Bottle Conditioning Measurement.

[MHB]

Given a bit of time yes it does.
Remember that the CO2 was evolved in the beer, so at the start the gauge pressure would have been zero, as the yeast made CO2, some of it would stay in solution some gone into the ullage, after a bit of time it would all come into equilibrium.
The amount of pressure in the head space is directly related to the amount dissolved in the beer at any given temperature and the equation is here
In fact by knowing the temperature (say 18oC in the last picture) and the pressure (just over 1 bar) and y playing with the equation or looking at the carbonation table we can tell that the dissolved CO2 is 3.7g/L, pretty much mid range for a British Pale Ale.

I would be a bit surprised if most home brewers using the brewing yeast (rather than an aggressive bottling yeast) and hopefully a lot less of it than in this experiment would find their beer coming into condition in three days, other than that a well thought out and executed experiment.
Mark

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

The pressure in the headspace doesn't mean its absorbed into the beer though right?

The soda method* works that way but not bottle conditioning.

As MHB outlines above, the CO2 starts off in solution then moves into the headspace, the opposite of what happens in the soda method.

* Soda method = forced carbonation.

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

I would be a bit surprised if most home brewers using the brewing yeast (rather than an aggressive bottling yeast) and hopefully a lot less of it than in this experiment

2 x 106 cells / ml is in the middle of the optimal range for conditioning yeast. The late great Dr Paul Monk at the AWRI showed that there was no benefit in going over 4 x 106.

The use of a separate yeast for bottle conditioning is pretty standard practice: back when Redback was a hefe, it was conditioned with lager yeast. That didn't stop home brewers harvesting the yeast to make wiesen, I wonder how many realised they had the wrong yeast.

In fact by knowing the temperature (say 18oC in the last picture) and the pressure (just over 1 bar) and y playing with the equation or looking at the carbonation table we can tell that the dissolved CO2 is 3.7g/L, pretty much mid range for a British Pale Ale.

Pressure is actually 1.55 to 1.65 Bar, [CO2] = 4.6 g/l as explained in text.

 

[pcmfisher]

I think you should rename from conditioning to carbonating.

Even if it carbonated in 3 days a lot more conditioning happens in the following weeks.

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

I believe I covered that off in post #14 above.

 

[Moad]

Cool good to know thanks for that reply guys

 

[Rocker1986]

At that temperature, was funkiness from the yeast in mention present during tasting? The average homebrewer would have glass scattered from here to Turkey employing this method. Should not be encouraged

I've never heard of rehydrating yeast at higher temps than fermentation temps causing funkiness. I don't think you quite understand the process here.. the yeast was re-hydrated in 39C water, and then added to the bottles at the prescribed rate. The beer was left to carbonate at 18C for the 3 days it took for the pressure to go up and stay there.

I'm not sure what part of that process is supposed to result in glass scattering everywhere.

 

[kaiserben]

Got it in one: since the conclusion runs counter to the usual recommendation of 2 -3 weeks to achieve bottle conditioning, I thought it would be worthwhile to make how I got there as clear as possible.

Bottle conditioning is simply a fermentation. It is (as expected IMO) flying through the fermentation in those first 3 days, mirroring what you'd see during a primary ferment.

So IMO that doesn't run counter to the usual recommendation at all. It's still fermenting, it's just going a lot slower and cleaning up etc etc. It'll be absolutely still beneficial to leave it 2-3 weeks.

(this experimenting and info is awesome by the way. keep it coming!)

EDIT: Ah, I see people have touched on this already in mentioning carbonation vs conditioning.

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

Perhaps I should have mentioned that I'm used to waiting 18 months to 3 years for bottle conditioned wines to reach full potential. In the case of one wine I was involved in making, it isn't released until it has had 8 years on yeast lees. We once did a version that had 18 years, it was awesome.

 

[Matplat]

I would be very keen to see the results of the same experiment, but without using a bottling yeast and on a beer fermented with something like US-05/nottingham/S-04 etc.

