A Few General Questions

[viligar]

Hello!

So i have two brews under my belt and have tried one of them. FANTASTIC. THANKS DR SMURTO for probably the best golden ale ive ever had. Also have a Ruby Red Ale (kit) bubbling away.

Now a few questions, i think i have the "basics" of BIAB down. and now i want to try and get the beer clearer and as good as i can get it before i step to all grain, i want consistant good results.

So ive heard about these two things called Cold conditioning:

From what i understand cold conditioning is putting the beer into a secondary after about 7 days and then letting it cool down in the fridge for about 1 - 2 weeks then bottle from there ( please correct me if i am wrong) And this is ment to break down proteins leading in tastier less yeasty cloudy beer?

Secondly im intrested in No chill, at the moment i have one fermeneter about to buy another one on payday. What i wanted to know is in terms of no chill, can someone please explain how it works and a simple instructional as to how i would do it? from what i understands it means i could brew every saturday and when need be just pour the wort into the fermenter and pitch the yeast. is this correct?

My last question is to do with glass bottles and the best way to carbonate, basically im **** scared of a bottle bomb. What would be the best way to prime these bottles (carb drops) can you use card drops in glass? I am using PET at the moment only because well i can. But i want to start recycling and using some glass. Batch prime? How would i do this and how do i know how much suger etc? this would mean i would need a second fermenter (i have one from bunnings which blew up)

Basically yeah, any help would be great you guys have been fantastic so far and i think its safe to say when i drink this beer i couldn't have done it without this forums help.

Cheers.

P.S The fermenter i had a Kits and bits Canadian Blonde (friend's dad owns the LHBS so i got it for a very good price), I used glad wrap as i didn't have a airlock (bunnings fermentor) not sure what happened either A. Someone kicked my fermentor <_< or B. The tap was loose and was leaking.

But i came home to beer all over the floor, very sticky indeed and a sad time indeed.

 

[felten]

From what i understand cold conditioning is putting the beer into a secondary after about 7 days and then letting it cool down in the fridge for about 1 - 2 weeks then bottle from there ( please correct me if i am wrong) And this is ment to break down proteins leading in tastier less yeasty cloudy beer?

The use of a secondary isn't mandatory, I usually CC in the primary. Reducing the temp down enables chill haze compounds to form and settle out, and yeast to flocculate out more rapidly.

nochill article here http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...;showarticle=56

 

[O'Henry]

Well, a lot of questions there. Will try to answer them...

1. Cold conditioning is what you said. Once the beer has reached final gravity (steady reading for 2-3 days with a hydrometer) chill it down to 0-4C. This will help to settle out the yeast and also some protein that could cause haze in your packaged beer. This is a massive generalisation. Colloidal stability is very complicated...

2. Just get some Cube that are the size you want and they need to be food grade. I have 20l distilled water cube because they are easy to get were I work. Food grade is the most important.
On the brewday once you have whirlpooled you leave everything to settle and then rack the wort into the cube. It is best to rack either using a tube through the top of the kettle or one on a valve welded into it, as pouring into the cube will cause foaming and you will waste a bit trying to fill it up, plus potentially make a mess. Also, aerating wort while it is above 30C is not a great idea as you can cause oxidation which can carry through into your finished beer and cause flavour problems.

3. I've never used carb drops but many do with no problems. I have purposely over carbed glass bottles with no issues before, mostly for wheat and Belgians. A lot of micro beers come in 300ml bottles so if you use the coopers scoop they will be a bit more carbed than the scoop intended (for a 375ml). Batch priming involves measuring the amount of sugar required to gas a set volume of beer to the carb you want and adding it to the fermenter before bottling.

Eg: I have 20l of beer, which reached 24C during fermentation warm rest. I want to carb it up to 2.4 vol (4.8g/l CO2). Using this calulator I can see that I am required to add 124g sugar.

It is best to rack the beer into a second fermenter and bulk prime in there to avoid stirring up the yeast. Dissolve the sugar in a small amount of boiling water and if you know the exact volume you were going for, add it to the fermenter then rack the beer onto it. Otherwise, rack first, measure beer volume, make sugar solution, add to beer, stir and allow to mix for 10-20 mins. Then bottle as normal.

I hope this stuff is clear... Fire away with more questions if you have them.

 

[amiddler]

Ditto to what O'Henry has posted. Was going to say the same things but pointless writing it twice.

The only thing is, do a google search for carbonation calculators or something similar and you should be able to find one with metric and imperial measurements. I use the calculator supplied with Beersmith.

Drew

 

[viligar]

Thanks for your help, they have pretty much answered my questions, only other question really is is there any huge negative to cold chilling in primary? or should i really rack to secondary? if i plan to batch prime it would seem a waste of time and from what felten said it seems pointless =] FANTASTIC in the fridge my beer goes. How long in the fridge should it sit?

 

[DU99]

try this
http://pint.com.au/calculators/

 

[JimC]

As far as priming goes, try searching "bulk priming with a syringe" on this forum or Google. When I first started out I found this method great as it gives you total control over your priming rate, without the hassle of racking to secondary. :icon_cheers:

 

[mwd]

Thanks for your help, they have pretty much answered my questions, only other question really is is there any huge negative to cold chilling in primary? or should i really rack to secondary? if i plan to batch prime it would seem a waste of time and from what felten said it seems pointless =] FANTASTIC in the fridge my beer goes. How long in the fridge should it sit?

No negatives to cold conditioning in Primary and one less chance of getting an infection by racking to secondary with no C02 blanket.
I reckon at least 1 week in the fridge should yield a nice clear beer ready for bottling a nice firm yeastcake and still plenty enough yeasties to carb up the bottles.

 

[amiddler]

Q: How long should it condition in the fridge?
A: As long as brewingly possible. Yes I tried to make a new word. :lol:

I can only allow 2 weeks conditioning before I need to use the fridge to ferment another brew. You may not ferment in a fridge or have 2 fridges so could condition for a month. Any time conditioning is better than none, so the short answer is as long as you can.

Drew