Carbing with an Airlock?

[elijahjmhutchinson]

A few months ago, I had to leave a batch of pineapple ale in primary and go on vacation. I used a three-piece airlock and overfilled it because I was concerned about evaporation of airlock water while I was gone on vacation. I was pleasantly surprised to find my brew already carbonated and ready to drink. My question is if you don't mind serving from the barrel or jug, is carbonating by use of an overfilled airlock something that anyone does on purpose?

 

[eltorrente]

No, that's not the way to carbonate - I don't see how that would work. The airlock, no matter how full, will not hold pressure inside of the fermenter, in fact it's designed to let pressure out.

The only way I can see that it was carbonated, is if it got blocked by debris and kept some pressure inside the fermenter.

What kind of fermenter are you using? How carbonated is it? I can't see that it would be carbed all that much.

 

[AkTom]

Was it done fermenting? What were your gravity readings? And timing?

 

[shoengine]

I didn't know threaded airlocks and stoppers were a thing.

 

[elijahjmhutchinson]

I did some more research on this (on this forum) and I'm certainly not the only one who has seen it happen. An airlock can and often does prevent some amount of co2 from escaping. This causes some level of co2 to dissolve. I fermented in primary for a little over three months and took gravity readings that finished consistently and tested over the course of a week. I am asking the question because I have had this happen a few times. Here is an older thread where some guys were talking about it. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/history-of-beer-and-carbonation.224489/ I was simply asking to see if anyone had significant dissolved co2 after primary fermentation for this reason. The airlock wasn't blocked by anything but the amount of water held enough pressure in to cause carbonation to dissolve.

 

[GPP33]

All beer after primary has dissolved CO2. The CO2 produced by a single yeast cell is so small that it easily goes into solution before bubbling to the surface. Could you increase the pressure by overfilling a 3 piece air lock? Sure, enough to make a difference? Unlikely. Could there be something else at play making you perceive high carbonation than previous brews? Absolutely.

Chill that beer to typical serving pressure and I bet you’ll be disappointed.

 

[elijahjmhutchinson]

Thank you gentlemen for your input.