Carbonating Question

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dazza001

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Hello Everyone, I was wondering about carbonation in brewing.

My understanding is that to obtain a carbonated drink you need to add sugar when it is time to put the brew in a bottle and it undergoes a secondary fermentation that creates the carbon dioxide to create the fizz in the drink.

I have done this on my homebrews before to good effect, however a small ammount of sediment is always left at the bottom of the bottle, but it does produce a fizzy drink and I just carefully pour the drink so as not to disturb the sediment.

Anyway, I have been looking at wine recipies and I noticed that when it is time for the brew to be bottled it recommends putting a fermentation stopper or wine stabiliser into the bottle to stop the secondary fermentation happening.

This got me thinking though, If I wanted to make a fizzy drink such as a sparkling white wine, how would I get the CO2 into it, without making it ferment again?

Thanks in advance of your replies.
 
Well, there is certainly force carbonation, if you're kegging. Otherwise, you could get some carbtabs or the like, which you drop in at bottling time, and dissipate into co2.
 
Ferment, kill the yeast, keg, force carbonate, bottle with counter-flow or beergun.
 
rcd said:
Well, there is certainly force carbonation, if you're kegging. Otherwise, you could get some carbtabs or the like, which you drop in at bottling time, and dissipate into co2.

I don't use them, but I am pretty sure carb tabs are just a premeasured amount of sugar in a tablet form. They do not dissipate co2....they provide sugar for a secondary fermentation which produces co2.
 
Thanks for your replies.

It looks like Sediment is something that I will just have to live with, as I dont fancy buying any expensive equipment to force carbonate.

As I am quite new to all this, I have loads of questions, many of which I have found the answers to in this forum, but this one continued to bug me, as I saw commercially produced white wines and beers that were fizzy but there was never any sediment.

cheers feedthebear for the link, that was an interesting read about how it is done commercially.

The main reason that I wanted to do this is so as I could transport my home brew in bottles without disturbing any sediment that would make it cloudy again but I wanted the beer to remain fizzy when opened.

Oh well Its not too big of a problem, I will just have to invite friends round to my house to sample the brew instead, I'm sure thay'll appreciate.
 
Do you use a secondary?

I never have any sediment, just a fine layer of yeast on the bottom of the bottle that seems to stick there unless I intentionally disturb it.
 
No I have never used a secondary, although so far I have only made beer, And that has gone straight from fermentation bucket to bottle as per instructions and then left to clear.

However, I have started a strawberry wine and at the moment it is in its 1st week of fermentation and bubbling away nicely.
When the bubbling has stopped I will put that into a secondary though to get the juice from the gunk at the bottom.

As I am now getting a bit more into this brewing I am going to start trying different things and I think I will try using a secondary in beer on the next one.

Also I think I will try the method where the bottle is left to mature uspide down so the sediment collects in the neck, so I can release it and the stick my thumb over the top when the sediment has gone and then top up the lost bit with another previously made brew.

I suppose experimenting is why this hobby is so good, you get well rewarded when it works.

Cheers.
 
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