Real Ale in bottles

[dan_b]

Hi all,

I'd like to make a traditional real Ale, but in bottles. Just to be clear what I mean, i want a bottle conditioned ale with a light fizz without having added priming sugar.

The problem is I've never actually made a proper cask conditioned real Ale, so i don't know when the beer should be moved into the cask to allow carbonation. Too soon, and I'm sure they'll be all sorts of problems, too late, and presumably there won't be enough fermentation left to create the co2.

I figure whatever the standard time to move the beer to cask is, I'll use that as the bottling time. So does anyone here make proper cask conditioned real Ale and can advise? Or even better has anyone bottle conditioned without priming? I guess i could always bottle from a cask...

Regards

Dan

 

[Hanglow]

If you want to try it, then bottle when you have 1 to 2 gravity points remaining to ferment.

You could also like you mention rack to a sealed cask/keg with a couple of points remaining, let it condition then bottle from that. I think that's what Graham Wheeler used to recommend.

 

[lokis333]

Hi, not too sure if I understood you right, but for bottling a beer some sort of sugar like substance is added for the yeast to ferment it to create light carbonation and the foam. Priming sugar does not really affect the brew or its taste much if at all. Other alternatives to priming sugar could be honey or DME and amount could be determined using online priming sugar formulas (they do have alternatives also).

 

[dsniegocki]

If you are reluctant to use priming sugar, you could try a form of krausening, by holding back a bit of your wort and adding it back in when primary fermentation is complete.

 

[dan_b]

Thanks for the replies.

The reason i don't want to add priming sugar is because traditionally it wouldn't have been, and i want to market my beer as a traditional product. Saving some wort seems like a reasonably alternative, but I'm guessing from Hanglow's reply a "try it and see" approach is the best option.

 

[Hanglow]

Sugar has be used in british brewing for a long time, since the Free Mash Tun Act in 1880 commercially and of course private brewers could put whatever they wanted to in it

Nothing wrong with priming, but yes using residual sugars in the beer is more proper - I think timothy taylor are probably the biggest brewer to still do that

 

[ncbrewer]

This seems like it would have a real risk of bottle bombs. In my experience the FG prediction isn't accurate enough, at least with home brewing. If the actual FG turns out to be a couple of points lower than you expected, you could get bottle bombs.

 

[SteveH aka shetc]

Have you read Graham Wheeler's book "CAMRA'S Brew Your Own British Real Ale"? Plenty of white sugar used in the recipes so I don't think it's an issue using sugar to bottle condition. To be real ale-like, the amount of priming sugar needs to relatively low so the carbonation is around 1.1 volumes C02 at 50-55° F.

 

[55x11]

Sugar has be used in british brewing for a long time, since the Free Mash Tun Act in 1880 commercially and of course private brewers could put whatever they wanted to in it

Nothing wrong with priming, but yes using residual sugars in the beer is more proper - I think timothy taylor are probably the biggest brewer to still do that

I agree. Sugar priming (and adding hops) is often part of traditional cask ale process, no reason to avoid it. Nothing unnatural about priming sugars - whether they come in form of wort or actual sugars etc.

Otherwise you have to guess about the final gravity and bottle just about 4 points prior to reaching it. (each gravity point is about 0.5 CO2 volumes). I heard this from some people and I always have to shake my head at this practice.

But here's the problem - if you guess on the low side, (wait too long) even by a point or two, it will be severely undercarbed. Flat and probably oxidized.

But if you bottle too soon, overestimating FG by a couple of points, you will have bottle bombs. Not a big problem with a cask ale - it's in a cask that can handle the pressure, and after maybe a few foamy pints it goes away, so it will stabilize quickly. But for bottles, it's a major problem, as they will all explode.

Good luck.

 

[BrewSavage]

DME instead of sugar?

 

[Aristotelian]

Thanks for the replies.

The reason i don't want to add priming sugar is because traditionally it wouldn't have been, and i want to market my beer as a traditional product. Saving some wort seems like a reasonably alternative, but I'm guessing from Hanglow's reply a "try it and see" approach is the best option.

What do you mean by "traditional"? Sugar has been around for a long time, and it is used in many beer styles that I would consider traditional. Trappist ale and saison are "real" ale, in my opinion.