Help me with my bottle conditioning!

[spiderwrangler]

I wiggle the end of my hose around once it's submerged to mix it in. Assuming you are boiling up your sugar to make a simple syrup? You could also try carbonation tabs, they are dosed per bottle.

[pfooti]

Yeah, I boil the sugar in water, dump that into the bucket, then siphon the beer onto that. I am going to try mixing the results a bit more next time.

I am also going to try and rouse any beers I ferment with WL002 after a few days of activity, there may actually be two things going on- inefficient mixing some of the time and WL002 floccing out too fast some of the time (my fermenting cellar is usually about 63F, but can drop down to the mid 50s if we have a cold spell out here in the Sunset).

[Fugglupagus]

I wiggle the end of my hose around once it's submerged . . . . . .

Me too. The missus really seems to like it. But I'm not sure what that has to do with beer . . . . . .

As for the priming/bottling issue, I also gently mix. I wiggle the end of a sanitized, stainless spoon near the bottom of the bucket. Not a round-and-round swirl. More like an up-from-the-bottom agitation. When I see the surface of the beer stop being flat, I stop. I don't think it takes much.

[BrewerJ]

If you are dropping down in to the fifties then I suspect that a lot of the problem is incomplete fermentation during bottling. At those temps it could take a month or more for the beer to completely carbonate. If you have any warmer spots in the house i would put the bottles there. An upper shelf in a closet is what i use. It wont hurt the beer to bottle condition in the mid 70's. Once they are carbed then move them to cooler storage.

[brewrench]

I agree with everyone that posted to your problem. Warm the temps up a bit and gently stir in your priming sugar. When I used to bottle that's how I did it and never had any problems. You are right on being concerned about oxidation during this process but in my experience you won't have an issue with infection due to the alcohol content that will typically kill anything that gets in. If I'm wrong someone please let me know