Bottling

[tommy24a]

Is it my understanding that when fermenting in a conical under pressure and then bottling from there I would not need sugar normally needed for bottling? What does the co2 actually do?

 

[Antonio Martinez]

Take a look at a carbonation chart for kegging. With enough time at the proper pressure the co2 will dissolve into the beer and provide carbonation. When you find a chart you'll see that at warmer temps it will require higher pressures to reach your desired level of carbonation. Depending on the pressure applied and temperature of your beer at the time you may or may not need to add additional sugars to get where you want to be.

 

[tommy24a]

Take a look at a carbonation chart for kegging. With enough time at the proper pressure the co2 will dissolve into the beer and provide carbonation. When you find a chart you'll see that at warmer temps it will require higher pressures to reach your desired level of carbonation. Depending on the pressure applied and temperature of your beer at the time you may or may not need to add additional sugars to get where you want to be.

Is there an ideal level of carbonation ?

 

[Antonio Martinez]

Depends on the style of beer you're brewing. In general 2-2.5 volumes will be good for most styles.

 

[bracconiere]

Is there an ideal level of carbonation ?

personally, i like 2.143281 vols or in other words 33,96 grams in a 5 gallon corny....carb it to your comfort....

i like mine with a little sharpness, but not bloating.....

 

[tommy24a]

personally, i like 2.143281 vols or in other words 33,96 grams in a 5 gallon corny....carb it to your comfort....

i like mine with a little sharpness, but not bloating.....

And how do you measure the level?

 

[bracconiere]

And how do you measure the level?

as far as the 2.1 to the 6th decimal? i don't. i guess i was just trying to joke around in bad taste. i burst carb with my tank on a scale, and find 1.2oz's of co2 is a perfectly carbed keg.

but definitely don't prime like it didn't already have a bunch of co2 in it!

 

[tommy24a]

Ok, so say I have 10 gallons in my conical under co2 pressure. How much pressure ballpark would I need for lets say a lager to reach an acceptable level of carbonation to bottle?

 

[bracconiere]

Ok, so say I have 10 gallons in my conical under co2 pressure. How much pressure ballpark would I need for lets say a lager to reach an acceptable level of carbonation to bottle?

as far as know most people like 12psi? for ~2.5 vols...but that's temperature dependant. i'll get the chart

 

[tommy24a]

as far as know most people like 12psi? for ~2.5 vols...but that's temperature dependant. i'll get the chart

View attachment 711249

Thank you! Great info!

 

[Vale71]

What does the co2 actually do?

It depends on how you're going to fill the bottles. If you use a counterpressure filler most of the CO2 will hopefully stay in the beer. If you just open a spigot beer will shoot out violently and most of the CO2 will be lost to foaming.

 

[McKnuckle]

Bottling 10 gallons of beer under pressure? Please shoot some video.

This is possible, but is a decidedly advanced procedure. I sense from the questions that you may be new to all of this, so you might want to go another route.

At best it will be messy and exhausting, and you’ll have under-carbonated beer. At worst, messy plus 10 gallons of flat beer.

To end up with the right concentration of CO2 at serving temps in the bottles, you‘ll need the fermenter pressure to be in the 20-something psi range if it’s sitting in the 60’s F. Refer to the chart. Look up 2.4 volumes and correlate it to temperature and pressure.

 

[tommy24a]

Bottling 10 gallons of beer under pressure? Please shoot some video.

This is possible, but is a decidedly advanced procedure. I sense from the questions that you may be new to all of this, so you might want to go another route.

At best it will be messy and exhausting, and you’ll have under-carbonated beer. At worst, messy plus 10 gallons of flat beer.

To end up with the right concentration of CO2 at serving temps in the bottles, you‘ll need the fermenter pressure to be in the 20-something psi range if it’s sitting in the 60’s F. Refer to the chart. Look up 2.4 volumes and correlate it to temperature and pressure.

You are correct that this is new to me at least the conical and co2 part. I have done AG before but not on this system. I guess I will empty the conical into bottling buckets, add my priming sugar and then bottle from there.

 

[McKnuckle]

Fermenting and packaging under pressure is great with a keg, but bottles - man... I know at least that *I* wouldn't touch that with a 10' mash paddle. You may be built of stronger stuff!

The issue now is that if your beer is under pressure, you will need to calculate how many volumes of CO2 are already in it, in order to compensate when bottling. Otherwise you'll get the proverbial bombs. You can't just use the standard priming sugar calculators that assume fermentation at atmospheric pressure.

For example, if your fermenter is sitting at 65ºF and held at 10 psi, you already have 1.41 vols. CO2 in it. To carbonate and get 2.4 vols., you'd want to enter 1.0 for target CO2 vols. in a priming calculator. That's the difference between what you already have and what your actual target is.

 

[Antonio Martinez]

To add to what McKnuckle is saying, you would also have to dose the bottles individually with that amount of sugar otherwise you're going to lose a lot of the carbonation built up under pressure if you were to transfer it to a bucket. Counter pressure bottling seems like the best option if this is something you really want to do. I would also add since you mentioned this is your first time with something like this that you have a spunding valve in place to release the over pressure in your conical. Here are a couple more resources for you:

Counter Pressure filling

Fermentation Under Pressure

 

[tommy24a]

Fermenting and packaging under pressure is great with a keg, but bottles - man... I know at least that *I* wouldn't touch that with a 10' mash paddle. You may be built of stronger stuff!

The issue now is that if your beer is under pressure, you will need to calculate how many volumes of CO2 are already in it, in order to compensate when bottling. Otherwise you'll get the proverbial bombs. You can't just use the standard priming sugar calculators that assume fermentation at atmospheric pressure.

For example, if your fermenter is sitting at 65ºF and held at 10 psi, you already have 1.41 vols. CO2 in it. To carbonate and get 2.4 vols., you'd want to enter 1.0 for target CO2 vols. in a priming calculator. That's the difference between what you already have and what your actual target is.

Got it, thanks for the info. Very helpful!

 

[tommy24a]

To add to what McKnuckle is saying, you would also have to dose the bottles individually with that amount of sugar otherwise you're going to lose a lot of the carbonation built up under pressure if you were to transfer it to a bucket. Counter pressure bottling seems like the best option if this is something you really want to do. I would also add since you mentioned this is your first time with something like this that you have a spunding valve in place to release the over pressure in your conical. Here are a couple more resources for you:

Counter Pressure filling

Fermentation Under Pressure

Checked put both links..good info! Looks like counter pressure is the way to go.

 

[Vale71]

Forget about fermenting under pressure and then priming the rest of the way. Even partly carbonated the beer will still foam a lot especially if you try and fill a bottle with priming sugar in it but even emptying the fermenter in a bucket will be quite a challenge.
Like others have said if you can't reach full carbonation and/or you don't want to try your hand at counterpressure bottle filling closed transfer into a keg is the only way to go.

 

[tommy24a]

Forget about fermenting under pressure and then priming the rest of the way. Even partly carbonated the beer will still foam a lot especially if you try and fill a bottle with priming sugar in it but even emptying the fermenter in a bucket will be quite a challenge.
Like others have said if you can't reach full carbonation and/or you don't want to try your hand at counterpressure bottle filling closed transfer into a keg is the only way to go.

Yes I am starting to think for now I will not ferment under pressure.

 

[Advance]

What fermenter are you using? What head pressure and temperature is your batch currently being held at?

 

[tommy24a]

I have not brewed yet on the new system. Just got it put together. The conical I have is.

 

[khannon]

I have the same fermentor and do the closed/pressure transfer to kegs(amazing how much easier this is), but at a lower pressure, then force carb. I would check the specs, I don't know that the conical is rated for enough pressure to bottle with carbonation in the 60s.

I had thought of the idea of using the pressure transfer tool to a beer gun to do a counter-pressure fill, or something, but it got way to complicated in my head, so I think I'll just keg and use the filler from the taps when I need to share/send off to a competition..

Love the CF-15 though, and the ability to throw a pump at the bottom and run hot PBW solution in a cleaning cycle and walk away while it does most of the work is awesome..

 

[Advance]

Are you able to cold crash the fermenter to 40F or less? If so, your best bet is to cold crash in the fermenter after your primary and secondary stages are finished. This will allow you to transfer clear beer to your kegs. If your head pressure following the cold crash is still high (10+ psi), you might need to counter pressure fill your kegs to prevent major foaming. Make sure to not allow your head pressure to drop at any time after saturation equalibrium has been reached. If you do, the entire cold conditioning stage will be ruined becasue your settled solids will be mixed back in with your clear beer. If you wish to bottle directly from the fermenter, the best repeatable results will be obtained by using the counter pressure filling method. You will have to carbonate in the fermenter, preferably with a carbonation stone, and to a level higher than you want the finished product to be in the bottle. For a 2.5 volume target, I will usually carbonate to 2.7 - 2.8 volumes in my unitank. The filling and capping of bottles does not take very long (about 45-60 mins / 5gallons), the prep work can be very time consuming if you do not have equipment that expedites the process. If you do wish to bottle 10 gallon batches in the future you will definitly want to invest in a good bench mounted capper, and a way to clean and sanitize at least a dozen bottles at a time.

 

[tommy24a]

Are you able to cold crash the fermenter to 40F or less? If so, your best bet is to cold crash in the fermenter after your primary and secondary stages are finished. This will allow you to transfer clear beer to your kegs. If your head pressure following the cold crash is still high (10+ psi), you might need to counter pressure fill your kegs to prevent major foaming. Make sure to not allow your head pressure to drop at any time after saturation equalibrium has been reached. If you do, the entire cold conditioning stage will be ruined becasue your settled solids will be mixed back in with your clear beer. If you wish to bottle directly from the fermenter, the best repeatable results will be obtained by using the counter pressure filling method. You will have to carbonate in the fermenter, preferably with a carbonation stone, and to a level higher than you want the finished product to be in the bottle. For a 2.5 volume target, I will usually carbonate to 2.7 - 2.8 volumes in my unitank. The filling and capping of bottles does not take very long (about 45-60 mins / 5gallons), the prep work can be very time consuming if you do not have equipment that expedites the process. If you do wish to bottle 10 gallon batches in the future you will definitly want to invest in a good bench mounted capper, and a way to clean and sanitize at least a dozen bottles at a time.

