[Bel Air Brewing]

One advantage to boiling the sugar in water is that it makes sure it's dissolved.

But we have no desire to add more water to the beer. Will this not dilute the beer?

You need so little water that my experience is that it's unnoticeable.  BTW, I always batch prime rather than bottle prime.

How about this...just add the sugar to beer, not water? That is how I do gelatin, adding to to beer and not water.

If you think 1/2 cup of water will negatively affect your beer, sure.  I haven't found that to be the case.

In 5 gallons, it would not be a big deal. But in this case it's 12 ounces. A six pack. But we always use beer (not water) for our gelatin. Works great. And not diluting the beer. Yep, works for us!

[dmtaylor]

Full disclosure...in decades of brewing, bottle conditioning has never been attempted. Not once as our beer gets kegged.
We had an extra gallon of Fest Bier, so rather than dump it, I decided just to bottle it.

Sanitized the bottles and caps, then added 1/2 teaspoon of table sugar to each bottle. Filled the bottles, and then capped.

Shook each bottle to ensure the sugar was fully in solution.

This is a total experiment, just to see what happens.

Can someone with lot's of experience in this area tell me what to expect? No, the sugar was not boiled in water. Just added straight to the beer. I saw no reason to water down a perfectly good Fest Bier!

Will this be a candidate for the toilet? Or will it be a decent beer?

I've bottled more than 150 batches.

I just recently tried the 1/2 teaspoon thing without dissolving it first.  Turned out just fine.

You'll be fine.

[Bel Air Brewing]

Full disclosure...in decades of brewing, bottle conditioning has never been attempted. Not once as our beer gets kegged.
We had an extra gallon of Fest Bier, so rather than dump it, I decided just to bottle it.

Sanitized the bottles and caps, then added 1/2 teaspoon of table sugar to each bottle. Filled the bottles, and then capped.

Shook each bottle to ensure the sugar was fully in solution.

This is a total experiment, just to see what happens.

Can someone with lot's of experience in this area tell me what to expect? No, the sugar was not boiled in water. Just added straight to the beer. I saw no reason to water down a perfectly good Fest Bier!

Will this be a candidate for the toilet? Or will it be a decent beer?

I've bottled more than 150 batches.

I just recently tried the 1/2 teaspoon thing without dissolving it first.  Turned out just fine.

You'll be fine.

Awesome! This beer will go to a friend, if it turns out decent.
Thanks!

[Kel]

For the last 6 or so bottled batches I have added 1/2 tsp into my 500ml bottles and they have been fine. I always have one plastic PET bottle in the batch so I can give it a squeeze test and gauge where it’s at with regards carbonation.

[Fire Rooster]

For the last 6 or so bottled batches I have added 1/2 tsp into my 500ml bottles and they have been fine. I always have one plastic PET bottle in the batch so I can give it a squeeze test and gauge where it’s at with regards carbonation.

It also comes down to personal preference.
I prefer normal (subjective) level carbonated beer, others I have known prefer
seltzer like beer.  I personally can't stand seltzer.  When first started bottling,
saught advice of many, only to discover my carbonation level
was almost half of theirs.  Even when following recommendations found online,
it was way too much carbonation for me.  Which made me think, is it personal
preference ?, or there are many out there that don't know what a good beer
really tastes like.

[dmtaylor]

I use approximately 85% of the priming sugar recommended by standard priming calculators.  I don't need so much carbonation, and it also provides insurance against the occasional gusher (which does still happen on rare occasion).

[Fire Rooster]

I use approximately 85% of the priming sugar recommended by standard priming calculators.  I don't need so much carbonation, and it also provides insurance against the occasional gusher (which does still happen on rare occasion).

Another factor is that I don't drink a batch as quickly as others.
First sample is at 6-8 weeks in bottle, and don't really start
drinking the batch until 10-12 weeks.  I discovered over months the
carbonation increases, not as much,very small, but still increases.
Usually at 12 weeks carbonation is right where I want it.  My pipeline
is sufficient, so waiting is not an issue.  Chilling in fridge a few days
before drinking also seems to help.  Occasionally if it's a tad under
carbonated, I wait it out, chill it properly then carbonation is spot on.

