Fermentation is complete, question before I bottle

I checked my brews gravity and it was the same three days in a row. Time to bottle!

I did want to ask though, I went onto a priming sugar calc and it recommends 4.6oz of sugar for my 5gal while I only have 4.05. So should I go out and buy some to get the right amount or should I relax and have a homebrew? Will this sugar be enough to fully carb my beer and not leave it flat while avoiding the gushers/bottlebombs?

Also when I rack my beer onto the bottling bucket and priming sugar, would it be alright for me to take a sanitized spoon and gently mix it, avoiding splashing, to help evenly mix the sugar?

and lastly, I was under the impression that when bottle conditioning you were supposed to leave the bottles at room temp while they condition, while I've read some threads that you can store them in fridges and that this also helps with clearing haze in beer. So which should I go with?

Thanks guys :rockin:

With bottle conditioning if its an ale it's fine at room temps. If you have used a lager yeast then yeah, you condition them at lagering temps which would be close to fridge temps.

Gab.

I would just wait... you're not going to hurt your beer by letting it sit for another week.

But..You can also use DME or even table sugar to carb (although the amount needed is going to be more than corn sugar.) Are you sure you're going to be getting the full 5 gallons into your bottling bucket? You might not be losing as many volumes of CO2 as you think.

I like to rack onto my priming sugar letting the swirling from the racking tube mix the sugar in..

On gushers and bottle bombs:
The only time I've seen a gusher was from an infected apfelwein, so as long as you practice proper sanitation and give your beer enough time to ferment out you shouldn't have a problem with that.

Give your bottled beers at least 3 weeks at room temp to fully carb up. Although I am guilty of opening them up in as little as 5 days. Then put them in the fridge.

With priming calculators,you input the style of beer,the highest temp it reached during fermentation & the volume of beer in the fermenter. It'll then give you an accurate amount of priming sugar to use.
Then boil 2C of water in a small saucepan to boil a few minutes. Stir in the weighed amount of priming sugar till completely dissolved. With dextrose,the water will go clear again at that point. Cover & cool abit before adding to the bottling bucket & racking beer onto it.
Carb & condition the bottles in covered boxes or a dark place that's 70F or a lil more for 3-4 weeks. Then put some in the fridge for a week to settle any chill haze & get co2 well into solution.

Thanks for the replies. I forgot to mention that I've had this brew fermenting for 3 weeks now and plan to bottle this sat. This plus the same gravity reading consistent for 3 days shows me my brew is ready for bottles sorry for the confusion.

As for mixing, I did plan on racking my brew onto my priming sugar and allowing that to swirl around and mix but just wondered if it was safe to gently mix it with a spoon to ensure all is mixed evenly.

Good point on my beer batch volume. I did barely manage to reach the 5gal line in my bucket but after subtracting the amount of brew for gravity readings and taking into account the sediment at the bottom, i'll most likely get less than 5gal of drinkable homebrew. So I feel the amount of corn sugar I have should be enough to cover bottle conditioning.

All thats left is for me to invite a few buddies over, buy us a couple of cases of brew, drink um and salvage the empty bottles to clean and sanitize for my homebrew!

Yea you'll be alright with a gentle swirl I do but already have forgotten and just used the whirlpool of racking into the bucket and all was fine.

With corn sugar usually any where from 4 to 5 OZ works fine for a 5 gal batch

It's a little pricey, but, I've been using organic maple syrup to carb my beers and ciders. I add 3 tablespoons per gallon. Put it in bottle bucket first thing and the beer mixes it in fine during siphoning. I give a few stirs to be safe tho.

Luckylou said:

I checked my brews gravity and it was the same three days in a row. Time to bottle!

I did want to ask though, I went onto a priming sugar calc and it recommends 4.6oz of sugar for my 5gal while I only have 4.05. So should I go out and buy some to get the right amount or should I relax and have a homebrew?

Click to expand...

steal a couple sugar packets from the coffee station at 7-11 :fro: