Barleywine natural conditioning failed, switched to force carb, but now what? 😆

[JimBob’s Brewskis]

Hey folks. Bit of a complicated one.
Got a scenario that I’d appreciate some advice on:

I recently kegged a 17l batch of barleywine, my first. This batch was fermented using the yeast cake (US-05) from the bottom of both carboys of a previous 2 keg pale ale batch (4.5% ABV, 1 pack of dry yeast pitched directly per carboy).

The barleywine fermentation went well. It went from 1.114 to an FG of 1.022 in about 3 weeks. All good so far, and pleased to see that the US-05 cake was able to handle up to 12% and not just “die”, albeit with it being a pretty massive starter.

I then kegged it for natural carbonation, as per my usual practice - about 100g cane sugar in solution and sealed it away under the stairs over the summer (averaging a stable 24C). Overall it’s had nearly 3 months to prime.

Unfortunately, there was seemingly zero secondary fermentation from the priming when I took a sample the other day, this was after chilling the keg down to 3C. In fact, when I opened the tap there was a slight air suction INTO the keg, so I’ve likely oxidised it a little there - this was me expecting there to be enough head space pressure to push a little out without attaching CO2, which has worked in the past. I was wrong this time.

However, with it being a fairly dark barleywine without much in the way of intended late hop character, I think I’ll get away with it

Before I chilled it I checked for pressure in the keg with a quick pull on the PRV. There was a hiss, though it seems in retrospect this might have just been due to temperature/air pressure changes. Anyway, I hooked up 20psi CO2 to the keg, gave it a shake, and after 48hrs I’ve got it to the required, fairly gentle carbonation. The sample is now carbed how I’d like it, though it needs a few months to age as it’s bloody boozey! I’ve disconnected the gas and it’s now sitting in the kegerator at 3C.

So this is my quandary: I’ve picked up from here and there that aging in the fridge isn’t the best practice, and warmer temps are better.

My plan has always been to bottle about half of the carbonated batch using the Kegland beer gun into flip-top glass bottles and put them away to age (out of the fridge) for about a year to see how it develops, then just gradually drink off what left in the keg.

However, in the back of my mind I’m concerned that the seemingly failed attempt at naturally carbonating the batch with sugar might start a time bomb if the yeast suddenly decides to wake up in the bottles after I fill them from the keg - bearing in mind that there was priming sugar added to the batch that the yeast didn’t appear to “want”. It might suddenly decided to start a secondary fermentation in about a year, setting off a chain reaction of bottle bombs.

So, what should I do? I’m planning to take the keg out the kegerator anyway for aging but do I:

(A) stop worrying. Bottle now while the keg’s chilled and take the risk, the yeast is probably dead - if something would have happened, it would have happened by now. or

(B) take the keg out of the fridge and leave it a few months, back under the stairs at 24C - give it time to sort its itself out. If it ends up over carbonated I can deal with it later, but at least there won’t be any explosions!

 

[DuncB]

Make a one litre starter, work out your priming sugar required and make a sterile syrup.
Syringe the required amount of syrup into each bottle. Fill with the barley wine. Add the yeast via syringe so bottle is filled to the correct volume. Cap and leave to condition.
I would bottle the lot, it's a beer for aging not a keg beer. Small bottles are best.

 

[Yooper]

Yep, the yeast is probably over it's ABV tolerance.

You can easily carb in the fridge if you want. Ideally, for long term aging, you'd have it around 50-55F, but you can always do that once it'd carbed up if you want. If you want to carb it at room temperature, you can do that also, but at a higher pressure than cold beer. I carb in the fridge about 39F and 10 psi, but at room temperature, it'd probably be like 25-30 psi to carb up (use a carbonation calculator for some more precision than my "I think" and "probably" though!).

You can bottle from the keg later if you'd like by using a counterpressure bottle filler, a beer gun, or the old homemade version of that. (You will want to do that cold).

 

[JimBob’s Brewskis]

Yep, the yeast is probably over it's ABV tolerance.