The hops do fade over time, but this is a welcomed change.
My current trend is swaying away from very hoppy beers.

[Bel Air Brewing]

I'm with you guys on the carbonation thing. My beer is a little less carbonated than some of my friends beers. I do not like my beer to be bubbly, like champagne, or soda-pop. Smoothness is what my taste prefers, over bubbles.

And I agree with Fire Rooster here...staying away from highly-hopped beers. In my younger days (much younger) I was a die hard Hop Head. Not any more!
We have graduated to beers more balanced in overall character, like those beers on draft in Germany, Amsterdam, Prague, etc.
Just give me a nice Munich Helles, or a good German Pils on draft. That makes my day!

[Kel]

For the last 6 or so bottled batches I have added 1/2 tsp into my 500ml bottles and they have been fine. I always have one plastic PET bottle in the batch so I can give it a squeeze test and gauge where it’s at with regards carbonation.

It also comes down to personal preference.
I prefer normal (subjective) level carbonated beer, others I have known prefer
seltzer like beer.  I personally can't stand seltzer.  When first started bottling,
saught advice of many, only to discover my carbonation level
was almost half of theirs.  Even when following recommendations found online,
it was way too much carbonation for me.  Which made me think, is it personal
preference ?, or there are many out there that don't know what a good beer
really tastes like.

Agreed, personal preference plays a lot into this. Taste is subjective and there are no right answers as such.

[goose]

I'm with you guys on the carbonation thing. My beer is a little less carbonated than some of my friends beers. I do not like my beer to be bubbly, like champagne, or soda-pop. Smoothness is what my taste prefers, over bubbles.

And I agree with Fire Rooster here...staying away from highly-hopped beers. In my younger days (much younger) I was a die hard Hop Head. Not any more!
We have graduated to beers more balanced in overall character, like those beers on draft in Germany, Amsterdam, Prague, etc.
Just give me a nice Munich Helles, or a good German Pils on draft. That makes my day!

Same here.  I have dropped the hop bitterness in my IPA's.  When my wife was still smoking, the hoppier the beers, the better.  Now that she no longer smokes and her sense of taste has returned to normal, I cut the hops down to make the beers more drinkable rather than being a total hop bomb.

I  keg carbonate my beers at around 2.5 volumes of CO2 and bottle from the keg.  When I am sending beers to a competiton I turn the keg pressure up a bit the ight before bottling to insure that there has been little carbonation loss during the bottling process (I use a Beer Gun to bottle for comps.). I then turn the pressure back down so I don't over carbonate the beer and get excessive foaming when drawing a pint.  Saisons are a different story, 3 volumes of CO2 to make the beer effervescent.

[Fire Rooster]

I'm with you guys on the carbonation thing. My beer is a little less carbonated than some of my friends beers. I do not like my beer to be bubbly, like champagne, or soda-pop. Smoothness is what my taste prefers, over bubbles.

And I agree with Fire Rooster here...staying away from highly-hopped beers. In my younger days (much younger) I was a die hard Hop Head. Not any more!
We have graduated to beers more balanced in overall character, like those beers on draft in Germany, Amsterdam, Prague, etc.
Just give me a nice Munich Helles, or a good German Pils on draft. That makes my day!

Planned next two batches, only one 1/2 oz 60 minute hop addition,
one batch with magnum-pellet, another with nugget-pellet.  EST IBU's 24 & 20.
Never gone that low with IBU, but I think lower IBU might be my thing.
If it works out will switch to leaf-hops, which can easily fit in the hop spider.
Hop spider was an issue with leaf hops when using many oz's.

For some time focused on good malts.
Only recently realized the malt was being overshadowed by the hops.
Was following the heard for awhile regarding hops.