Just to replicate the conditions most of us brewers would usually see...

Bloody love your work though

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

Should be doable, you'lll have to wait a few weeks, next up is a 7.5% ABV golden ale at 6 g/l CO2, again with EC1118 (unless someone knows where I can get less than half a kilo of DV10).

 

[MHB]

Either S-33, T-58 or the CBC-1 from Danstar are all good bottle conditioning yeast, available in sachet and recommended for the job.
Have had good results with both S-33 and CBC-1
Mark

 

[TheWiggman]

I think the suggestion here is to do a normal home brew, bottle, and ferment without the addition of yeast. Most home brewers will wait 7-14 days, then bottle adding some sugar or carbonation drops. I'd be interested to see how this would go and would be happy to take you up on the offer of borrowing a cap.

 

[eldertaco]

In commercial breweries when adding bottling yeast for bottle carbonation is it standard practise to reoxygenate the beer? Would seem counter-intuitive to me, but I've no idea what goes on.

 

[GalBrew]

Should be doable, you'lll have to wait a few weeks, next up is a 7.5% ABV golden ale at 6 g/l CO2, again with EC1118 (unless someone knows where I can get less than half a kilo of DV10).

FYI iBrew.com.au sell sachets of DV-10 according to their website.

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

Thanks muchly, I prefer it to EC1118, IMO it has less flavour impact (EC1118 always smells like tinned pineapple to me)

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

It being seven days, the first results are in. As expected, the beer appears to have progressed from how it was at day four, the various components have married better and the texture appears smoother too.

Neither taster however felt that there was a significant diffference between the beer that had been at 18 oC for all seven days and the one that had 4 days at 18 oC then 3 days at 10 oC.

 

[gilligan_87]

How's this experiment going? Any further results?

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

Doing the second experiment with the higher strength beer at a higher gas level now. First ones come out Friday (one week conditioning).

Results from the first experiment were compromised when one of my modified bottle caps leaked slightly, dropping the pressure.Since fixed.

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

I would be a bit surprised if most home brewers using the brewing yeast (rather than an aggressive bottling yeast) and hopefully a lot less of it than in this experiment would find their beer coming into condition in three days, other than that a well thought out and executed experiment.
Mark

I would be very keen to see the results of the same experiment, but without using a bottling yeast and on a beer fermented with something like US-05/nottingham/S-04 etc.

Just to replicate the conditions most of us brewers would usually see...

Bloody love your work though

I think the suggestion here is to do a normal home brew, bottle, and ferment without the addition of yeast. Most home brewers will wait 7-14 days, then bottle adding some sugar or carbonation drops. I'd be interested to see how this would go and would be happy to take you up on the offer of borrowing a cap.

How's this experiment going? Any further results?

Further to all the above:

Bottled yesterday:

Ale approx 5.5% ABV, primary ferment on US-04, racked to secondary, refermented on S-189* (took five days for FG to stabilise). Racked again for bottling with part of secondary yeast being retained. Glucose @ 8.3 g/l added for conditioning then filled straight to bottle.

At 24 hours these bottles show headspace pressures of 1.2, 1.4 and 1.6 Bar against an expected final pressure of about 1.8, putting them well ahead of the bottles in the first experiment at the same stage.

I'll have to watch these pressures, it's possible the S-189 hadn't finished on the remnant maltotriose.

BTW results from the second experiment mentioned above: conditions similar to Exp#1 except higher ABV (about 7.5), higher carbonation level (6 g/l) anduse of DV-10 yeast (Thanks GalBrew!).

The headspace pressures reached the expected end point in four days, at which stage the beer tasted terrible. At one week it looked a lot better. The sample at two weeks appeared to have gone backwards again, now at three weeks and it's looking good again.



* I wasn't happy with the level of attenuation achieved by the US-04, plus I've been playing with successive fermentations and (mostly) liking the results.