You can easily carb in the fridge if you want. Ideally, for long term aging, you'd have it around 50-55F, but you can always do that once it'd carbed up if you want. If you want to carb it at room temperature, you can do that also, but at a higher pressure than cold beer. I carb in the fridge about 39F and 10 psi, but at room temperature, it'd probably be like 25-30 psi to carb up (use a carbonation calculator for some more precision than my "I think" and "probably" though!).

You can bottle from the keg later if you'd like by using a counterpressure bottle filler, a beer gun, or the old homemade version of that. (You will want to do that cold).

Yeah, I think I managed to squeeze every last drop of fermentation potential out of the US-05, and was quite surprised that it reached the target FG, actually. That was an experiment in itself.

But (reading on) I have already carbonated the beer with CO2 by force, it’s the aging question and lingering priming sugar that troubles me

 

[mac_1103]

it’s the aging question and lingering priming sugar that troubles me

You can add a bottling yeast like CBC-1 to the keg (make a slurry and inject it through the gas post using a syringe with a QD attached). Condition it warm for a few weeks. This will consume any priming sugar left in there and kill any US-05 that isn't already dead. But then it might be overcarbed, so you'll need to bleed some pressure and let it equilibrate back down to the correct level. Then you can safely bottle with your beer gun.

 

[JimBob’s Brewskis]

You can add a bottling yeast like CBC-1 to the keg (make a slurry and inject it through the gas post using a syringe with a QD attached). Condition it warm for a few weeks. This will consume any priming sugar left in there and kill any US-05 that isn't already dead. But then it might be overcarbed, so you'll need to bleed some pressure and let it equilibrate back down to the correct level. Then you can safely bottle with your beer gun

This is a nice idea, hadn’t considered adding new yeast to replace the old. I’m not too clued up on yeast strains and their potential. Tend to stick to what I know, but I like this suggestion

Make a one litre starter, work out your priming sugar required and make a sterile syrup.
Syringe the required amount of syrup into each bottle. Fill with the barley wine. Add the yeast via syringe so bottle is filled to the correct volume. Cap and leave to condition.
I would bottle the lot, it's a beer for aging not a keg beer. Small bottles are best.

Already carbed. I think adding more sugar would make the situation worse

 

[Yooper]

Yeah, I think I managed to squeeze every last drop of fermentation potential out of the US-05, and was quite surprised that it reached the target FG, actually. That was an experiment in itself.

But (reading on) I have already carbonated the beer with CO2 by force, it’s the aging question and lingering priming sugar that troubles me

Well, if it's carbonated it's all good and you can store it however you'd like. Does the lingering priming sugar mean it's got a higher SG now than when you bottled it? If so, that's fine if it's not too sweet.

 

[Brockness Monster]

I would check your gravity. There is a very slight chance that one of the seals on your keg had a slow leak and was not holding pressure. If that is the case, and Gravity reads what you were getting before priming you are safe to proceed with bottling with force carb.

 

[Kickass]

After adding the sugar did you hook up CO2 to seal the keg? Sometimes kegs won’t seal with the slow buildup of natural carbonation. You need to hit it with a strong quick burst of CO2.

At this point, I’d just force carbonate with gas.

 

[JimBob’s Brewskis]

I would check your gravity. There is a very slight chance that one of the seals on your keg had a slow leak and was not holding pressure. If that is the case, and Gravity reads what you were getting before priming you are safe to proceed with bottling with force carb.

I hadn’t considered rechecking the gravity to be fair. Though, the keg was fully liquid-purged using fermentation exhaust gas, so I’m pretty sure there’s no leak on that keg.

 

[mac_1103]

I hadn’t considered rechecking the gravity

100 grams of cane sugar in 17 liters is 2 gravity points. Personally, I can't say that I'm all that confident in reading the difference between 1.022 and 1.024 given my old eyes, slight temperature differences, etc. But YMMV.

 

[mac_1103]

This is a nice idea, hadn’t considered adding new yeast to replace the old. I’m not too clued up on yeast strains and their potential. Tend to stick to what I know, but I like this suggestion

CBC-1 data sheet. (pdf)
I always use a bottling yeast when naturally carbonating big beers. Some people use it for all of their beers.

 

[JimBob’s Brewskis]

I think I’ll go with the suggestion from @mac_1103. I’m in no rush to bottle it really, and it gives me an excuse to get an order in from the malt miller with free delivery .

I think in future I’ll force carb big beers to avoid this sort of thing.

 

[Deadalus]

I had a somewhat similar situation happen with 2 meads. I fermented the meads with a sweet mead yeast if I recall correctly. They finished up right at where I thought they would at the limit of its tolerance. I then added corn sugar to lightly carbonate it in champagne bottles mostly but also some 12oz bottles. They never carbonated after several years. I thought about possibly adding another yeast but never did. This happened with two mead batches I did about the same time. I think besides being at an alcohol limit, that if the beer has sat in the fermenter for an extended period, much of the yeast flocculates and the small subpopulation that transfers into the bottle may be insufficient. I did read about it happening to others when making mead. Barley wine has been on my list of styles to try but I haven't done one yet. I will be doing one sometime in the next year as I have added a smaller half batch brew kettle and that's the right size for my consumption level!

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Some people use it for all of their beers.

I have been using it (CBC-1) with all my beers for a couple of years. 2.5 gal batches yield around 24 bottles which fit in chest cooler which I use as "swamp cooler warmer" so I can bottle condition at ~ 75F for about a week to get consistent carbonation regardless of the room temperature where I bottle condition.

I may revisit EC-1118 over the next year as it has a lower recommended temperature range.

 

[ford2110]

I've never had an issue naturally carbing my big beers, it just takes longer. The keg shouldn't have been that flat. Does the beer taste sweet? I assume you hit the keg with CO2 to seal, but are you sure the keg didn't have a small leak?

 

[Kickass]

Though, the keg was fully liquid-purged using fermentation exhaust gas, so I’m pretty sure there’s no leak on that keg.

This is often not an effective method. Some kegs need a large and sudden charge of CO2.

This is why when you apply gas, you often hear it hiss a little from the lid until it “pops” into place.

You can add more yeast but there’s a good chance you’ll experience the same result of flat beer.

 

[JimBob’s Brewskis]

This is often not an effective method. Some kegs need a large and sudden charge of CO2.

This is why when you apply gas, you often hear it hiss a little from the lid until it “pops” into place.

You can add more yeast but there’s a good chance you’ll experience the same result of flat beer.

I’m pretty sure I topped up the head space of the keg with gas after transferring. I don’t have flat beer anymore, but I likely have unfermented cane sugar in the beer - that’s the problem. Can’t say if the US-05 is dead or not, the bottling yeast will address that.

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

If the priming sugar you added made a noticeable difference in the taste of your beer, you either used way too much priming sugar, or you have one helluva sophisticated palate!

Personally, I use some fresh yeast (usually rehydrated EC-1118) to bottle carbonate every beer over 9% abv.

 

[JimBob’s Brewskis]

If the priming sugar you added made a noticeable difference in the taste of your beer, you either used way too much priming sugar, or you have one helluva sophisticated palate!

Personally, I use some fresh yeast (usually rehydrated EC-1118) to bottle carbonate every beer over 9% abv.

It definitely was too sweet, even though there was significant crystal malt and wort caramelisation going on in the boil you can tell there’s sugar going on.

 

[JimBob’s Brewskis]

Right, I’ve done what @mac_1103 suggested and injected some rehydrated CBC-1 into the keg and keeping warm. I’ll report back in a couple of weeks.

 

[DuncB]

Right, I’ve done what @mac_1103 suggested and injected some rehydrated CBC-1 into the keg and keeping warm. I’ll report back in a couple of weeks.

You might be worth checking the pressure on the keg every few days, that will tell you if ferment has kicked off.
Also if it gets above your target vols pressure you can spund it.