Excellent Video. Thank you so much. I'm a first timer. My first Home Brew is nicely coming along, day 2 at a nice even 22 degrees C. Air lock is bubbling away. I got some fantastic tips for bottling and making my second brew. I have Muntons carbonation drops for this brew but will do a batch prime for my second brew. Many thanks again. I have subscribed.
Great stuff Damien! Glad you enjoyed it! I’ve never used carb drops myself but I know they can be a bit temperamental. Do yourself a favour and see how many you need for 4g and make sure you’re adding enough of them. I’ve had a lot of people say their beer ends up under carbonated. BUT they must be waaaaaay easier than adding spoonfuls of sugar! Good luck with the bottling!
@@dr.tanknstein7590 Thank you. I have 48 x 500ml PET Beer bottles and caps. The Muntons Carbonation drops instructions say to place 2 into each pint/500ml bottle. 80 drops in the bag, so will be enough for 40 bottles. I'll give it a go this time as it is a cheap Simply Lager kit. My next brew will be a better quality kit and I will do a batch prime for that. Great advice on your video. I will let you know what it turns out like. I'm going to rest them after bottling for a week in the same spot as where I brewed the beer @ 22 degrees. I'll then move them out to a dark cool spot in a press and will leave them until the end of January before I refrigerate and consume. That should hopefully give plenty of time for the drops to work. Looking forward to it.
Thank you for the video man, just bought some swing top bottles after nearly ending my own life with the bottle capper smashing bottles left right and centre. Never thought about batch priming though. I was using the carbonation drops at the start but just found it to expensive and the beer never really got that fizzy. Instead I switched out to granulated sugar which seems to work much better. I usually do 1 tea spoon per 500ml bottle. So my calculation on 23 litres is 46 tea spoons.. seems alot tbf but might save me some more time in the long run.
Not sure if you can find one for your bottling bucket but there are lids out there with pumps on them or grommets to attack a pump be it (mechanical or electric) to slightly pressurize your bucket so you can fill faster. It does bring back the pain of keeping an eye on the bottle while filling kind of though especially if you put too much pressure in the bucket
I don't use swing top bottles because there's no O2 absorbing swing top bottles🙃. Since I purge my bottles with CO2 and using oxygen absorbing caps the overall quality and shelf life of my beers, especially IPA's, improved a lot
Tomorrow is my first bottling day. I am having a panic attack thinking I am going to ruin the batch... Thank you for making it look so easy! Ohmmmm... serenity now... beer me...
James patterson thanks a lot, I appreciate the feedback! The best book I can recommend for an absolute beginner is ‘How to Brew’ by John Palmer. That being said, I got this book when I was about 6 years in and it’s still full of gems!
Dr. TankNStein Thanks. I’ll see if i can purchase it. The video where you made a home brew for under a tenner, from raw ingredients Was a bit of an inspiration, and kind of shows that you don’t need 1000’s of pounds worth of equipment to get started doing a few basic grain brews. Thanks again.
I'm bottling my first brew for about 6 years tomorrow! Interested to see that you don't use a secondary fermenter, you just rack the beer to bottle it. I'll definitely be watching the rest of your videos now :)
Vormulac1 thanks for the comment! I used to use a secondary but I wasn’t seeing much difference. I think that a secondary is something that used to be more important in homebrewing when yeasts weren’t as good as they are nowadays and it’s important on a large scale because typically the yeast are under a lot more stress. That being said, if you want to use a secondary, go ahead! It definitely won’t make the beer worse!
@@dr.tanknstein7590 Thanks for replying. I'm definitely not set in my ways, I haven't done this for a long time and back then it was just the way it was done - I think your way looks far better! So do you leave your beer in the fermenter for the whole time that would previously have been considered primary+secondary fermentation time, or do you just do the primary fermentation and let it condition in the bottles for an extra week or whatever the secondary would have been? Cheers!
Vormulac1 yes, it’s important to still let your beer finish out properly before you bottle. Otherwise there’s a lot of maths involved for when the right time to bottle is to avoid bottle bombs. Just let your beer ferment until it reaches a consistent gravity and then bottle it. Like I say I’m the video, if you’re going to ‘batch prime’ make sure you transfer it to another vessel before doing so. Otherwise you’ll still up all the yeast and true into your beer and you’ll have an inch of sediment in each bottle!
Hi, great work, I don't know if you still answer questions after 2 years, but I was wondering if it's possible to "keg" (sort of) the beer with priming sugar into one of the little 5 L you had in the back. I have a couple of those but was worried if 1. They could handle the pressure after being used, and 2. If the beer would be able to carbonate correctly. Keep up the good work.
Hi Alex! Of course I’ll still answer questions. Yes, I really like to use the mini kegs instead of bottles (1 keg = 9ish bottles). I have other videos dedicated to mini kegs but long story short, as long as you have a good seal, the beer will carbonate fine. Due to the small openings and small headspace, however, it’s best to use around 8-12g of priming sugar PER KEG as opposed to the 4-5g sugar per bottle of beer. I hope that makes sense?
Thanks for the comment Phil! If you're in the UK I got this bucket from Wilko for about a tenner? It comes with the tap but not th wand, the wand is about a fiver more but, as you said, it's waaaaaay easier like this!
wow, I recently bottled my first ever batch. All i had was the fermenter and a siphon hose. It was bloody difficult! This looks so much simpler and would likely end up with a lot less crap in the bottles than what I did! I have a decent shopping list now for my next bottling day :)
Daniel Mitchell thanks Dan! A siphon tube definitely works BUT I’ve spent far too much time cleaning my kitchen walls after losing Contol of it! That’s great though, what did you brew? How did you find the process?
@@dr.tanknstein7590 I brewed a nice hoppy red ale. Turned out really nice taste wise, but its a little too fizzy and i think a bit too cloudy due to too much of the sediment getting into the bottles. Overall I'm still pretty happy with my first attempt at brewing. I nailed the main thing, which was the taste. I have swing top bottles already, so after watching this i need a bottling wand, bottle washer, extra bucket with a tap, and the auto siphon thing.
Haha that’s quite the shopping list! I put some links below to the most similar ones that used for reference but of course, support your local home brew shop if possible! I love a nice red ale, very underrated. 5am Saint is probably my favourite brew dog.
Dishwashers don't get hot enough on regular cycles; I believe they rely more on the detergent to do the work. Maybe on a heavy cycle. Other people bake their glass bottles in the oven to sanitise.
Do you sanitise the beaker before making the sugar solution? What I do and what I've always seen/read is boil the solution for 10 minutes or so to make sure it is sanitised. This looks much quicker. Interesting you put the siphon/wand down after sanitising too. I'm paranoid about contamination so go straight from sanitiser to bucket dripping the stuff everywhere 😂
Put all your clean bottles in the dishwasher on sanitize cycle overnight. Takes about 4 hours. Then when it’s time to fill them, do that on the open dishwasher lid. Any spills go into the dishwasher after. Way easier than doing Star San on each bottle.
Great tip! I do like the dishwasher method but unfortunately I do not have the room for one in my place so I have to stick with star san. Bottling ON the dishwasher is a pretty awesome idea though. I'd love to be able to just close-up and walk away from all the spills!
I thought I saw a dishwasher in the background. My bad. In that case I saw a device before that can sanitize a case at once. Forgot what it’s called though.
Helpful vid for a noob, thanks! If I'm fermenting in a tub with a tap, and I can get carbonation drops rather than batch priming.. What's your opinion on just using the bottling wand to go straight from the fermentation tub's tap into the bottles? Is there any other benefit to racking into another bucket first?
Hey there! Thanks for the comment! There’s not a huge benefit (I think a little yeast never hurt anybody anyway 😉) so you can bottle straight from the primary fermentor. Before you get the priming drops though just have a read through the comments on this video and my mini keg video... there are lots of comments that start with ‘my beer isn’t carbonated’ and the comment stream ends with ‘I used carbonation drops’. I don’t want to speak badly of carb drops but I think it’s unlikely that EVERYONE that uses them uses them incorrectly... if you don’t want to ‘batch prime’ I would recommend getting a ‘1 tsp’ measuring spoon and adding a level ‘1 tsp’ amount of sugar into each bottle before bottling. Hope this helps! Good luck bottling
@@dr.tanknstein7590 Interesting, thanks! I was thinking that if I can use carb drops to avoid racking to another bucket first, it might reduce oxidation/oxygenation (whatever the proper word is!). But then improper carbonation isn't great either...
@@dom252 improper carbonation is MUCH worse for a home brew run than oxidation that might not even happen anyway. Racking is a pain so you can avoid that by using the tsp measurer. If you’re really worried about oxidation then keep your beer cold and don’t slosh it around too much. I THINK that bottle conditioned beers suffer much less with oxidation and you’re probably going to drink your delicious home brew super quickly anyway so you probably don’t need to worry about that 😉 carb drops are just sugar with a good manager!
@@dr.tanknstein7590 Good to know! Think I'll just be going from primary fermenter straight to bottle then. Thanks for the help! Ignore my previous question (deleted now) about the tsp measurer, just read your previous domments again and it became clear!
An excellent video , just one question , how much carbonation would you expect from doing it your way , I have tried those carbonation drops and found them useless , I tried adding sugar to each bottle and ended up with beer fountains.
Hi there thanks for watching! I’m really not a fan of the carb drops myself, they seem a bit gimmicky (and popular for some reason!). Using this method the carbonation is pretty good but most of all it’s uniform throughout the whole batch. I will typically add 5g per bottle for a pale beer, 4g per bottle for a darker beer and maybe even 3g per bottle for a stout or porter. Weighing out large quantities is more accurate than weighing out small quantities so by batch priming there’s waaaay less error if that makes sense?
Sorry, late to the party here. Is the batch priming thing legitimately an option? How do you make sure it mixes in properly and consistently without disturbing the sediment? This just blew my mind, but I'm cautious!
Cheers Marcus! Yeah batch priming is a game changer, saves time and also massively reduces the possibility of bottle bombs. Let me know how you get on with it!
Just about to bottle my beer in the next few days, this will be my first brew. I am thinking of adding a filter bag on the end of the syphon tube when transferring from the fermentation bucket to the bottling bucket. Just seems to me to be a way of reducing sediment transfer. I have not seen this advised anywhere just seems common sense to me.. Are you aware of any pitfalls or would you say this is not needed any wat as any mesh size would probably not be small enough ? Cheers
Hi Jack! I only ever use mesh/filters to remove grain and whole hops, anything else and it simply isn’t worth it. A TINY amount of trub will very quickly block your filter and you’ll be waiting for days. You trub is probably all stuck together at the bottom of the bucket now anyway, it’s best to just try to avoid it. If some does come across it’s not the end of the world. Good luck with the bottling! Let me know how it goes!
So when you use the sugar for carbonation how long do you leave them at room temperature to allow this to happen? If you refrigerate right away the yeast would not work right?
Hi Mike, yes, you are correct. Leaving at room temperature for just a few days works very well, the standard advice is 2 weeks but I’ve had some beers just 4 days after priming that were great. But yes, don’t chill immediately or it will never work!
you shouldnt put it in a freezer. but if you keep it not lower than 10 degrees celsius , it should work perfectly fine. it might just need a while longer to carbonate. also if you want to have a clearer beer, the lower temperature helps sedating it at the botttom of the bottle.
Hi Jan! Thanks for the feedback. I’m not sure I understand your question, do you mean: how do you get the correct (high) level of carbonation in the beer? If that’s the case then you must ensure that your bottles are spotlessly clean inside, any tiny specs of dirt in there will cause the beer to gush. Equally, ALWAYS chill your beer before opening. If you are using crown caps. Still though, a bottle will only hold a certain amount of pressure and so rather than focusing on excess priming you should focus on making sure that your recipe is correct to promote foam formation and retention (see this article www.drtanknstein.com/2018/08/16/finding-foam/)
@@dr.tanknstein7590 Hi, and thanks for the prompt reply, I am close to end of the initial fermentation of a Muntons (Hand Craft) Belgium Beer. When I shall add the Spray Malt and some Yeast Lees to my Kingkeg barrel for the final stage before I then Bottle. Whenever Ive drunk shop bought Belgium/French Bottle beers and poured into a glass you will always get a decent creamy head... be nice if mine did the same.???
Jan Stojak ah I see. Well Belgian ales typically have high carbonation couples with a high proportion of wheat malt in the recipe. I’m sure that muntons have taken this into account when creating their recipe. I’m not entirely sure I’d the procedure that the recipe is suggesting so I don’t want to direct you in any way in that respect. Carbonation obviously contributes to head retention but really what you’re looking for here is a high protein malt bill which I’m sure muntons have taken care of
Advice please pal ,I've mastered getting my first batch of crystal clear beer ,primed a litre with 2 carb drops but it's just not carbonating gutted. Prior my method was cold crash with gelatin ,the prime bottled . Also I want to do same in PB . Can u help . Trying hard and hitting walls after each improvement Regards carl
Hi Carl! Sorry for the late reply, I thought I’d responded to this. First off, and this might sound made up, but I’ve never heard of anyone having any success with carb drops. They don’t really dissolve great and then I’m not really sure how much sugar is in each drop and whether this is uniform? I certainly think that 2 carb drops per litre is not enough priming sugar? I know that you’ve bought these things now but just to rule this out you could try weighing a few out (defeats the object I know!) just to make sure you’re adding enough and use The rule-of-thumb of 5g per 500ml. My second bit of advice is: if you’re bottle conditioning, try not to over clarify the beer. There’ll ALWAYS be yeast in your beer but in order for you to get some nice carbonation you need a decent amount. When people clarify the shit out of their brews with gelatin and cold temperatures I think that these people typically go on to keg carb? (Not always I know). So I guess you could try this: 1. Skip the cold crash and/or gelatine fining 2. Add 4-5g sugar per 500ml bottle (depending on style) 3. Leave the beer at room temperature for about a week/10 days 4. Chill your beer for a few days before serving 5. Pour carefully - having enough yeast in the beer to carbonate well SHOULD mean you get a nice solid yeast cake at the bottom of each bottle that stays where it is when you pour it Hope this helps! Let me know how you get on/your thoughts! Good luck
@@dr.tanknstein7590 good advice m8 ,I have reduced cold crash time period and stopped using carb drops instead am using dextrose big difference. Hey for taking time out m8 👍👍👍👍👍👍
Jerry Zavagno I typically leave it two weeks but have had some after a few days that was fine. I’d say on the safe side, leave it at least a week. What do you have in the bottle?
Hey there, new to home brewing just curious can you bottle into 32oz and or 64oz flip top stainless steel growlers? I’m in the Philippines and it’s pretty tough to get flip top bottles.
jkhelmke1 hi there! Yes, if you can find the growlers then you can bottle in to those fine. With 32 and 64oz you probably don’t even need to increase the amount of priming sugar, simply add the same 5g of sugar to each growler. Hope this helps?
@@dr.tanknstein7590 haha! I didn't notice it on first watch. But I'm about to bottle up for the first time in a while and have found your video so helpful as a refresher I've watched it twice! Thanks for the top tips! Maybe those tops got dripped on as the bottle emptied.
Since you have a bucket with a tap... Why are you also using the wand. I do not use the wand but have use a bucket with a tap directly and just like pouring a beer I keep it tilted until I get to near the top and stop. No guessing how mush space the wand is filling. What is the real advantage to the wand is you have the tap?
Hi Keith! The wand serves 2 purposes I supposed: firstly, it stops the beer from foaming up as it enters the bottle which means that you don’t have to wait for it to settle out. Secondly, it prevents aerating the beer at this late stage. Splashing the beer will always get a bit of air into it and at this late stage in the process this can be detrimental. And I guess finally, it’s just a bit neater and tidier. The bore of the tap isn’t huge but it’s certainly bigger than the end of the wand. Having the wand right in the bottom of the bottle means my clumsy hands don’t spill beer everywhere. The same could be achieved with a length of tubing and a steady hand I suppose!
Yes of course you can put sugar in the bottles individually but that takes way more time and, in my experience, can lead to non-uniform carbonation. If you do make sure you invert the bottles a bit over the first few days so that the sugar dissolves properly. Good luck!
@@dr.tanknstein7590 While we're at the subject of the sugar: you mention the dosage per bottle (33cl?) should be 5 grams. However, different beer styles usually have different carbonation levels. Do you have any source for which styles should have a certain dosage? Thanks
Hi@@geoberg this is a calculator that I use to claculate keg priming www.brewersfriend.com/beer-priming-calculator/ I am always VERY reluctant to mention different styles and carbonation levels in bottling videos such as this as the margin for error is very small. Whilst a wheat beer (for example) might benefit from high levels of carbonation, in my opinion, the risk when bottle conditioning is too high whether it be the risk of gushing or of actual explosion. My advice is that if you intend to bottle prime at a rate of greater than 6g/L then you should do this in a refrigerator and wait a little longer for the carbonation. That way, the CO2 will be dissolved in the solution better (but the yeast are less active). Hope this helps!
i have to disagree on the capping method. capping bottles need less time to clean, since you dont have to take of all the metal stuff and the rubber from the cork or whatever this is called. also you dont have to tighten the metal after a couple of uses. i had some bottles letting pressure out since i forgot to tighten the closing mechanism. there are pretty cheap and very sturdy capping devices that are easy to adjust. i cap with it in no time. i dont want to argue with you or anything like that. at the end of the day its up to you or whatever method you prefer.
