Too long in bottles......

Got a question for you all. I've got a Fuller's ESB recipe sitting in my secondary right now, and I am planning on bottling this Thursday; I'm not going to prime it.....going to let it bottle condition for three weeks. Here's my question. I know it will be fine for the first week, but do I need to get it into a fridge after that? How long can I let it sit in the bottles conditioning without worrying about it turning bad? Can I do a full three weeks? Is that too long at room temp?

it last over a year once carbed, as long as it stays carbed. no need to put any in the fridge untill ready to drink

you want about 5oz of corn sugar added to the secondary and mixed right before bottling also

bkov said:

you want about 5oz of corn sugar added to the secondary and mixed right before bottling also

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You would actually want to add it to the beer while it is in the bottling bucket, after racking it from the secondary, to be precise. Not to nit pick, just sayin'.

djt1111 said:

I'm not going to prime it.....going to let it bottle condition for three weeks.

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You need to use priming sugar to bottle condition your beer. It won't carbonate if you don't prime it. It will take about three weeks to carb and condition. Once it's in the bottle you can keep an ESB around for a year or two if you want. It'll probably be best at around two months.

I beg to differ. A chapter in Brew Your Own British Real Ale at Home specifically says priming is unnecessary, a tool used by major brewers who need to get their beer to market faster or impatient homebrewers. Fact is, at least according to them, that there are plenty of residual sugars in the beer to carbonate without priming - you just have to have patience. Which damn Americans don't seem to have. No offense, I'm an American too - I just wish I had been born in Britain

fishops said:

You need to use priming sugar to bottle condition your beer. It won't carbonate if you don't prime it. It will take about three weeks to carb and condition. Once it's in the bottle you can keep an ESB around for a year or two if you want. It'll probably be best at around two months.

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I've heard and read the opposite, though. That if it's a properly made beer, there is no need to prime. That all priming does is just speed up the process.

Am I missing something? Why aren't you going to prime it?

djt1111 said:

I've heard and read the opposite, though. That if it's a properly made beer, there is no need to prime. That all priming does is just speed up the process.

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Intresting but I don't believe it's true with bottle beers. Where did you read it?

BrothersTrout said:

I beg to differ. A chapter in Brew Your Own British Real Ale at Home specifically says priming is unnecessary

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You give that a shot and report back to us DAMN Impatient Americans.

BrothersTrout said:

Which damn Americans don't seem to have. No offense, I'm an American too - I just wish I had been born in Britain

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Feel Free to move...if they'd have you.

For the record, The Damn Europeans, The Damn Australians, and Damn British, the Dam Irish, and people from every other country in the world prime beer.

Matter of fact, your source is nearly wrong. Properly finished beer has completely finished fermenting. That means that you will not get proper carbonation without adding additional sugar. There is potential for green beer to bottle carb, but it will not likely be sufficient carbonation to satisfy the average consumer...or the average beer profile that you might be brewing.

Great idea! Come here and trash the Damn Americans, as well as tried and true brewing techniques.

Boy You're going to be the most popular kid on the block.

BigKahuna said:

You give that a shot and report back to us DAMN Impatient Americans.



Feel Free to move...if they'd have you.

For the record, The Damn Europeans, The Damn Australians, and Damn British, the Dam Irish, and people from every other country in the world prime beer.

Matter of fact, your source is nearly wrong. Properly finished beer has completely finished fermenting. That means that you will not get proper carbonation without adding additional sugar. There is potential for green beer to bottle carb, but it will not likely be sufficient carbonation to satisfy the average consumer...or the average beer profile that you might be brewing.

Great idea! Come here and trash the Damn Americans, as well as tried and true brewing techniques.

Boy You're going to be the most popular kid on the block.

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Hey Kahuna!
Pretty obvious to me that you missed the humor of Bros Trout's post. Chill out man. Don't think he was attacking you or yours personally, but rather throwing out an interesting idea, or at least something to chew on.

It's people like on you on forums across the board that are, well, I kinda hate to say it, lame. Tried and true indeed.

Sometimes new ideas lead to something else new entirely.

But you probably knew that.

You seem to know everything.

Nurmey said:

Intresting but I don't believe it's true with bottle beers. Where did you read it?

