let cool and skim the residue off the surface. Now stir this into the brew just before bottling. It will provide all the sugar that your brew needs. You can do the same using corn sugar, just increase it to a cup of corn sugar. I have never had a single bottle explode!

Perhaps because the REAL problem, most likely, is that your father added the sugar TO EACH BOTTLE, while you (apparently) are adding the honey solution to the brew, rather than the bottle. — To reply, remove ".nospam" and replace "spamless" with "nassau"

Response:

Hello again! Once I’ve gone from secondary to bottling – does it matter at what temperature I store the bottles?  Fridge ok?  It’s stout with a relatively low percentage of alcohol. Anyone suggest a good-to-fair price for 16oz & 22oz Grolsh style bottles? Last but not least – other homebrewers I’ve talked to said that I didn’t nearly mix my priming sugar as much as I should have.  If a bottle is going to explode, can I expect this to happen in a particular frame of time?  (real question, really…. Thanks, – Mickey

Response: