Carbonation

[jcpenney]

Ok, so I've looked up a few things relating to this, but haven't found any definitive answers yet, so i thought I'd ask the hive mind here.

I have a 5 gallon batch in the carboy now. I dry- hopped it (which i had never done before) by dropping hop pellets directly into the carboy. Obviously this resulted in hop flakes all through my beer, so i decided to cold crash it to get the flakes to sink.

Now that I'm ready to bottle, I'm worried that since cold crashing the yeast will have fallen too much and i won't get good carbonation. I'm considering adding a small amount of dry yeast with my priming sugar.

I made this batch to take to a friend's wedding next weekend and I'm hoping to have a decent amount of carbonation by then.

Your thoughts? How much yeast should i use? How much sugar? Is there a better way to do this?

Thanks for your input
-Jeff

 

[Brownalemikie]

Not sure about your hop question but 1 week seems to short of time for complete carbonation. JMO

 

[jbunton]

Even if it's carbonated I suspect it will taste a bit green

 

[Krown]

Cold crashing is the way to go for clear dry hopped beer if you don't use a hop bag. It leaves plenty enough yeast to carb the beer but can add slow the carbonation process a bit. My rule of thumb for carbonation for normal gravity beer (1.055) is minimum 2 week, 3 if cold crashed. Carbonation can take longer for higher gravity beers. Also, bigger bottles tends to take a bit longer to carbonate so you might want to bottle in 330ml bottles.

It is probably not necessary to add yeast unless you made a very high gravity beer or aged it in secondary for a while but it will not hurt to add some. You could add somewhere between 1/4 to 1/2 pack of dry yeast.

As you are in a hurry, make sure you leave your bottles a few degrees warmer than your fermentation temp. I'd go up to 80F and flip the bottles upside down twice every day to keep yeast in suspension and help speeding up the process. Stop flipping them 1-2 day prior to the weeding to prevent or else you might serve cloudy beers.

Regarding sugar amount, use an online priming calculator and shoot for a CO2 concentration a little bit higher than the style you brewed (maybe .3-.4 volume higher).

Good luck, I hope your beer ends up carbonated on time!

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

You can use a bottle priming calculator to determine the amount and type of priming sugar that will be needed to reach any specific level of carbonation. Of course the calculators assume that the beer being bottled has been fully attenuated and there are no fermentable sugars left in the beer at the time of packaging.

I remember cold crashing a lager beer once at 36F for six weeks and the yeast was able to carbonate the beer after that length of time, although the carbonation level was somewhat than I had planned on.

 

[rangerdug]

I don't have Krown's experience, but I know I wouldn't try to speed carbonation for an important function like a wedding. My rule is two weeks. Good luck.

 

[jcpenney]

Cold crashing is the way to go for clear dry hopped beer if you don't use a hop bag. It leaves plenty enough yeast to carb the beer but can add slow the carbonation process a bit. My rule of thumb for carbonation for normal gravity beer (1.055) is minimum 2 week, 3 if cold crashed. Carbonation can take longer for higher gravity beers. Also, bigger bottles tends to take a bit longer to carbonate so you might want to bottle in 330ml bottles.

It is probably not necessary to add yeast unless you made a very high gravity beer or aged it in secondary for a while but it will not hurt to add some. You could add somewhere between 1/4 to 1/2 pack of dry yeast.

As you are in a hurry, make sure you leave your bottles a few degrees warmer than your fermentation temp. I'd go up to 80F and flip the bottles upside down twice every day to keep yeast in suspension and help speeding up the process. Stop flipping them 1-2 day prior to the weeding to prevent or else you might serve cloudy beers.

Regarding sugar amount, use an online priming calculator and shoot for a CO2 concentration a little bit higher than the style you brewed (maybe .3-.4 volume higher).

Good luck, I hope your beer ends up carbonated on time!

Thank you!

Everything ended up ok. I added about 1/3 of a packet of dry yeast at priming, and a little extra sugar. I opened the heat vents in the basement where i kept the bottles to keep them warm. I also swirled the bottles at least once every day before leaving for the wedding (i tried flipping the bottles and storing them upside down for awhile but i ended up with yeast sediment in the necks on some of them).

Everything was appropriately carbonated, and tasted great. Thank you for the advice!

- Jeff