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It's mentioned in couple different books about brewing British style beers. Basically, I really want to have a lot of patience and take all the time in the world with this beer.......think it's going to be awesome, so that's why I thought I would throw this whole idea out to you all and see what you thought.

BigKahuna said:

Boy You're going to be the most popular kid on the block.

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And somehow you've managed to remain popular, despite your mouth - wow!

Seriously man, I didn't intend to offend. Take a few deep breaths. Relax, have a homebrew

djt1111 said:

Hey Kahuna!
Pretty obvious to me that you missed the humor of Bros Trout's post. Chill out man. Don't think he was attacking you or yours personally, but rather throwing out an interesting idea, or at least something to chew on.

It's people like on you on forums across the board that are, well, I kinda hate to say it, lame. Tried and true indeed.

Sometimes new ideas lead to something else new entirely.

But you probably knew that.

You seem to know everything.

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MMM Yes....Humor...I see it now. Soooo Sorry!
Ideas are what we are all about, and I'm all for experimental brewing, but come on; To say that priming is unnecessary is not very productive to what I feel is the main purpose of this site, which is to help each other produce better beer.
The honest answer is that you are going to have flat beer. There is potential for slight carbonation, but more likely than not, you will end up with bottle bombs and get hurt if you try and bottle early to avoid priming.

And if it's lame of me to be a proud American, or a Proud Brewer, or to try and help others be the same...then to hell with it....I'll be the most lame motherF**ker on the block!

If I may interject, I've got to side with BigKahuna on this. Until I see some legit evidence to the contrary, I've got to say this idea of not priming is silly and counter-productive. The problem is that there's alot of noob's here who soak up info like a sponge, and when they see this their going to try it and be extremely disappointed in the results. There's no reason you can't prime and age your brew in the bottle at the same time, so even if you could get carbonation without priming after fermentation is done, what exactly would be the point?

Kahuna may be an abrasive ranting nutball but he's right. You can wait as long as you like, if your beer is finished fermenting it won't give you sufficient carbonation no matter how long you let it sit in the bottle. I speak from personal experience as well as every brewing resource I've ever come across.

I think what he's trying to get at is this may become an issue if some one who's new to brewing gets ahold of this information and tries, fails and abondons brewing. I've modified my fair share of batches, usually it doesn't seem to turn out all that well.

If you are inclined to play with it, why not make a batch, take part of it (say a case or so) of bottles, omit the priming sugar then set em back and see what happens. That way you can try 1 or 2 a month and see if you've gotten success with your experimenting, but have beer in the mean time. There's nothing wrong with experimenting, but be warned I have done it in the past and it's easy to make an abomination; I have plenty in the wine cellar.

Calling a major foul on this one. We don't call anyone names here.

Let's say your brew would actually fully carb without priming after a long period of time. If that's the case then if you did prime and let the beer age for a long period of time wouldn't you inevitably get bottle bombs? You would get get the carbonation from the priming sugar within a few weeks and then over time the carbonation would increase until BOOM. If this is the case then those of us who prime better be careful not to leave our brews lying around at room temp for too long.

Nurmey said:

Calling a major foul on this one. We don't call anyone names here.

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Touche. I'll sit in the penalty box for that one. But I don't appreciate having my patriotism questioned, or people freaking out over a damn joke. There was a smiley face there, no?!

Anyway, you're right. I shouldn't have said that. I'll take my punishment, but I won't take it back

OKAY!
Sheesh.......was just wondering about something. All right already. I'll prime. I'm ecited about this batch....was my first AG, and everything went perfectly. Was just curious.

I'll prime.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, I'LL PRIME!!!!!

We can have a discussion and disagreement about brewing but it will not degenerate into name calling.

All posts of this nature will be deleted.
Lets keep it civil.

djt1111 said:

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, I'LL PRIME!!!!!

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Honestly...If you want an experiment, Just set off a 6 pack or 2 without. Maybe you'll hit Carbonation Utopia, Just dont' risk a whole batch on it.

Forgetting about BrothersTrout wanting to lash out at me and resort to name calling....Experimentation is a great part of home brewing...just do it in moderation. My ONLY ax to grind here is learning EVERYTHING I can, Helping EVERYONE I can, and having some really great beer, wine, and Mead.
You may actually Duplicate the Traditional "Style" of an English Real Ale. Good Bad Or Otherwise.

Good Luck To you...and whatever you do, Post Your Results. We're dying to see how this comes out.

All I have to say is that I agree with BigKahuna on this thread. BrothersTrout, sorry, but you seemed to attack BK faster than you explained your methodology. I've heard of bottling beore 100% fermentation is complete, I've never tried it, or have attempted to. But you never seemed to mention anything about how to do it.

I think BK was stating his opinion fairly, and maybe he might be a little bit under the influence, like myself, but hey, this is a brewing forum, so I don't believe anyone should get bent out of shape.

We are all here to brew great beer. And everyone has their own methods, and for that, this is why this forum is so great.

Trout, I would be willing to wager a significant sum of money that the reason they say there's enough residual sugar to not need to prime is that they're putting the beer in the cask before it reaches its final gravity. Once the beer hits FG, it's done unless something else gets in there (like Brett) that can ferment the sugars that ale yeast cannot.

CAMRA is their own little world. They like flat beer, it's that simple. Some beers, like Special Bitters, are fine at very low carbonation levels. Many beers need carbonation to develop their nose.

For an ESB, bottling without priming works. There is always a little residual sugar that will be fermented and even at room temperature your beer has some CO2 in it. Flat (AKA REAL) ales work best when served from a beer engine that forces out what little CO2 is in the beer. You can get the same effect by pouring from a 2-3 feet.

Assuming good sanitation, your beer can sit at room temperature for a year or more. An ESB won't have much hop flavor or aroma anyway, that's the style.

(Don't get CAMRA's started on sparkler vs. no sparkler. They can get really mean with heretics.)

As a UK-er, I am happy to report an experiment in which I tried priming a batch of beer (an ordinary bitter) with about 1/3 the usual amount of priming sugar. After four months, the beer wasn't very carbonated, and was pretty lifeless. It kind of sucked ass, actually. I decided it was an educational experience, but not something I'd ever want to repeat. I know that beers from a cask can be fantastic without priming sugar, but a cask is different from a bottle in so many ways that you aren't going to get a bottled beer to mimic a cask beer just by leaving out the priming sugar.

I say this was an experiment. What I really mean is that I tried bottling whilst drunk, and added the wrong amount of priming sugar. So yeah, it was an experiment. And as a local brewer is fond of saying, "There are no mistakes in brewing - there are only limited-edition specials".

Danek said:

So yeah, it was an experiment. And as a local brewer is fond of saying, "There are no mistakes in brewing - there are only limited-edition specials".

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Let that local brewer know he got sig quoted in a VERY FAMOUS brewing forum!

OK
lets put an end to this topic.
I've done it before and you get flat beer.
(too much home brew during bottling)

Buy some of those sugar pills and put some in your beer during bottling and leave some with out the sugar pills.


The last batch of these pills I used called for up to 5 per 12 oz bottle. so try some at 0 then some at say three and the rest at 5. Check the recommendation amount for the sugar pill you get.

I muck about all the time. Last weekend we were transferring to the secondary and had too much beer for the secondary ----- So we just bottled 3 16 oz bottles and popped in the primming sugar.

Tell us what you do and how it comes out but don't risk the entire lot

And if you do and its flat. pop the caps off and hit it with the sugar pills put on new caps wait 2-3 weeks (maybe a little more) and you will have good beer

Relax don't worry have a home brew

Yes that what the old duffers did around hear back 30 years ago. They timed the bottling so there was some sugar left. Lots of story's of bottle bombs.

Danek said:

I say this was an experiment. What I really mean is that I tried bottling whilst drunk, and added the wrong amount of priming sugar.

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:cross:

And as a local brewer is fond of saying, "There are no mistakes in brewing - there are only limited-edition specials".

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I have a similar saying: "If you screw up a beer, it just turns into a different beer."

While I agree that once a beer reaches FG it has nothing left to ferment to carb a bottle, but using 1oz of priming sugar in 5 gallons of ESB always gave me wonderful results

niquejim said:

While I agree that once a beer reaches FG it has nothing left to ferment to carb a bottle, but using 1oz of priming sugar in 5 gallons of ESB always gave me wonderful results

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That makes sense, I was just running some numbers through beersmith.

The carb range for ESB is between .8 and 2.1 volumes of CO2.

@ 70 degrees, the OP MAY get .8 volumes of CO2, though I doubt that tastes or feels very good, and I agree that you need SOME SUGAR to produce the co2, so I doubt that that could be produced in situ.

