Do I stir after I add priming sugar

IEpicDestiny

Hi,
I want to syphon my beer from my bucket to another bucket and then add sugar to the 2nd bucket (before bottling). Do I need to stir the sugar in my 2nd bucket? And if so how vigorously?
Thanks

bruce_the_loon

You do need to mix the beer with the priming sugar otherwise you will get uneven carbonation. What I do is to dissolve the priming sugar in as little boiled water as possible, put it into the bottling bucket first and then siphon the beer. With the siphon tube flat on the bottom of the bucket, it generates a very nice and gentle swirl throughout the transfer process and mixes the priming sugar in well. This minimizes the amount of oxygen taken up as you're not adding extra agitation beyond what you would get from the siphon in the first place.
If you don't want to do that, you can gently stir with a large sanitized spoon or mash paddle. It needs to be well stirred, but not vigorously. About five seconds per sweep around the bucket is fast enough and stir for two minutes. Again the priming sugar should be dissolved in boiled water and not added as dry powder/granules. With it already dissolved, it will be mixed in a lot sooner.

sibelman

One possibility: dissolve the sugar by boiling it in a little water, put that in the second bucket when it's cool enough, then siphon onto it, which will stir it in very well with no spoon action needed.

IEpicDestiny

I don't understand how it will mix that way if when I add the sugar to the 1st bucket it will be only at the top of the beer

bruce_the_loon

Was a bit unclear in my wording. Either way you add the priming sugar solution to the second bucket, not the first one. The first method you are siphoning onto the priming sugar solution in the second (bottling bucket) and the second method you are pouring the priming sugar solution into the second bucket on top of the siphoned beer and stirring to mix it.
Don't stir the first bucket, you'll mix up the settled yeasts into suspension and your beer will be full of the sediment.

RM-MN

Stir it. Do it gently so you don't mix air in but if you depend on just the swirling beer to do the mixing you will end up with uneven carbonation. BTDT

Teufelhunde

^^This is the way, with the addition of make sure the sugar water is cooled to room temperature before adding the beer to it. Don't want to put some of the first yeast into the bucket into a sauna....

Protos

I pitch boiled priming sugar solution to the bottling bucket when it's still boiling hot, to exclude another possibility of contamination that comes with chilling the sugar. The sample is so tiny, the bucket temp doesn't rise even for a single degree, I measured it. It wouldn't be a problem even if it did, as for the successful bottle carbonisation you should slightly rise the temp anyway.
Just remember how much boiling water it takes to add to the mash to rise the temperature for, say, 4 or 5 degrees. It's really plenty comparing to the tiny amount of water you boil your sugar in.