Home Brewing Beer

[Tricky Mike]

Clayton is correct. As long as the keg is sealed properly (completely) it won't go flat, just like a sealed bottle won't go flat. The CO2 stays in solution and the yeast can't play a role because they consumed all of the sugars to carbonate the first time. Also, higher pressure isn't required to carbonate. I actually prefer to force carbonate my kegs at serving pressure. It takes longer, but there's virtually no risk of overcarbing and the longer time means the beer conditions for a bit in the keg while I'm waiting for it to carb.

[TheIglu]

Beer is flat from kegs at bars when they don't clean their lines often enough. It ends up foaming up when poured which means flat beer by the time it is served.

My serving pressure is at least 10psi, usually 12psi. I can't see any benefit to 4-6, nor have I ever seen anyone use it without being completely wrong (pushing cask is another story). If you are getting foam at the speed of pour 10-12psi gives you, you either overcarbonated, have beer that's too warm/cold or your lines/faucet is dirty. Most of the time it is dirty. Every 3 weeks to clean your lines/faucet is a good starting point.

Whoever is explaining these things to you hasn't a grasp on how the entire beverage industry operates.

I get tried and true consistent results with 30psi for 24 hours, then 20psi for another 24 hours on dark beers or a second day at 30psi for light stuff like Hef's.

[fineout]

The idea, as explained to me, is that the pressure used to push beer from the keg for serving is really low (like 4-6 psi) compared to the pressure required to carbonate (like 20-30 psi). Therefore you can't serve without de-pressurizing, or you would get nothing but foam. And you can't store without re-pressurizing, or it would go flat.. or flatter anyway.

I imagine bars go though kegs fast enough to not care. Although I've tasted some mighty flat beer from bars. Especially when ordering some more exotic stuff at those places that keep eleventy billion beers on tap.

My presumption was that naturally carbonated beer may re-pressurize itself thanks to those kick-ass little yeasties. But maybe that presumption was way off the mark.

I'm all new at this. Just regurgitating shit I read or was told elsewhere. If you tell me the front brake is instant death by fire, I'll stay the fuck away from the front brake while layin' her down.

The pressure for serving is actually 1psi at the faucet, but you still need to keep the pressure on the keg to the correct volumes of co2 that the mfg wants. there are things online that help you do the calculation for how much pressure you need at what temperature and the length of line you want to keep everything going smooth out to the faucet.

[nhbubba]

Whoever is explaining these things to you hasn't a grasp on how the entire beverage industry operates.

I should have linked my source:
http://www.boomchugalug.com/knowledg...-instructions/

Once you are done dispensing your beer for the night (or weekend), you may want to increase the keg’s pressure to retain proper carbonation. For example, your beer is at 42 degrees F, and you learned from Table 1 that you needed 10 psi to properly carbonate the beer. Yet you discovered that your dispensing pressure was 6 psi. Thus, if you want your beer to remain at the original level of carbonation, you will need to store the keg at 10 psi. We don’t always re-pressurize the keg to the carbonation pressure after each evening. In- stead, we may only restore the keg’s pressure at the end of the weekend.

[khuygie88]

If you properly balance your lines (ID and length) you should get sufficient pressure drop between the keg and the faucet such that your beer is properly carbonated and it doesn't foam while pouring.

The drawbacks of this in a home kegerator setup are that this means you're likely to have a good bit of beer sitting in the lines between pours and that if you're running multiple styles you should probably have different length lines (assuming of course that you're regulating different pressures to different kegs). The first issue can be minimized by selecting a line with a smaller ID.

[McBiggity]

Just put my cider into a fermenter. Charlton orchards had the cider. I used 1lb of golden honey and 1lb of buckwheat honey instead of the brown sugar. Nottingham yeast, rehydrated. Hit 1.06 in the o.g. Can't wait til it's on tap!

[nhbubba]

Cleaned and sanitized 3 cases of bottles last night. What a pain in the ass.

I was expecting to bottle this weekend as it'd be 2 weeks in the fermenter. The air lock isn't moving much at all. Beer has been at 65-68-F the whole time. Now I'm getting advice to let it go to 3 before bottling! That seems like a lot. Also getting strongly advised to transfer to do a secondary ferment to clarify the beer.

Thinking maybe I'll move it over to the 5 gal glass carboy I have one night this week. That will let me more easily measure gravity and decide. Just more crap to clean. Unsure.

Goal is beer by turkey day. I am priming and bottling to carbonate. What is the minimum amount of time you should let primed bottles be before drinking? I'm being told primed bottles are good to go as soon as 3-4 days after bottling, but obviously longer is better.

My recipe says secondary fermentation is optional. It says 2 weeks to primary and 4 weeks from boil to enjoy. I'm not the best at math, but I think that means 2 weeks in the bottles before you drink.

If I bottle this weekend then I'd have 2 weeks in the primary fermenter, no secondary, and just shy of 2 weeks in the bottles.
If I xfer to a secondary and bottle weekend after this then I'd have 1.5 in the primary, 1.5 in the secondary, and 5 days in the bottles.

Thoughts?

[Imbeek]

Depends how much you plan to drink on turkey day.

Longer everywhere is better, within reason and if everything is kept clean, dark, and at proper temperature. Secondary fermenter will decrease sediment in the finished product, but if that doesn't bother you, who cares.

IMO 2 weeks to bottling is a tad quick, I'd wait a bit, leave it in the primary if you don't care about sediment, don't drink it all on thanksgiving so you can taste for yourself what bottle conditioning does to the flavor, buy one of those bottle cleaning attachments for your faucet if you don't have one, clean fewer bottles (usually around 52 for five gallon batch) and instead of bottling this weekend, start another batch.

On my first batch, I did exactly what you are doing (rushed it) but the beer was so damn good that I and a couple friends devoured it in a couple days so I never could tell if it would've been better with time. My 60 year old neighbor, who has drank enough beer in his life to turn a battleship around, said it was the best beer he ever tasted and promptly bought his own homebrew kit.

Bottom line, do whatever you feel like...it will probably come out awesome no matter what.

[TheIglu]

Pull the SG. Only way to know. Sanitize a turkey baster and suck some out!

[Imbeek]

And another thing; if you are naturally carbonating in bottles that will produce its own sediment, even if you choose to use a secondary fermenter (people talk about flavor differences/benefits from using the secondary, but this ain't rocket science or a beer competition)

[nhbubba]

I am very confident the beer will not go that fast. Pretty much nobody on my t-day invitee list drinks beer. So I have a lot of confidence that I'll be able to let some of this age for a while.

What's the shortest amount of time you would let beer carbonate in the bottle before caving and drinking it? 3 hours? 3 days? A week? In other words, when is the last minute I can bottle to have reasonably carbonated beer for t-day dinner?

Or should I just fucking measure it.

I'm not drinking any alcohol (well, pretty much no alcohol, and definitely no beer) for dietary reasons until T-day. Like abstaining from sex and then nailing an ugly chick, I could probably drink bud and think it would taste fantastic at this point. But..

I'm seriously thinking of picking up another batch to brew as soon as this batch gets out of the fermenter. I suppose that's another good reason to secondary; to clear out the primary bucket for the next batch!

Fortunately I'm using 22oz bottles. I can't imagine cleaning 50-something 12 oz bottles!

[TheIglu]

You really need to just start kegging. Then you'd be drinking your beer already.


As far as timing goes, we did a batch of Fat Albert (chocolate stout) on Saturday. It will be ready to get kegged on Saturday. That's a week. Then two days carbonating. Done. Check your SG and then bottle that shit pronto. It's probably ready unless your yeasties didn't yeastify. In that case, just re-pitch with a good robust neutral yeast like Nottingham and wait a week.

Not all beers get better with age. Some do, some don't. Don't expect a Hefewiezen to improve because you put it in secondary fermentation. It's not wine.

Some beers (lagers) age helps, but that is part of the lagering process. Milk stouts need some time to let the sour taste from the lactose to smooth out, 3 weeks tops, but that can happen in the bottle or keg.

Beer is a living breathing organism. Treat it that way.

[Imbeek]

Not all beers get better with age. Some do, some don't. Don't expect a Hefewiezen to improve because you put it in secondary fermentation. It's not wine.

Come to think of it, I agree with this

[nhbubba]

I talked to the man at Jaspers. He says I'm doing it right. Says 2 weeks in the fermenter and then 2 weeks in the bottle will probably be just fine for this batch. Says this recipe is fairly low alcohol and reasonably hard to fuck up. He says secondary fermentation would probably not be worth it for this one.

I'm gonna bottle this weekend and see what goes wrong.

You really need to just start kegging. Then you'd be drinking your beer already.

Nice. Yeah, I see an investment in kegging crap in my future.

How does kegging get you drinking sooner? Do you just let it finish fermenting in the keg or something?

Check your SG and then bottle that shit pronto. It's probably ready unless your yeasties didn't yeastify.

Pronto eh? What's the harm of letting it ferment too long?

Pretty sure my shit yeastified. But then, what do I know..

[TheIglu]

It is mostly finished fermenting in the first 4 days. We give it an extra 3 just in case it is slow. That and we mostly keg or brew on weekends.

[TheIglu]

So kegging means 9 days total from start to finish for most ales (as in top fermenting, not the style)

[nhbubba]

How careful are you with temperatures? I'm told that is huge. Warmer => quicker ferment, cooler => slower. .. Or so I'm told.

I'm guessing kegs can take more fermenting after the fact than bottles can. I was told bottling too early => lots of caps blown. BS?

[TheIglu]

True. Not bs.

[TheIglu]

My house temp is usually 62-68. The English yeast we are using for the stout likes 72-68, so the house temp is just about perfect. The yeast generates it's own heat a bit.

[Imbeek]

How does kegging get you drinking sooner? Do you just let it finish fermenting in the keg?