Moving up to .9 volumes, then you need to add .20 ounces of priming sugar. 1.0 requires .51 ounces. At the max, 2.1 volumes requires 3.94 ounces

Your 1oz of priming sugar netted you 1.155 volumes of CO2. Since when I carb to style, I usually go for the middle of the range, I can see how that might net you a fairly nice balance.

Real Ale, or Cask Ale, is put into keg/cask before it has finished fermentation. That's why they don't prime it with sugar. The secondary cask fermentation provides the carbonation that it needs. Then they used to let it sit in the cellar of the pub for a week or so to finish and "breath" in the air from that particular pub so that the beer develops a "local" flavor. Two casks from the same brewery would taste different based on how the beer was handled. Micheal Jackson had a great episode of "The Beer Hunter" that covered British Cask Ale. Highly recommended.

They also don't put it in bottles because the uncontrolled fermentation temps could make the bottles explode.

Remember, not everything you read is right or accurate. Sure, they don't prime it. They also don't bottle it traditionally. YMMV.

I think I'm late in chiming in on this one, but here's my two cents... I have left a high gravity warmer in secondary for close to five months. I then (at a recommendation from my local HBS) added some nottingham to the bottling buckets, to be sure there was something to eat the priming sugar. I then bottled in 22 oz'ers. Just this weekend, I came across 2 22's that I mysteriously forgot about, and they were great! The extra time in the bottles wasn't a problem at all. I think it even helped.

mmb said:

Real Ale, or Cask Ale, is put into keg/cask before it has finished fermentation. That's why they don't prime it with sugar. The secondary cask fermentation provides the carbonation that it needs. Then they used to let it sit in the cellar of the pub for a week or so to finish and "breath" in the air from that particular pub so that the beer develops a "local" flavor. Two casks from the same brewery would taste different based on how the beer was handled. Micheal Jackson had a great episode of "The Beer Hunter" that covered British Cask Ale. Highly recommended.

They also don't put it in bottles because the uncontrolled fermentation temps could make the bottles explode.

Remember, not everything you read is right or accurate. Sure, they don't prime it. They also don't bottle it traditionally. YMMV.

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Totally makes sense.......this actually just clicked with me, and I would love to be able to transfer from secondary to bottles while there would be just enough fermenting left to finish in th ebottles, but I don't think that is feasible at all. So.......I'll just go ahead and prime.

Revvy said:

That makes sense, I was just running some numbers through beersmith.

The carb range for ESB is between .8 and 2.1 volumes of CO2.

@ 70 degrees, the OP MAY get .8 volumes of CO2, though I doubt that tastes or feels very good, and I agree that you need SOME SUGAR to produce the co2, so I doubt that that could be produced in situ.

Moving up to .9 volumes, then you need to add .20 ounces of priming sugar. 1.0 requires .51 ounces. At the max, 2.1 volumes requires 3.94 ounces

Your 1oz of priming sugar netted you 1.155 volumes of CO2. Since when I carb to style, I usually go for the middle of the range, I can see how that might net you a fairly nice balance.

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Yeah, I just bottled an ESB and only used 2 oz of priming sugar. BJCP style calls for .75 to 1.3 volumes. I understand from some reading that commercial examples in bottles usually have higher volumes, so I aimed for 1.7 volumes to try. We'll see how it turns out!

5+ year old thread dude... where did you find this?

Lol

mmb said:

Real Ale, or Cask Ale, is put into keg/cask before it has finished fermentation. That's why they don't prime it with sugar. ...

Remember, not everything you read is right or accurate. Sure, they don't prime it. They also don't bottle it traditionally. YMMV.

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Exactly right.

Those brewers or breweries have their recipes, temperatures and methods down to "almost" an exact science.

They know what the final gravity should be through years of experience and know just when they can cask or keg the beer with enough sugars left to produce the carbonation level they are shooting for.

Even then there will be differences in carbonation which is further controlled by the landlord or pub owner as it sits in the cellar.

Let it ferment out till it is well done ( 3-4 days with no change in SG ) and it is within the expected FG for that recipe before priming and bottling.

Why risk bottle bombs or flat beer when a little patience and one more simple step (priming) will get you a decent product ?

OMO

bosco