A few weeks ago I brewed a duplicate batch of this year's Learn to Homebrew Day SMaSH Ale. The second batch used the nearly the exact same ingredients as the first but with this second batch I wanted to experiment with a few things:

1. Instead of using RO water with some additions as well as some acidulated malt, I used tap water and campden tablets to remove the chlorine
2. Instead of kegging, I bottled this batch table sugar in half the bottles and carb drops in the other half
3. I used four swing-top bottles and two bottlecapped bottles

My primary goal with this experiment was to see if I could get past my frustration with bottle conditioning beer and gain some insight into what does and doesn't work well. I love kegging for the convenience but even more than that, for eliminating the possibility that the beer won't carbonate since I've had a couple of frustrations with this in the past.

I of course forgot to take a photo when I finally cracked open the bottles, but for reference here was the mix of bottles. The "S" label is for table sugar, and the "CD" label is for carb drops.

After bottling I waited two full weeks with the bottles conditioning at 68 degrees F, and refrigerated the bottles for 48 hours before opening.

Long story short, all the bottles carbonated, some better than others.

The short Anchor bottle was the worst of the bunch, I think because my Northern Brewer bottlecapper just didn't get a good seal on that bottle. I had to cap it twice since the first attempt failed miserably, so the lesson learned there is my bottlecapper can't cap short bottles.

I also wanted to test the swing-top bottle since I've had bad experiences with them twice over the past couple of years. With brand-new silicone gaskets they did fine, and I'm not convinced with my most recent failure to carbonate it was the gaskets; I'm more convinced I probably just didn't wait long enough with that particular batch. I waited two weeks which should be plenty long, but it would have interesting to leave a couple of bottles sitting for a month or so and see if carbonation eventually happened. Here again, kegging FTW.

The sugar did seem to carbonate a bit better (well, more intensely I should say -- "better" is subjective I suppose) than the carb drops as a rule but it was a little inconsistent from bottle to bottle.

Recalling my early days in brewing, I'd do 5-gallon batches and nearly always bottle, and I never once had a problem with carbonation.

The difference? I batch primed with corn sugar. So one big lesson here might be that if you want to better guarantee success, batch prime. I'm not sure the actual type of sugar matters so much provided you use the right amount, but I also might pick up some corn sugar to have on hand.

Those carb drops sure are convenient but I'm increasingly convinced they represent a bit of a crap shoot. And certainly dumping a small amount of sugar in each bottle is both messier and even more prone to inconsistencies.

The other big take away is my tap water is not great for brewing, even using campden to remove the chlorine. I made a Bourbon Porter with my tap water that came out OK in that much heavier beer, but with a beer this light there's a pronounced minerality and almost "grit" to it that just doesn't work very well. I also recently made an all-grain Stout with my tap water so we'll see how that one comes out when it's ready in another week or so.

The water aspects of this experiment inspired me to send both my tap water and RO water off to Ward Laboratories (in my home state of Nebraska!) for testing. One of their testing options is a "Brewer's Test" so it'll be interesting to see what's up with my water. Plus, once you have a profile you can plug that into software like Brewfather (my favorite brewing software) and use your actual water profile as the starting point for your water adjustments.

I didn't ever see myself as a big water chemistry person with my brewing, and I think in my early days of brewing in Denton, Texas, I was super spoiled because the tap water there was -- in the 1990s anyway -- non-chlorinated and pretty ideally suited to brewing.

As I brew more batches, however, and the more critical I get of my own beers, it's hard to get around the fact that if your water has flaws they're going to come out in your beer.

At this point when I use RO water I'm doing very basic additions of (depending on style) acidulated malt, calcium chloride, and gypsum, and that's been yielding good results. We'll see how obsessed I get with water chemistry when I get my test results back.

Conclusions

I learned a few things with this experiment:

1. The type of bottle didn't seem to have an impact on the carbonation, and there's nothing inherently wrong with my swing-top bottles.
2. If I plan to bottle I should batch prime to get better results, or at least have more confidence in the bottling process.
3. Carbonation in the bottle make just take longer than my impatience would like to think. Would three weeks have been better? That'll be the next thing to test.
4. My tap water isn't good for lighter beers, and might not be super great for darker beers either (more on that with the Stout tasting, coming soon).

What's Next

Since it's winter and I just brewed a Citra Pale Ale, I think when that one's done fermenting I'm going to batch prime, bottle the whole batch into swing-top bottles, and let it condition for a month or so. And I know it sounds like I'm "testing" a tried-and-true thing homebrewers do all the time, so this is mostly for me to get over that nagging fear I have of bottle conditioning after being disappointed a few times by the process.

On a related note, I also think I need to get my kegerator situation figured out and get a counterpressure bottle filler. This will remove the need to plan far ahead if I want to take some of my beer on the road or gift any of it, and I'll also know with 100% confidence that the beer is carbonated well.

I'm currently using one-gallon mini kegs that work really well for my needs at the moment but stepping up that side of things will be a boon for a whole lot of reasons.