I'll be blending two barrel aged sours soon, and I'm confused about some details when using the excel sheet referenced by Mike here: Priming Barrel-Aged and Blended Sour Beers | The Mad Fermentationist - Homebrewing Blog
I plan on bottling 5gal of of the base beer (a funky saison), as well as a 50/50 (2.5gal/2.5gal) blend of that and another sour. The calculator states for the 5gal of the base saison alone has:
0.43 Residual CO2, and 0.43 Predict CO2 w/o Sugar -> needing 7.75 oz table sugar to hit 3.2 vols
But when doing the 50/50 blend, the sheet states both components have 0.43 Residual CO2 and 1.71 Predict CO2 w/o Sugar together -> needing 4.18 oz table sugar to hit 3.2 vols
It seems from a practical aspect, blending two similar beers with the same residual CO2 should yield the same "Predict CO2 w/o sugar" as only one. Why does the "Predicted CO2 w/o sugar" more than quadruple when blending? I'd like to wrap my head around this and be able to trust this sheet, as it's the matter of a difference of 3.6 oz sugar and the potential to vastly undercarbonate a great beer.
Might anyone shed some light on this?
I plan on bottling 5gal of of the base beer (a funky saison), as well as a 50/50 (2.5gal/2.5gal) blend of that and another sour. The calculator states for the 5gal of the base saison alone has:
0.43 Residual CO2, and 0.43 Predict CO2 w/o Sugar -> needing 7.75 oz table sugar to hit 3.2 vols
But when doing the 50/50 blend, the sheet states both components have 0.43 Residual CO2 and 1.71 Predict CO2 w/o Sugar together -> needing 4.18 oz table sugar to hit 3.2 vols
It seems from a practical aspect, blending two similar beers with the same residual CO2 should yield the same "Predict CO2 w/o sugar" as only one. Why does the "Predicted CO2 w/o sugar" more than quadruple when blending? I'd like to wrap my head around this and be able to trust this sheet, as it's the matter of a difference of 3.6 oz sugar and the potential to vastly undercarbonate a great beer.
Might anyone shed some light on this?
Last edited:
