How to carbonate beer that has dead yeast

Hello,

I'm brewing a maltzbeer which is a german beer for kids, it's non alcoholic and sweet. You brew it the same way as a normal beer only after a day of it fermenting you kill the yeast. My problem is, that since you killed the yeast adding sugar to it wouldn't help it carbonate. You could force carbonate it but I dont have the right equipment to do that. Is there a way to carbonate it without having to buy expensive equipment?

Thanks

Only option I can think of, would be to get either the pocket charger (for use in serving from corny kegs) and one of the carbonator caps to use with 2L bottles. Charge the bottle with CO2, shake the F out of it to dissove, and then hit with more CO2 until carbonated. Or get a regulator that uses paintball gun CO2 bottles and a few bottles to use. Use the same Carbonator cap to carbonate the bottle you want. IMO, if you're looking to do more than one bottle at a time, you're better off getting a regulator, CO2 tank/bottle and kegs. Depending on your fridge, you might be able to fit either a 2.5 gallon or 3 gallon corny keg in it. Or, if you have a basement, put the keg in there and use the pressure level needed to carbonate at that temperature.

Trying to use yeast to carbonate will result in bottle bombs.

Okay, thanks a lot for your help

How much of this stuff do you have made that needs to be carbonated??

Search the ads in your area for people selling used, but still working, chest freezers. Many people use those to hold kegs while serving/carbonating them. You can also use this chart to figure out CO2 pressure needed to carbonate at a temperature. Many of us that keg use this chart. Makes things really easy when you can just set the keg to pressure level, at temperature, and come back ~2 weeks later to find it fully carbonated. :rockin:

You could also try to justify the bigger costs to SWMBO by saying it's really for the kids. Then get kegs to put your beer in slowly until you're only kegging new batches. You don't need to get everything all at once you know. I would just advise not going cheap where it counts. Things like the regulator are worth spending a bit more on to get a quality item. IMO/IME, Taprite rules there. Cheaper to get that from the start, then need to replace it later.

I'm using a dual body Taprite regulator, feeding two manifolds in my 10 cubic foot Whirlpool fridge/freezer (top freezer) that holds four 2.5 or 3 gallon corny kegs. I have three Perlick faucets through the door, so I have one spot in the fridge for carbonating a keg, while three are on tap. I have the CO2 tank sitting outside the fridge, so that I have more room for kegs. Plus, the 20# [aluminum] tank I use won't fit inside. :rockin: I scored that for cheap money from another HBT member over a year ago. I also have 10' beer lines (3/16" ID Bevlex hose) from each keg to faucet. I also have 5/16" ID double wall hose for the CO2 side. All fittings are MFL, so I have swivel nuts on the hoses. Makes changing them much easier. I'd also seriously advise using Oetiker clamps for all the hoses, over worm clamps. Significantly better seal that way, AND you won't get sliced by them (unlike worm clamps on both points).

There are plenty of threads about kegging and setups on the boards. Look them over to see what others are doing.

Would it work if I bottled the maltzbier waited a couple of days and then killed the yeast? Also how much alcohol would the yeast make in a few days?

No idea. Never tried that, or even looked into it. IMO, you're risking it being either really low in carbonation, really high, or blowing up on you. Is it really worth the pain/risk??

BTW, normally, beers take 3+ weeks to carbonate. But, with what you have, it could be done at any point. By the time you figure it's right, the rest of the batch could be blowing on you. Especially since it takes several days in the fridge for CO2 to go into solution. It could take longer with the sweeter (and higher SG) beverage you have there.

IMO, high potential for pain, low potential for pleasure, by trying to use yeast here.

I haven't made it yet, I'm just trying to get all the info before brewing. If possible I wouldn't want to buy all the equipment because it seems quite expensive. If nothing works I think I'll use the Paintball CO2 tanks and carbonate them with those.

Thanks for all your help

The caps for soda bottles run $19-$20 each. So unless you're only going to make 2L (or less), or carbonate only that much at a time, it can add up fast there.

So, there's really no way to do it simply- I'm sorry; that keg and all is *never* going to be simple at least in terms of the ordinary language meaning of that word- once the yeast is dead. Carbonation drops are just sugar and something has to be alive to ferment it. Got it.

OK. Here was my simple, low cost solution. Find a nice craft beer of the same style you were making. Bring it up to room temperature so that it's plenty foamy. Mix 1/4 of one to each of your dead ones. That's simple and it works.

BTW, more interesting to my mind, is how to get into this trouble in the first place. I'm brewing where it's 40C and it is hell to do. Had some breaks in the weather, used Belgian Ardennes to allow brewing up to 25C, but it still had a bit of a woody taste from the temps and it was going to get hot and I was sure it would go off. I decided to turn it into Shiner Ruby Redbird, since I had the flavorings handy and it had the same basic recipe otherwise, but two problems were that it wanted to ferment another day at least before priming and I hadn't used Munich malt, which is really necessary in a Shiner RR to balance the grapefruit. Then it hit me. I boiled some Munich malt for 10 minutes, strained, poured it into a transfer bucket, and then dumped the beer in on top of it. Raised it to about 31C and I thought that would knock the yeast down killing most, balancing the flavor profile and then a bit would survive and carbonate it. I added 1/4 cup corn sugar for 5 gallons.

Guess what? Been a week and it is stone dead. I'll follow my own advice for carbonation, maybe it will revive in a month- I don't exactly drink a six-pack of Shiner RR a day- but I've definitely learned a nice, quick, organic emergency method of killing the fermentation dead!