Bulk Priming and Bottling Your Beers

So you have made your beer and it's fully fermented out. Time to bottle it up.

This can be a messy, timely process and if you don't do it correctly then you can end up with with some bottles dangerously fizzy and some flat.  The method I use for priming is a bulk prime and will give consistently even results and is a lot quicker and more efficient.

You will need a decent beer syphon tube. I use one with a tap at one end and a length of solid tube with a sediment cup at the bottom to avoid sucking up too much trub. You will also need another fermenter bucket, empty bottles and bottle caps.

I would recommend using as little chemicals as possible. Despite being better for you, it will also cost you less and you are less likely to contaminate your beer with steriliser solution.

Firstly wash all the bottles to ensure they are clean.  A good tip for you if you are re using bottles is too always wash them out as soon as you have poured a beer. This stops sediment and beer drying in them and makes the bottling up stage a whole lot quicker.

Load all of the bottles into the oven and set the thermostat at just under 100c.

I'm doing a 10 litre batch and 20 bottles easily fits into the oven.

Wait until the oven reaches temperature and then give them 20-30 minutes to heat sterilise. While this is going on, sterilise the other fermenter bucket, syphon kit and caps. Rinse the solution off everything.

Take a clean cup and weight out the correct level of priming sugar.

Boil the kettle and add around 200ml of boiling water. Enough to be able to dissolve the sugar completely.  Tip this sterilising solution into the clean bucket.

Using the clean syphon tubing, rack the finished beer onto the priming liquid. If you have a bucket clip as I do, you can pretty much leave this running while you sort out your (very hot) bottles.

Take the bottles out of the oven and leave them to cool.

Once the syphon gets near to the end, I like to tip the bucket to get as much beer out as possible. You can see from the above picture that the bucket is angled onto a pan stand.

Next job, swap the buckets over so the full bucket is on the counter or worktop.  The priming sugar solution will all be evenly mixed with the beer so the bottles will have a consistent fizz.

Now rack from the second bucket into the bottles, leaving a 2 inch gap at the top of each bottle.

Seal with crown caps and keep somewhere warm for 3 or 4 days, then move somewhere cooler until they are clear (usually another week or so).  Depending on the beer style, serve chilled or room temperature.

Open with a regular bottle opener and pour in one go down the side of a glass being careful not to disturb the sediment.

Cheers!