With kegs, you can add sugar, just like before bottling, to feed the yeast and allow further fermentation to naturally carbonate the beer (since instead if the CO2 byproduct of fermentation escaping thru an airlock, it is now trapped and carbonates the beer in the keg or bottle). This will produce more solids at the bottom of the keg, and takes some time just like natural carbonation in bottles.

OR, to save time:

Don't add bottling sugar, siphon from the primary fermenter right into the keg, crank up the CO2 pressure, and have it drinkable in a day or two...this is artificial carbonation, and is what is done with most commercial beers, even if bottled. It is faster and no solid byproducts of bottling fermentation end up in the bottom of the bottles...in addition to those "benefits" this method allows the beer to be filtered before bottling, which would otherwise prevent natural fermentation.

I personally think natural carbonation tastes better (could be wrong, difficult to compare apples to apples), but washing bottles and waiting sucks so I'm happy with artificially carbonating in kegs.

Kegging's major drawback IMO is portability of the beer for drinking, especially if you want to take it somewhere to drink over a period of days and size and weight are factors. For example, if you want to give some of your homebrew as a gift and the recipient might not want to drink it right away...easy to give a six pack, not so easy to leave your keg there or give a growler full that will go flat.

[nhbubba]

I understood about the carbonation. What I didn't understand was how it effects fermentation time, if at all. It sounds like it doesn't and Clayton is just being aggressive because he has experience with his ingredients and knows it is done by then. Either that or you are okay letting some of the fermentation happen in the keg.

So far the verdict seems to be that you really can't harm beer by leaving in the fermenter too long, except by prolonging the risk of contamination.



I got chewed out by my coworker this morning that I am bottling too early. I'm not sure why he got so fired up. But he basically told me I have received bad advice I wanted to hear from someone else and am going to fuck everything up by bottling it too early. He's also adamant that not transferring to the glass carboy for a week of secondary ferment is a really bad move.

Whatever.

My plan is to pop the cap on the fermenter tomorrow and measure gravity. If it is at or pretty damned close to the 1.01 final the recipe says I should expect, then I am going to call it done and bottle it. I fully expect it to be done.


Thinking of heading to Jaspers again today on my way home and picking up another, maybe two more kits for the next batch. I should probably wait to see if this batch comes out okay before doing that.. but eff it, it's only money. It'd be nice to have a batch in the bucket fermenting as I start to free up bottles from this batch.

I'm thinking either a winter/Sam seasonal knock off or an irish red. Maybe both..

[Imbeek]

That guy I mentioned above who bought a home brew kit after tasting my first batch chose an Irish red for his first recipe; came out great.

Back to the kegging and natural vs artificial carbonation.

If you decide to artificially carbonate, the keg must be chilled in order for the CO2 to carbonate the beer properly...this lowering of temperature stops any more natural fermentation from occurring, even if more could have occurred if left alone.

To naturally carbonate in a keg, it must be left at the warmer temperatures where the yeast can do their work...once carbonated the keg is chilled and carbonation levels can be adjusted.

[nhbubba]

Right. Okay. I read that you can force carbonate at any temperature.. you just need to up the pressure. (There are calculators online.) But that makes sense that you'd be force carbonating AFTER you are done fermenting and have already cooled the beer. I imagine that uses way less CO2.

[TheIglu]

I would take anything your co-worker says with a grain of salt. The fact that he is getting angry without knowing anything about your factual readings gives me a bad feeling about his ability and knowledge.

You are basically standing inside your house with your bathing suit on waiting for the warm weather to arrive so you can jump into the pool.

You don't know how warm it is outside. Could still be winter. Could be summer. You don't know.

Do you just go outside and jump in the pool?

Or do you check the temp on your indoor/outdoor thermometer first?

Measure your SG. Everything else is speculation.

Remember, your SG is somewhat worthless if you didn't take a reading before you let it start fermenting. You can theorize fairly accurately if you used standard ingredients for a recipe. But to really know, you need a starting reading/temp and a final reading/temp. Then you can know your ABV % which is a pretty good indicator of being "done".

Maybe your friend is right and I haven't been making these 20+ batches of beer at all. Just wort without any fermentation. Me, my friends and family just all fake getting fucked up on it

[Imbeek]

I agree SG measurement cuts through any BS...but I don't think I've ever measured one as low as 1.01 after fermentation so if you are waiting for that you might be waiting a damn long time. Are you sure it doesn't say 1.10?

I haven't bothered measuring mine the last few batches; brewing all grain recipes, I get what I get as far as starting SG (as much as my patience will allow lautering) and by the time I get around to kegging it, I am usually worried that I let it go too long, rather than too early.

Like Clayton, none of my homebrew has ever failed to "work"

After making mistakes here and there, and expecting batches to be ruined but they weren't, I worry almost not at all now (about time in fermenter, SG, etc) and just pretty much wing it. The only things I'm still pretty careful with are sanitation and temperatures of everything thru the process (sparge water temp thru the mash tun, temp before adding yeast, and temp during fermentation)