huh?sweet_corn said:I thought when I toured a brewery this fall, they said they caught the CO2 off of fermentation, stored it as a liquid, and then used it as part of their canning/bottling process.
sweet_corn said:I thought when I toured a brewery this fall, they said they caught the CO2 off of fermentation, stored it as a liquid, and then used it as part of their canning/bottling process.
It's a common practice among big breweries since it's fairly efficient. It's been discussed among homebrewers but fairly unanimously agreed that it's impractical at best on a small scale.bigben said:what brewery is that? so, they compress it to form liquid, then they shoot it into the beer, hehe...that sounds interesting
Kaiser said:Force carbonation is actually only used by small brewers. The bigger ones carbonate during the secondary fermentation/lagering by simply keeping the fermentation vessels under controlled pressure. This is pretty easy to do (even for the home brewer) and much cheaper than buying CO2. If the brewery is big enough they also harvest the CO2 from the fermentation and use it in the brewing process or sell it.
Kai
jiffybrew said:But if the beer is already carbonated in the fermentation vessel and they fill the bottle, doesnt the beer foam all over the place while bottling?
hmm....
Kaiser said:Force carbonation is actually only used by small brewers. The bigger ones carbonate during the secondary fermentation/lagering by simply keeping the fermentation vessels under controlled pressure. This is pretty easy to do (even for the home brewer) and much cheaper than buying CO2. If the brewery is big enough they also harvest the CO2 from the fermentation and use it in the brewing process or sell it.
German brewers have to use fermentation CO2 for carbonation. Any other CO2 violates the Reinheitsgebot.
Kai
jiffybrew said:But if the beer is already carbonated in the fermentation vessel and they fill the bottle, doesnt the beer foam all over the place while bottling?
hmm....
Kaiser said:brewers carbonate during the secondary fermentation/lagering by simply keeping the fermentation vessels under controlled pressure.
True, but for someone who brews a higher volume than their serving kegerator(s) can handle, having that beer that's in the pipeline already carb'd might be convenient.jdoiv said:...Personally sounds like more trouble than it's worth though. CO2 is pretty cheap.
Cheesefood said:What about using gyle from the next batch to condition a batch ready to bottle? That doesn't violate R-bot.
As someone who owns the beer gun, I've been having some head retention issues. Perhaps someone can enlighten me. The beer is all carbed up in the keg. Sometimes it's been sitting at high pressure for over a week before I bottle any of it. I usually bottle at 10 psi, but for some reason I am getting very low head retention. The head retention is fine when I pour from the tap, why am I having such a problem force carb with the ber gun?
German brewers have to use fermentation CO2 for carbonation. Any other CO2 violates the Reinheitsgebot.
Cascadegan said:Yeah but then there is sediment/clarity issues, some germans like beer with yeast but most breweries keep their beers crystal clear (unless its a hefe...)
BetterSense said:I have a friend with a degree in brewing and beverage technology from some german university, and he said this is not the case; that the CO2 capture was largely a self-enforced move by breweries that want to look like they are complying to what is a largely irrelevant, even in Germany, directive, but there is no legal problem with force-carbing with any ole' CO2.
This is exactly what I saw when I visited the micro here in town last week. Once the gravity gets to a certain level (let’s say 85% of expected attenuation), the primary vessels are locked down under pressure with a pressure relief valve set at about 15PSI.
This allows the beer to absorb the CO2 being produced and not over carbonate because of the relief valve. The last five days (of about a 2 1/2 week period), the primaries are dropped to 29 degrees to crash chill and drop the yeast. CO2 is then “locked in” at that colder temp. Counter pressure bottle filling equipment prevents loss of carbonation and the higher start point of a 15PSI, offsets any loss.
If you were to translate this to a homebrew process, I’d say you rack from the primary to a keg when your gravity is about at the 85% mark. (OG = 1.045, FG Expected is 1.010…rack at 1.015).
I’ve actually had kegs that were completely fermented out that sat for 3-4 weeks at room temp and by the time they were hooked up to a tank, they were about 50% carbonated.
For bottling, you could do the same thing…though I’d experiment with bottling off just a few bottles at that earlier stage to determine the right gravity for the process.
This is exactly what I saw when I visited the micro here in town last week. Once the gravity gets to a certain level (lets say 85% of expected attenuation), the primary vessels are locked down under pressure with a pressure relief valve set at about 15PSI.
This allows the beer to absorb the CO2 being produced and not over carbonate because of the relief valve. The last five days (of about a 2 1/2 week period), the primaries are dropped to 29 degrees to crash chill and drop the yeast. CO2 is then locked in at that colder temp. Counter pressure bottle filling equipment prevents loss of carbonation and the higher start point of a 15PSI, offsets any loss.
If you were to translate this to a homebrew process, Id say you rack from the primary to a keg when your gravity is about at the 85% mark. (OG = 1.045, FG Expected is 1.010 rack at 1.015).
Ive actually had kegs that were completely fermented out that sat for 3-4 weeks at room temp and by the time they were hooked up to a tank, they were about 50% carbonated.
For bottling, you could do the same thing though Id experiment with bottling off just a few bottles at that earlier stage to determine the right gravity for the process.
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