Yeast at bottom of bottles.

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jonbomb

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Ok so I put a post up a week or two ago about the white stuff at the bottom of my bottles.

I was just curious what would happen if i put the bottle upside down and moved the bottle around a little bit to get all of that off of the bottom....would that hurt carbonation.

I did use priming sugar and I did boil it.
No I did not goto secondary.
 
I don't know could it possibly mix the yeast up to give my beer more carbonation in the end??

It's kinda like not mixing up a bottle of chocolate milk before you drink it and all the chocolate is at the bottom of the bottle...
 
That is the yeast sediment from carbonating your bottles. It's in all bottle conditioned beers, homebrew and otherwise.

It's just that for the last 150 years or so americans have been conditioned by the BMC brewers to pretty much know only about fliltered crystal clear light lagers. Until the 80's with the rise of craft breweries and great import availability of beers from around the world, you didn't see many commercial beers with sediment in it.

And if you've only been exposed to BMC's then you're not going to know or understand about bottle conditioned or living beers. Especially also if you've consumed said beers in the bottle.

We get folks like that on here all the time, who think there is something wrong because their beer has sediment in it, or want to filter it out. It's really a culture thing, you don't so much of that in the rest of the beer world.

Read this for more info On bottle yeast. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/anyone-using-filter-bottling-123758/#post1379528


And then watch this video;

 
Last edited by a moderator:
If your carbonation is lacking then what you are proposing, along with a warmer temp, may help but if the yeast has consumed the residual sugars then all it will do is cloud up the beer. If the carbonation is okay then I'd say leave it be, unless it a Weissbier of course.
 
jonbomb said:
I don't know could it possibly mix the yeast up to give my beer more carbonation in the end??

It's kinda like not mixing up a bottle of chocolate milk before you drink it and all the chocolate is at the bottom of the bottle...
Click to expand...

It won't give you more carbonation, it will settle back down.

If you beer is not carbonated enough, then the simple answer is that it is simply not time yet.

The 3 weeks at 70 degrees, that that we recommend is the minimum time it takes for average gravity beers to carbonate and condition. Higher grav beers take longer.

Stouts and porters have taken me between 6 and 8 weeks to carb up..I have a 1.090 Belgian strong that took three months to carb up.


Everything you need to know about carbing and conditioning, can be found here Of Patience and Bottle Conditioning. With emphasis on the word, "patience." ;)

There's even a nifty video showing carbonation over time.
 
Revvy said:
It won't give you more carbonation, it will settle back down.

If you beer is not carbonated enough, then the simple answer is that it is simply not time yet.

The 3 weeks at 70 degrees, that that we recommend is the minimum time it takes for average gravity beers to carbonate and condition. Higher grav beers take longer.

Stouts and porters have taken me between 6 and 8 weeks to carb up..I have a 1.090 Belgian strong that took three months to carb up.


Everything you need to know about carbing and conditioning, can be found here Of Patience and Bottle Conditioning. With emphasis on the word, "patience." ;)

QUOTE]

You must do a lot of cutting and pasting. I have seen you answer this same question probably 30 times since I've been on here. I even read your dissertation about the beer that fermented at too high of a temp that you found after a year that had finally cleaned itself up. :mug:
Click to expand...
 
I thought lower temps will make it carb more? Based on the fact that you need less priming sugar when carbing at lower temps.

However, i'm assuming this method takes longer to carb.

So if it was too hot, then I'm thinking the yeast ate the sugar, and because of the heat, c02 had less volume = flat beer.

Am I wrong?
 
Revvy said:
It's in all bottle conditioned beers, homebrew and otherwise.
Click to expand...

Not quite all. Most people assume that if there is no sediment then the beer is force carbonated or bulk carbonated but a few breweries bottle condition beers and manage to keep yeast to a small enough level that you don't see the sediment layer. Sierra Nevada comes to mind.

Revvy said:
It's just that for the last 150 years or so americans have been conditioned by the BMC brewers to pretty much know only about fliltered crystal clear light lagers.
Click to expand...

Nitpicking a bit, but 150 years is more than a bit of a stretch, don't you think? ;)
 
doctorRobert said:
I thought lower temps will make it carb more? Based on the fact that you need less priming sugar when carbing at lower temps.

However, i'm assuming this method takes longer to carb.

So if it was too hot, then I'm thinking the yeast ate the sugar, and because of the heat, c02 had less volume = flat beer.

Am I wrong?
Click to expand...
I have never heard of needing less sugar when carbing at lower temps, only less sugar if the beer fermented at lower temps because more co2 would still be disolved in the beer before bottling.
 
JJL said:
You must do a lot of cutting and pasting. I have seen you answer this same question probably 30 times since I've been on here. I even read your dissertation about the beer that fermented at too high of a temp that you found after a year that had finally cleaned itself up. :mug:
Click to expand...

Revvy is a high-tech brewing robot fueled by copypasta sent back in time to school the newbs.

Seriously, though, all his copypasta contains good answers and a good 80% (or more) of the questions asked are fairly common ones. I learned a lot from Revvy's copypasta!
 
doctorRobert said:
I thought lower temps will make it carb more? Based on the fact that you need less priming sugar when carbing at lower temps.

However, i'm assuming this method takes longer to carb.

So if it was too hot, then I'm thinking the yeast ate the sugar, and because of the heat, c02 had less volume = flat beer.

Am I wrong?
Click to expand...

No, lower temps won't make it carb more.

You need less priming sugar to carb beers fermented at lower temperatures, true- but that's because beer fermented at cold temperatures (like a lager) "hold" onto dissolved co2 quite well. So, during fermentation, it's possible that not as much co2 came out of a lager as it would if the beer was an ale, and fermented warmer.

That really doesn't have anything to do with the hot/cold temperature of priming though. In order for ales to carb up well, it really needs about three weeks at 70 degrees or so. That's because those tired yeast will still work pretty well at 70 degrees. Colder temperatures (like if your basement is only 65 degrees) will still carb up, but take quite a bit longer. Any colder than that, like under 60 degrees, and the ale might not carb up at all. Quite a few ale yeast strains go dormant (or at least work much more slowly) under 60 degrees.
 
I dont see how the temperature that the beer fermented at, has anything to do with it other than the temp that the yeast like to munch on sugar at. So I completely misinterpretted this? Colder fermenting beers just has more co2 in it? And it has nothing to do with the amount of volume co2 is at different temps?

I was going based on this:
http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter11-4.html

So i blame john palmer for not saying fermentation temps.
 
doctorRobert said:
I dont see how the temperature that the beer fermented at, has anything to do with it other than the temp that the yeast like to munch on sugar at. So I completely misinterpretted this? Colder fermenting beers just has more co2 in it? And it has nothing to do with the amount of volume co2 is at different temps?

I was going based on this:
http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter11-4.html

So i blame john palmer for not saying fermentation temps.
Click to expand...

As I understand it that temperature is the temp when you are bottling, not the temp it was fermented at. Basically at a given pressure (in the fermentor this would be near atmospheric) the amount of co2 disolved in the beer is proportional to the temp, lower temp = more co2. With priming you want to hit a specific amount of co2 in the beer so if you have more to start with you need less sugar (each oz sugar will give you pretty much a constant amount ofextra co2) to get the extra co2 needed.
Another example is if you open a warm beer you will get lots of foam as at the warmer temp the beer cannot hold as much co2 vs. when cold so a lot more co2 is realeased from the beer making lots of bubbles/foam.
 
mattd2 said:
As I understand it that temperature is the temp when you are bottling, not the temp it was fermented at. Basically at a given pressure (in the fermentor this would be near atmospheric) the amount of co2 disolved in the beer is proportional to the temp, lower temp = more co2. With priming you want to hit a specific amount of co2 in the beer so if you have more to start with you need less sugar (each oz sugar will give you pretty much a constant amount ofextra co2) to get the extra co2 needed.
Another example is if you open a warm beer you will get lots of foam as at the warmer temp the beer cannot hold as much co2 vs. when cold so a lot more co2 is realeased from the beer making lots of bubbles/foam.
Click to expand...

Well, yes and no. Say you fermented a beer at 68 degrees, and after it was done you "crash cooled" it. So, it's currently at 34 degrees. If you use the nomograph for 34 degrees, your beer will be undercarbed. Because once the beer is done fermenting, it doesn't produce more co2. So, that chapter is a bit misleading because John Palmer doesn't get into enough detail. It's true that it looks like you're going by the current temperature of the beer, but that's really not the best way to do it.

Same way with a lager. Say you fermented it at 50 degrees. But you did a diacetyl rest at 68 degrees. Much of the dissolved co2 at 50 degrees will come out of solution. Did you ever have a big temperature change when your beer was in the fermenter? If you take it out of a cool place, it'll start bubbling as it warms up. It's simply co2 being released.

The most reliable way to add priming sugar and use those calculators is to pick the highest temperature that you had the beer at during the end of fermentation, or during secondary. That seems to be give the closest accuracy.
 
True, I didn't stop to think that after fermentation has stoped that if the temp went up then down that the co2 would be realeased and lost and therefore not be in the beer when it cooled.
So many things to consider, but I guess as long as you are not competing for that perfect beer and it is not way over/under carbed that if you aim for the middle of the carb range you should at least get close.
Yooper in your experience are under/over carbing issues (such as no carb after 3 months or bottle bombs) more of a result from big errors rather than what we are talking about here? Big erros being forgeting the priming sugar or adding enough for a 10 G batch to a 5 G.
Sorry to get off topic
 
mullenite said:
Not quite all. Most people assume that if there is no sediment then the beer is force carbonated or bulk carbonated but a few breweries bottle condition beers and manage to keep yeast to a small enough level that you don't see the sediment layer. Sierra Nevada comes to mind.



Nitpicking a bit, but 150 years is more than a bit of a stretch, don't you think? ;)
Click to expand...

I am drinking a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale as we speak. There is definately yeast sediment in the bottle. Not as much as in my homebrew, but it is there.

Maybe I'll harvest it.:D
 
mattd2 said:
Yooper in your experience are under/over carbing issues (such as no carb after 3 months or bottle bombs) more of a result from big errors rather than what we are talking about here? Big erros being forgeting the priming sugar or adding enough for a 10 G batch to a 5 G.
Sorry to get off topic
Click to expand...

Oh, generally any overcarbing issues are big ones- like bottling before fermentation was finished or accidently adding the priming sugar twice. Or, forgetting and not adding it at all and having it undercarbed.

The difference in the final beer of adding 3.5 ounces priming sugar vs 5 ounces priming sugar in a 5 gallon batch is small. I used to just always use 4 ounces (by weight) for almost every beer, with good results, instead of worrying about an ounce or a partial ounce for a different style. I would say that most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between 2.0 volumes and 2.4 volumes, for example, so if it seems right to you then that's what is important.
 
YooperBrew said:
Well, yes and no. Say you fermented a beer at 68 degrees, and after it was done you "crash cooled" it. So, it's currently at 34 degrees. If you use the nomograph for 34 degrees, your beer will be undercarbed.
Click to expand...

Ugh.....preach on Yoop!!

I've had sooooo many arguments about this. I've finally started asking people to put five gallons of 68F tap water in the fridge and when it gets down to 34, see if it magically carbonated to 2.0 volumes of CO2.
 
Yeah thats what I thought, there are just so many bottle bomb scare threads out there that it makes you wonder why people are forgeting the basic. I know there will be some situations with stuck fermentations getting started again after bottling and such but mostly it seems to be bad technique.
My wife actually forbid me to bottle in glass because I told her about a story of a freind of my dad (I can't really attest to whether this is true or not - urban legend here we go) that pulled out some homebrew (might of been ginger beer which would make a bit more sense) put it on the kitchen counter, went to the bathroom and luckly closed the kitchen door because bang both bottles exploded and when he went back in there we shards of glass stuck in the door.
I had not problems with the wife's request when I was starting out as I always think it is better to be safe than sorry, my glass bottle collection is growing slowly now that I am more confident in my abilities to remember things!
 
smizak said:
Ugh.....preach on Yoop!!

I've had sooooo many arguments about this. I've finally started asking people to put five gallons of 68F tap water in the fridge and when it gets down to 34, see if it magically carbonated to 2.0 volumes of CO2.
Click to expand...

So have any of them actually done it? I suposed you wouldn't know because when they find out all they have is cold water I would think they wouldn't admit they tried it and were wrong to you :)
 
mullenite said:
Not quite all. Most people assume that if there is no sediment then the beer is force carbonated or bulk carbonated but a few breweries bottle condition beers and manage to keep yeast to a small enough level that you don't see the sediment layer. Sierra Nevada comes to mind.ote]
Click to expand...

I think it's close enough for the purpose of my comments to the OP.

Nitpicking a bit, but 150 years is more than a bit of a stretch, don't you think? ;)
Click to expand...

Really? Anheiser Busch introduced Budweiser in the 1860's. Last time I did the math that was a tad over 150 years. I think it's fair to say several generations of American beer drinkers have grown up without knowing about bottle sediment. :rolleyes:
 
mojotele said:
Revvy is a high-tech brewing robot fueled by copypasta sent back in time to school the newbs.

Seriously, though, all his copypasta contains good answers and a good 80% (or more) of the questions asked are fairly common ones. I learned a lot from Revvy's copypasta!
Click to expand...

There's no doubt the man has a wealth of knowledge. And I have noticed that there are a lot of the same questions being asked. That's why I love the search function.
 
mullenite said:
Not quite all. Most people assume that if there is no sediment then the beer is force carbonated or bulk carbonated but a few breweries bottle condition beers and manage to keep yeast to a small enough level that you don't see the sediment layer. Sierra Nevada comes to mind.
Click to expand...

That's something I noticed with my first 5 gallons of beer. About half of the bottles had a noticeable amount of sediment. About a quarter had just a little amount of sediment. And another quarter of the bottles had zero sediment (at least, none that I could see with my eyes. Maybe if I had a microscope...).

I'm not really sure why 25% had no sediment, but I found it quite intriguing. Same amount of carbonation in every single bottle.
 
The "Veteran" members have all given expert advise here. Folks like Revvy and Yooper are Jedi Masters of home brewing. Listen to their counsel and pay attention, better information cannot be paid for. HBT is awesome because new brewers entering the hobby has the wisdom of experienced brewers provided at no cost. If you feel the obligation to give something back, become a supporting member. If not, oh well. No harm, no foul.
 

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