Great info, very much to think about. Trying to get my ducks in a row for my first brew.

 

[Advance]

Wow, for some reason I interpreted your question(s) as being related to a real situation. Now that I re-read your first post, I see your inquiry was hypothetical. My bad.

 

[tommy24a]

Great info, very much to think about. Trying to get my ducks in a row for my first brew.

Wow, for some reason I interpreted your question(s) as being related to a real situation. Now that I re-read your first post, I see your inquiry was hypothetical. My bad.

No harm...lol...thanks!

 

[tommy24a]

I have the same fermentor and do the closed/pressure transfer to kegs(amazing how much easier this is), but at a lower pressure, then force carb. I would check the specs, I don't know that the conical is rated for enough pressure to bottle with carbonation in the 60s.

I had thought of the idea of using the pressure transfer tool to a beer gun to do a counter-pressure fill, or something, but it got way to complicated in my head, so I think I'll just keg and use the filler from the taps when I need to share/send off to a competition..

Love the CF-15 though, and the ability to throw a pump at the bottom and run hot PBW solution in a cleaning cycle and walk away while it does most of the work is awesome..

Ok, so let me get this straight. I want to ferment under pressure to provide carbonation. Then when fermenting is complete I want to close Xfer to keg. From keg can I then use a blichmann beer gun to fill bottles?

 

[Advance]

Ok, so let me get this straight. I want to ferment under pressure to provide carbonation. Then when fermenting is complete I want to close Xfer to keg. From keg can I then use a blichmann beer gun to fill bottles?

You can bottle right from the fermenter with no need to transfer to a keg. I would highly recommend counter pressure bottling over the beer gun though. You will get much better, repeatable results. You will have to have two seperate CO2 reguatlors in order make it work properly though. Using a tee fitting and a single regulator to supply the fermenter and the counter pressure filler, causes the headspace pressure to drop while the bottle is being purged. This casues CO2 bubbles to form on your settled solids and lift them into the clear beer you are trying to bottle. Unless you are fermenting a lager at ale temperatures, there is really no need to ferment under pressure. In fact the reduced ester production from the yeast might have a negative impact on the quality of your ales. For an ale, it is best to ferment with a simple airlock until the beer nears F.G. When you are 2-3 points away from your calculated F.G. the airlock is shut and pressure is allowed to build. The pressure from these last few gravity points might get up to the maximum safe operating pressure that your fermenter is rated for. If this happens, a spunding valve is utilized to keep the pressure steady at this level. You should always use a none adjustable pressure relief valve regardless of whether you are spunding or not. If you are fermenting a ale, you will always have to add carbonation during the cold crash stage. The pressures required to reach full carbonation at ale fermentation temperatures would be well over the maximum safe operating pressure of your fermenter, especially if you are planning to bottle (overcarb in fermenter to account for losses in the bottle).

 

[tommy24a]

You can bottle right from the fermenter with no need to transfer to a keg. I would highly recommend counter pressure bottling over the beer gun though. You will get much better, repeatable results. You will have to have two seperate CO2 reguatlors in order make it work properly though. Using a tee fitting and a single regulator to supply the fermenter and the counter pressure filler, causes the headspace pressure to drop while the bottle is being purged. This casues CO2 bubbles to form on your settled solids and lift them into the clear beer you are trying to bottle. Unless you are fermenting a lager at ale temperatures, there is really no need to ferment under pressure. In fact the reduced ester production from the yeast might have a negative impact on the quality of your ales. For an ale, it is best to ferment with a simple airlock until the beer nears F.G. When you are 2-3 points away from your calculated F.G. the airlock is shut and pressure is allowed to build. The pressure from these last few gravity points might get up to the maximum safe operating pressure that your fermenter is rated for. If this happens, a spunding valve is utilized to keep the pressure steady at this level. You should always use a none adjustable pressure relief valve regardless of whether you are spunding or not. If you are fermenting a ale, you will always have to add carbonation during the cold crash stage. The pressures required to reach full carbonation at ale fermentation temperatures would be well over the maximum safe operating pressure of your fermenter, especially if you are planning to bottle (overcarb in fermenter to account for losses in the bottle).

Wow! A lot of information to digest for sure. Thank you! I have much to consider and learn.

 

[McKnuckle]

I think the simplest thing to have learned from this thread is not to ferment under pressure at all. Just because your conical can do it, doesn’t mean it’s something you should do all the time. You need a way to package the beer conveniently when using that technique.

If you really want 10 gallons worth of bottles, then ferment normally and bottle/carbonate normally.