Hi Cornholio (nice name), thanks for watching! I must say, I’ve never experienced loss of pressure or had to do any maintenance of bottles but good to know it’s possible
Hi Jacobo! It depends on whether you are bottling as 1 L or whether you are splitting the batch up? In the video I recommend around 5g per bottle, this doesn't really change in going from 330ml to 500ml to 1L. This is due to the pressure that is built up in the head space of the bottle. Hope I explained that well?
@@dr.tanknstein7590 sadly local pubs laughed at,me and I looked them up on amazon to buy some and I seen why they laughed hahaha, amazing video by the way man I've been brewing for a year and a half wasting so much time on old methods
It looks like you are missing the cap for the bottom of your Auto-siphon. That is a critical piece of the filtering the siphon does for you, might be why you aren't that happy with it's filtering capabilities. The cap should always remain on the siphon and is only removable for cleaning purposes.
Hi Surg! Thanks for the comment, not sure what cap you’re talking about, i think I was using the siphon exactly as it was provided? Does your siphon have a filter on it? To be honest, at the end of fermentation, I don’t tend to find you get much sediment carry over unless you disturb the yeast cake and mesh filters slow things down quite a lot...
Dr. TankNStein It looks like you are missing the cap... It’s a part of the auto-siphon and comes with new ones, you can get a replacement for less than $0.50. It’s not just for looks or protecting the tip, it is part of the filtering process. drive.google.com/file/d/1gMQ-zckvI0WjaiOy0en2SldgyacJfQH3
Hi Antonis! Firstly, I would put the bottles outside where they can't make a mess or damage anything (but not in direct sunlight). Secondly, how did you prime the bottles? Did you add sugar to the bottles or did you add some sugar to the whole batch and then bottle?
@@dr.tanknstein7590 thanks for your comment. I added sugar to the whole batch and then to the bottle. I will leave them there one more day and I consider if it is a good idea to put them in the chiller to stop the activity. What do you think?
@@antonishadjiyiannis7845 putting them in a fridge will SLOW the activity but it won't stop it. But it will help the excess carbon dioxide to dissolve so I suppose this might help prevent explosion. But remember that if there is excess sugar (i.e. if you 'stop' the process) then the beer will sweeter and less carbonated than expected. Out of interest, how much sugar did you add and to what volume of beer?
Either you over calculated how much priming sugar to use or the wort wasn’t done fermenting so more carbonation occurred. If you were using swing top bottles, you could have burped them to relieve the pressure.
Hi there! Thanks for your comment, not sure if it's a question or not but I do.reuse sanitiser from time to time (as long as it's reusable). If you are using star San you can reuse over and over again as long as the pH stays low and the solution is clear you can reuse... Though to be honest I usually spray it or use in the bottle washer so it's basically impossible to reuse in these cases. Which sanitiser do you use?
Can you tell me what the difference is by pouring into a second vessel and immediately bottling the brew from there, please? Why not just bottle from the primary, the more you stir the beer, the more oxygen will be introduced into it. I'm assuming your hands and tabletop were sanitised, as you rested the syphon on them! If not, you've wasted your time.
Z T thanks for the helpful comments. Your assumptions are probably correct then as I don’t like to waste my time. I transferred into a second ‘bottling’ container as there was about an inch and a half of trub at the bottom of my primary that i wanted to remove before I (gently) stirred my priming sugar in. I do address oxygen incorporation in the video and take extra special care to transfer everything as carefully and ‘bubble free’ as possible. Thanks for watching; good luck with your bottling
Cheers just subscribed , I brew my own beer make wine and mead , grow cascade hops , I just started kegs after about 3000 bottles . I hated bottling day , but still bottle some , starsan way to go . Check us out
Exactly, I moved over to corny kegging or even using the mini-kegs but, like you say, you just can't keg them all can you! I will check you guys out and subscribe also
De-gassing?! That sounds like code for ‘drinking’? Overcarbonation is a rough one. I entered a comp once a watched as the judges eagerly opened my trendy new (at the time) NEIPA only to cover themselves and the scoring sheet with foamy, hazy beer 😢
I'm a complete home-brew noob and this is exactly what I needed to see. Thank you!
Absolutely loved this video. No bull just really straight forward mate. Subscribed
Wow...you made that look so easy. I guess it's all about being organised beforehand. Excellent presentation Dr Tank
Great video
The best part of my bottling day is the fact that my floors tend to get very clean and sanitized aswell, atleast some areas 😜
Excellent Video. Thank you so much. I'm a first timer. My first Home Brew is nicely coming along, day 2 at a nice even 22 degrees C. Air lock is bubbling away. I got some fantastic tips for bottling and making my second brew. I have Muntons carbonation drops for this brew but will do a batch prime for my second brew. Many thanks again. I have subscribed.
Great stuff Damien! Glad you enjoyed it! I’ve never used carb drops myself but I know they can be a bit temperamental. Do yourself a favour and see how many you need for 4g and make sure you’re adding enough of them. I’ve had a lot of people say their beer ends up under carbonated. BUT they must be waaaaaay easier than adding spoonfuls of sugar! Good luck with the bottling!
@@dr.tanknstein7590 Thank you. I have 48 x 500ml PET Beer bottles and caps. The Muntons Carbonation drops instructions say to place 2 into each pint/500ml bottle. 80 drops in the bag, so will be enough for 40 bottles. I'll give it a go this time as it is a cheap Simply Lager kit. My next brew will be a better quality kit and I will do a batch prime for that. Great advice on your video. I will let you know what it turns out like. I'm going to rest them after bottling for a week in the same spot as where I brewed the beer @ 22 degrees. I'll then move them out to a dark cool spot in a press and will leave them until the end of January before I refrigerate and consume. That should hopefully give plenty of time for the drops to work. Looking forward to it.
Great vid. Thanks
Thank you for the video man, just bought some swing top bottles after nearly ending my own life with the bottle capper smashing bottles left right and centre. Never thought about batch priming though. I was using the carbonation drops at the start but just found it to expensive and the beer never really got that fizzy. Instead I switched out to granulated sugar which seems to work much better. I usually do 1 tea spoon per 500ml bottle. So my calculation on 23 litres is 46 tea spoons.. seems alot tbf but might save me some more time in the long run.
Same story here, the carb drops are just sugar anyway. I use a funnel and teaspoon, works a charm 😋 happy brewing mate 👍 🍺
@@madasinwat2 hi Tom, agreed. Just got a batch of ginger beer in bottles. Brew 2 bottle has just bought home brew online as well
@@Simon1234eg Cheers Ben, enjoy the gingery goodness! I've just bottled a dry hopped (chinook) ginger apple cider too. Can't wait for a taste. 🙏
Excellent, sensible video and advice. Now have more equipment to buy.
Not sure if you can find one for your bottling bucket but there are lids out there with pumps on them or grommets to attack a pump be it (mechanical or electric) to slightly pressurize your bucket so you can fill faster. It does bring back the pain of keeping an eye on the bottle while filling kind of though especially if you put too much pressure in the bucket
Sean Frezza ah good shout. Waiting for the bottle to fill is half the battle!
Great tips
I don't use swing top bottles because there's no O2 absorbing swing top bottles🙃. Since I purge my bottles with CO2 and using oxygen absorbing caps the overall quality and shelf life of my beers, especially IPA's, improved a lot
Tomorrow is my first bottling day.
I am having a panic attack thinking I am going to ruin the batch...
Thank you for making it look so easy!
Ohmmmm... serenity now... beer me...
William Hau you’ll be fine! Please let me know how you get on!
Excellent and concise video. You deserve a lot more subscribers. Can you recommend a home book for beginners. Thanks
James patterson thanks a lot, I appreciate the feedback! The best book I can recommend for an absolute beginner is ‘How to Brew’ by John Palmer. That being said, I got this book when I was about 6 years in and it’s still full of gems!
Dr. TankNStein Thanks. I’ll see if i can purchase it. The video where you made a home brew for under a tenner, from raw ingredients
Was a bit of an inspiration, and kind of shows that you don’t need 1000’s of pounds worth of equipment to get started doing a few basic grain brews. Thanks again.
I'm bottling my first brew for about 6 years tomorrow! Interested to see that you don't use a secondary fermenter, you just rack the beer to bottle it. I'll definitely be watching the rest of your videos now :)
Vormulac1 thanks for the comment! I used to use a secondary but I wasn’t seeing much difference. I think that a secondary is something that used to be more important in homebrewing when yeasts weren’t as good as they are nowadays and it’s important on a large scale because typically the yeast are under a lot more stress. That being said, if you want to use a secondary, go ahead! It definitely won’t make the beer worse!
@@dr.tanknstein7590 Thanks for replying. I'm definitely not set in my ways, I haven't done this for a long time and back then it was just the way it was done - I think your way looks far better! So do you leave your beer in the fermenter for the whole time that would previously have been considered primary+secondary fermentation time, or do you just do the primary fermentation and let it condition in the bottles for an extra week or whatever the secondary would have been?
Cheers!
Vormulac1 yes, it’s important to still let your beer finish out properly before you bottle. Otherwise there’s a lot of maths involved for when the right time to bottle is to avoid bottle bombs. Just let your beer ferment until it reaches a consistent gravity and then bottle it. Like I say I’m the video, if you’re going to ‘batch prime’ make sure you transfer it to another vessel before doing so. Otherwise you’ll still up all the yeast and true into your beer and you’ll have an inch of sediment in each bottle!
Hi, great work, I don't know if you still answer questions after 2 years, but I was wondering if it's possible to "keg" (sort of) the beer with priming sugar into one of the little 5 L you had in the back. I have a couple of those but was worried if 1. They could handle the pressure after being used, and 2. If the beer would be able to carbonate correctly. Keep up the good work.
Hi Alex! Of course I’ll still answer questions. Yes, I really like to use the mini kegs instead of bottles (1 keg = 9ish bottles). I have other videos dedicated to mini kegs but long story short, as long as you have a good seal, the beer will carbonate fine. Due to the small openings and small headspace, however, it’s best to use around 8-12g of priming sugar PER KEG as opposed to the 4-5g sugar per bottle of beer. I hope that makes sense?
What bottling bucket is that as I'm just starting to home brew again it does seem a lot easier now great channel enjoy watching your videos.
Thanks for the comment Phil! If you're in the UK I got this bucket from Wilko for about a tenner? It comes with the tap but not th wand, the wand is about a fiver more but, as you said, it's waaaaaay easier like this!
Haha wilko home brew section can't go wrong
Thank you. I have never bottled beer before, and used kegs. you have been so clear and helpful, and free of hard sell advertising.
wow, I recently bottled my first ever batch. All i had was the fermenter and a siphon hose. It was bloody difficult! This looks so much simpler and would likely end up with a lot less crap in the bottles than what I did! I have a decent shopping list now for my next bottling day :)
Daniel Mitchell thanks Dan! A siphon tube definitely works BUT I’ve spent far too much time cleaning my kitchen walls after losing Contol of it! That’s great though, what did you brew? How did you find the process?
@@dr.tanknstein7590 I brewed a nice hoppy red ale. Turned out really nice taste wise, but its a little too fizzy and i think a bit too cloudy due to too much of the sediment getting into the bottles. Overall I'm still pretty happy with my first attempt at brewing. I nailed the main thing, which was the taste. I have swing top bottles already, so after watching this i need a bottling wand, bottle washer, extra bucket with a tap, and the auto siphon thing.
Haha that’s quite the shopping list! I put some links below to the most similar ones that used for reference but of course, support your local home brew shop if possible! I love a nice red ale, very underrated. 5am Saint is probably my favourite brew dog.
I use my dishwasher as my bottle sanitizing station. Let it heat dry to kill any bacteria. Cheers. 🍻
_Stars_at_Nite_ yes, dishwasher is great if you have one. And you can do loads at once as well!
Dishwashers don't get hot enough on regular cycles; I believe they rely more on the detergent to do the work. Maybe on a heavy cycle. Other people bake their glass bottles in the oven to sanitise.
Do you sanitise the beaker before making the sugar solution? What I do and what I've always seen/read is boil the solution for 10 minutes or so to make sure it is sanitised. This looks much quicker. Interesting you put the siphon/wand down after sanitising too. I'm paranoid about contamination so go straight from sanitiser to bucket dripping the stuff everywhere 😂
Sanitise the desk..
Put all your clean bottles in the dishwasher on sanitize cycle overnight. Takes about 4 hours. Then when it’s time to fill them, do that on the open dishwasher lid. Any spills go into the dishwasher after. Way easier than doing Star San on each bottle.
Great tip! I do like the dishwasher method but unfortunately I do not have the room for one in my place so I have to stick with star san. Bottling ON the dishwasher is a pretty awesome idea though. I'd love to be able to just close-up and walk away from all the spills!
I thought I saw a dishwasher in the background. My bad. In that case I saw a device before that can sanitize a case at once. Forgot what it’s called though.
Dishwasher wont get the whole bottle clean
I said to put clean bottles in the dishwasher. The dishwasher is for sanitizing, not cleaning.
@@briansbrews4688 so you did. my bad
Thank you.
Helpful vid for a noob, thanks! If I'm fermenting in a tub with a tap, and I can get carbonation drops rather than batch priming.. What's your opinion on just using the bottling wand to go straight from the fermentation tub's tap into the bottles? Is there any other benefit to racking into another bucket first?
Hey there! Thanks for the comment! There’s not a huge benefit (I think a little yeast never hurt anybody anyway 😉) so you can bottle straight from the primary fermentor. Before you get the priming drops though just have a read through the comments on this video and my mini keg video... there are lots of comments that start with ‘my beer isn’t carbonated’ and the comment stream ends with ‘I used carbonation drops’. I don’t want to speak badly of carb drops but I think it’s unlikely that EVERYONE that uses them uses them incorrectly... if you don’t want to ‘batch prime’ I would recommend getting a ‘1 tsp’ measuring spoon and adding a level ‘1 tsp’ amount of sugar into each bottle before bottling. Hope this helps! Good luck bottling
@@dr.tanknstein7590 Interesting, thanks! I was thinking that if I can use carb drops to avoid racking to another bucket first, it might reduce oxidation/oxygenation (whatever the proper word is!). But then improper carbonation isn't great either...
@@dom252 improper carbonation is MUCH worse for a home brew run than oxidation that might not even happen anyway. Racking is a pain so you can avoid that by using the tsp measurer. If you’re really worried about oxidation then keep your beer cold and don’t slosh it around too much. I THINK that bottle conditioned beers suffer much less with oxidation and you’re probably going to drink your delicious home brew super quickly anyway so you probably don’t need to worry about that 😉 carb drops are just sugar with a good manager!
@@dr.tanknstein7590 Good to know! Think I'll just be going from primary fermenter straight to bottle then. Thanks for the help! Ignore my previous question (deleted now) about the tsp measurer, just read your previous domments again and it became clear!
An excellent video , just one question , how much carbonation would you expect from doing it your way , I have tried those carbonation drops and found them useless , I tried adding sugar to each bottle and ended up with beer fountains.
Hi there thanks for watching! I’m really not a fan of the carb drops myself, they seem a bit gimmicky (and popular for some reason!). Using this method the carbonation is pretty good but most of all it’s uniform throughout the whole batch. I will typically add 5g per bottle for a pale beer, 4g per bottle for a darker beer and maybe even 3g per bottle for a stout or porter. Weighing out large quantities is more accurate than weighing out small quantities so by batch priming there’s waaaay less error if that makes sense?
Cool video
Sorry, late to the party here. Is the batch priming thing legitimately an option? How do you make sure it mixes in properly and consistently without disturbing the sediment? This just blew my mind, but I'm cautious!
Don't worry. Just watched the rest of the video. Lol. I'm an idiot.
Cheers Marcus! Yeah batch priming is a game changer, saves time and also massively reduces the possibility of bottle bombs. Let me know how you get on with it!
Just about to bottle my beer in the next few days, this will be my first brew. I am thinking of adding a filter bag on the end of the syphon tube when transferring from the fermentation bucket to the bottling bucket. Just seems to me to be a way of reducing sediment transfer. I have not seen this advised anywhere just seems common sense to me.. Are you aware of any pitfalls or would you say this is not needed any wat as any mesh size would probably not be small enough ? Cheers
Hi Jack! I only ever use mesh/filters to remove grain and whole hops, anything else and it simply isn’t worth it. A TINY amount of trub will very quickly block your filter and you’ll be waiting for days. You trub is probably all stuck together at the bottom of the bucket now anyway, it’s best to just try to avoid it. If some does come across it’s not the end of the world. Good luck with the bottling! Let me know how it goes!
Dr. TankNStein much appreciated , advice accepted
So when you use the sugar for carbonation how long do you leave them at room temperature to allow this to happen? If you refrigerate right away the yeast would not work right?
Hi Mike, yes, you are correct. Leaving at room temperature for just a few days works very well, the standard advice is 2 weeks but I’ve had some beers just 4 days after priming that were great. But yes, don’t chill immediately or it will never work!
you shouldnt put it in a freezer. but if you keep it not lower than 10 degrees celsius , it should work perfectly fine. it might just need a while longer to carbonate. also if you want to have a clearer beer, the lower temperature helps sedating it at the botttom of the bottle.
Brilliant video, but how do you get a semi decent head from the bottle on say a Belgium Beer
Hi Jan! Thanks for the feedback. I’m not sure I understand your question, do you mean: how do you get the correct (high) level of carbonation in the beer? If that’s the case then you must ensure that your bottles are spotlessly clean inside, any tiny specs of dirt in there will cause the beer to gush. Equally, ALWAYS chill your beer before opening. If you are using crown caps. Still though, a bottle will only hold a certain amount of pressure and so rather than focusing on excess priming you should focus on making sure that your recipe is correct to promote foam formation and retention (see this article www.drtanknstein.com/2018/08/16/finding-foam/)
@@dr.tanknstein7590
Hi, and thanks for the prompt reply, I am close to end of the initial fermentation of a Muntons (Hand Craft) Belgium Beer. When I shall add the Spray Malt and some Yeast Lees to my Kingkeg barrel for the final stage before I then Bottle.
Whenever Ive drunk shop bought Belgium/French Bottle beers and poured into a glass you will always get a decent creamy head... be nice if mine did the same.???
Jan Stojak ah I see. Well Belgian ales typically have high carbonation couples with a high proportion of wheat malt in the recipe. I’m sure that muntons have taken this into account when creating their recipe. I’m not entirely sure I’d the procedure that the recipe is suggesting so I don’t want to direct you in any way in that respect. Carbonation obviously contributes to head retention but really what you’re looking for here is a high protein malt bill which I’m sure muntons have taken care of
Advice please pal ,I've mastered getting my first batch of crystal clear beer ,primed a litre with 2 carb drops but it's just not carbonating gutted. Prior my method was cold crash with gelatin ,the prime bottled . Also I want to do same in PB . Can u help . Trying hard and hitting walls after each improvement
Regards carl
Hi Carl! Sorry for the late reply, I thought I’d responded to this. First off, and this might sound made up, but I’ve never heard of anyone having any success with carb drops. They don’t really dissolve great and then I’m not really sure how much sugar is in each drop and whether this is uniform? I certainly think that 2 carb drops per litre is not enough priming sugar? I know that you’ve bought these things now but just to rule this out you could try weighing a few out (defeats the object I know!) just to make sure you’re adding enough and use The rule-of-thumb of 5g per 500ml.
My second bit of advice is: if you’re bottle conditioning, try not to over clarify the beer. There’ll ALWAYS be yeast in your beer but in order for you to get some nice carbonation you need a decent amount. When people clarify the shit out of their brews with gelatin and cold temperatures I think that these people typically go on to keg carb? (Not always I know). So I guess you could try this:
1. Skip the cold crash and/or gelatine fining
2. Add 4-5g sugar per 500ml bottle (depending on style)
3. Leave the beer at room temperature for about a week/10 days
4. Chill your beer for a few days before serving
5. Pour carefully - having enough yeast in the beer to carbonate well SHOULD mean you get a nice solid yeast cake at the bottom of each bottle that stays where it is when you pour it
Hope this helps! Let me know how you get on/your thoughts!
Good luck
@@dr.tanknstein7590 good advice m8 ,I have reduced cold crash time period and stopped using carb drops instead am using dextrose big difference. Hey for taking time out m8 👍👍👍👍👍👍
I just use a nappy sterilizer (Sodium Percarbonate) cheap but works fine.
Yeah percarbonate is one of the classics! There are some great potential beer names there too if you’re using ‘nappy steriliser’
@@dr.tanknstein7590 😂
After bottling how long before the beer is ready to drink
Jerry Zavagno I typically leave it two weeks but have had some after a few days that was fine. I’d say on the safe side, leave it at least a week. What do you have in the bottle?
Hey there, new to home brewing just curious can you bottle into 32oz and or 64oz flip top stainless steel growlers? I’m in the Philippines and it’s pretty tough to get flip top bottles.
jkhelmke1 hi there! Yes, if you can find the growlers then you can bottle in to those fine. With 32 and 64oz you probably don’t even need to increase the amount of priming sugar, simply add the same 5g of sugar to each growler. Hope this helps?
Dr. TankNStein great thanks so much
11:43 - except for those few bottles at 11:00 where it was important that they didn't get their tops washed? 🤣
NOJ hahaha well spotted! No idea why I was protecting those lids! I don’t think they exploded or turned so I guess I got away with that one!
@@dr.tanknstein7590 haha! I didn't notice it on first watch. But I'm about to bottle up for the first time in a while and have found your video so helpful as a refresher I've watched it twice! Thanks for the top tips! Maybe those tops got dripped on as the bottle emptied.
NOJ ah great stuff! Are you bottling for the first time because you haven’t brewed in a while or have you been using kegs and stuff?
Since you have a bucket with a tap... Why are you also using the wand. I do not use the wand but have use a bucket with a tap directly and just like pouring a beer I keep it tilted until I get to near the top and stop. No guessing how mush space the wand is filling.
What is the real advantage to the wand is you have the tap?
Hi Keith! The wand serves 2 purposes I supposed: firstly, it stops the beer from foaming up as it enters the bottle which means that you don’t have to wait for it to settle out. Secondly, it prevents aerating the beer at this late stage. Splashing the beer will always get a bit of air into it and at this late stage in the process this can be detrimental. And I guess finally, it’s just a bit neater and tidier. The bore of the tap isn’t huge but it’s certainly bigger than the end of the wand. Having the wand right in the bottom of the bottle means my clumsy hands don’t spill beer everywhere. The same could be achieved with a length of tubing and a steady hand I suppose!
@@dr.tanknstein7590 I like the last part of that, I will probably add. Hose to my tap.
Keith McAuslan good call, a bit of hose will cure most evils in this case AND it’s a bit faster than the wand if anything
Can i just put sugar in individual bottles? Cheers for the vid
Yes of course you can put sugar in the bottles individually but that takes way more time and, in my experience, can lead to non-uniform carbonation. If you do make sure you invert the bottles a bit over the first few days so that the sugar dissolves properly. Good luck!
@@dr.tanknstein7590 While we're at the subject of the sugar: you mention the dosage per bottle (33cl?) should be 5 grams. However, different beer styles usually have different carbonation levels. Do you have any source for which styles should have a certain dosage? Thanks
Hi@@geoberg this is a calculator that I use to claculate keg priming www.brewersfriend.com/beer-priming-calculator/
I am always VERY reluctant to mention different styles and carbonation levels in bottling videos such as this as the margin for error is very small. Whilst a wheat beer (for example) might benefit from high levels of carbonation, in my opinion, the risk when bottle conditioning is too high whether it be the risk of gushing or of actual explosion. My advice is that if you intend to bottle prime at a rate of greater than 6g/L then you should do this in a refrigerator and wait a little longer for the carbonation. That way, the CO2 will be dissolved in the solution better (but the yeast are less active). Hope this helps!
i have to disagree on the capping method. capping bottles need less time to clean, since you dont have to take of all the metal stuff and the rubber from the cork or whatever this is called. also you dont have to tighten the metal after a couple of uses. i had some bottles letting pressure out since i forgot to tighten the closing mechanism. there are pretty cheap and very sturdy capping devices that are easy to adjust. i cap with it in no time. i dont want to argue with you or anything like that. at the end of the day its up to you or whatever method you prefer.
Hi Cornholio (nice name), thanks for watching! I must say, I’ve never experienced loss of pressure or had to do any maintenance of bottles but good to know it’s possible
@@dr.tanknstein7590 i would really recommend you checking on this stuff before botteling, i ruined quite some litres because of this unfortunate fail
So how much is the sugar? Let's say for one liter.
Hi Jacobo! It depends on whether you are bottling as 1 L or whether you are splitting the batch up? In the video I recommend around 5g per bottle, this doesn't really change in going from 330ml to 500ml to 1L. This is due to the pressure that is built up in the head space of the bottle. Hope I explained that well?
I use 6g per litre. Never tried putting more than 7g tho.
I wish someone would just give me some swing tops from a pub XD
Oh yeah, swingtop bottle and a crate, worth more than gold!
@@dr.tanknstein7590 sadly local pubs laughed at,me and I looked them up on amazon to buy some and I seen why they laughed hahaha, amazing video by the way man I've been brewing for a year and a half wasting so much time on old methods
I buy manny from local pub.
It looks like you are missing the cap for the bottom of your Auto-siphon. That is a critical piece of the filtering the siphon does for you, might be why you aren't that happy with it's filtering capabilities. The cap should always remain on the siphon and is only removable for cleaning purposes.
Hi Surg! Thanks for the comment, not sure what cap you’re talking about, i think I was using the siphon exactly as it was provided? Does your siphon have a filter on it? To be honest, at the end of fermentation, I don’t tend to find you get much sediment carry over unless you disturb the yeast cake and mesh filters slow things down quite a lot...
Dr. TankNStein It looks like you are missing the cap... It’s a part of the auto-siphon and comes with new ones, you can get a replacement for less than $0.50. It’s not just for looks or protecting the tip, it is part of the filtering process.
drive.google.com/file/d/1gMQ-zckvI0WjaiOy0en2SldgyacJfQH3
This lad clearly gives most of his end product away!
Guys help. 4 days after bottling some bottles exploded. What can I do to stop it???? I am going to lose all of them and it is very dangerous
Hi Antonis! Firstly, I would put the bottles outside where they can't make a mess or damage anything (but not in direct sunlight). Secondly, how did you prime the bottles? Did you add sugar to the bottles or did you add some sugar to the whole batch and then bottle?
@@dr.tanknstein7590 thanks for your comment. I added sugar to the whole batch and then to the bottle. I will leave them there one more day and I consider if it is a good idea to put them in the chiller to stop the activity. What do you think?
@@antonishadjiyiannis7845 putting them in a fridge will SLOW the activity but it won't stop it. But it will help the excess carbon dioxide to dissolve so I suppose this might help prevent explosion. But remember that if there is excess sugar (i.e. if you 'stop' the process) then the beer will sweeter and less carbonated than expected. Out of interest, how much sugar did you add and to what volume of beer?
Either you over calculated how much priming sugar to use or the wort wasn’t done fermenting so more carbonation occurred. If you were using swing top bottles, you could have burped them to relieve the pressure.
You never reuse santizer after you use it
Hi there! Thanks for your comment, not sure if it's a question or not but I do.reuse sanitiser from time to time (as long as it's reusable). If you are using star San you can reuse over and over again as long as the pH stays low and the solution is clear you can reuse... Though to be honest I usually spray it or use in the bottle washer so it's basically impossible to reuse in these cases. Which sanitiser do you use?
Can you tell me what the difference is by pouring into a second vessel and immediately bottling the brew from there, please? Why not just bottle from the primary, the more you stir the beer, the more oxygen will be introduced into it.
I'm assuming your hands and tabletop were sanitised, as you rested the syphon on them! If not, you've wasted your time.
Z T thanks for the helpful comments. Your assumptions are probably correct then as I don’t like to waste my time. I transferred into a second ‘bottling’ container as there was about an inch and a half of trub at the bottom of my primary that i wanted to remove before I (gently) stirred my priming sugar in. I do address oxygen incorporation in the video and take extra special care to transfer everything as carefully and ‘bubble free’ as possible. Thanks for watching; good luck with your bottling
Cheers just subscribed , I brew my own beer make wine and mead , grow cascade hops , I just started kegs after about 3000 bottles . I hated bottling day , but still bottle some , starsan way to go . Check us out
Exactly, I moved over to corny kegging or even using the mini-kegs but, like you say, you just can't keg them all can you! I will check you guys out and subscribe also
Spent the last three days de-gassing 48 bottles that I over carbonated, silly me.
De-gassing?! That sounds like code for ‘drinking’? Overcarbonation is a rough one. I entered a comp once a watched as the judges eagerly opened my trendy new (at the time) NEIPA only to cover themselves and the scoring sheet with foamy, hazy beer 😢
I am inventor green tea wine I want donation
I fell asleep twice man