Question Natural carbonation.

[schia]

Hello all,
Let’s assume that I'm a very patience person, can i bottle my beer without priming sugar and still get the carbonation in need from time – say 6 months?
And is it true that if I’m going to keg my beer, I don’t need priming sugar cause I’ll have the co2 hook up to the keg anyway.

 

[FarmBoy530]

The only way to get natural carb that I'm aware of would be to prime. I suppose if you bottled a beer very young, that was still in primary ferm you could catch that co2. But that is a really bad idea for many reasons. Not to mention just poor beer making habits. To answer your question on kegging, you don't have to prime in a keg. Since co2 dissolves in water, we can make this happen with force carbing. By using a chosen temp and corresponding head pressure in a keg (with your uncarbed beer in it) the beer will be forced to absorb the co2. When the full amount of co2 has been absorbed at the temp you choose, your beer is carbed. By doing this we can also control how much co2 is in a particular beer.

 

[fletchsj]

Depends on the beer and if it is done fermenting. some people bottle early and finish in the bottles. in my opinion, that is asking for trouble by means of bottle bombs...

as for kegging, yes the co2 carbonates the beer. it takes 48 hours to a couple weeks to carb using co2, and min 10 days - 2 weeks bottle conditioning.

 

[tektonjp]

It can be done. I have a friend who swears by it. Me, I can't imagine waiting that long!

I imagine you would need to keep a close watch on the gravity and bottle it with just a few points left to go before final gravity. It isn't the same as krausening, but if you did some research on that, I think you'll find some calculations which would help you figure how many gravity points would equal how many CO2 volumes.

 

[JLem]

You certainly could, but you risk bottle bombs (if you bottle with too high a gravity) or no/low carbonation (if you bottle with too low a gravity). Doesn't seem worth the risk to me, especially since the FG of a beer is unknown until you reach it. If you've made a recipe a bunch of times and have a real good feel for where the FG is going to end up, you're in better shape to try this, but otherwise you're taking a big risk.

 

[FarmBoy530]

To answer your question straight forward. No. If your beer has fermented all the way out and is ready to bottle. It wont matter how long you wait, your beer wont have any more carb then they day you bottled it.