Bottling Cask Conditioned Beer "sediment Free Homebrew"

[BjornJ]

Yesterday was not a good day.

I wanted to test a theory I had, aiming to get bottled homebrew without sediment.

Imagine, having "real" beer in bottles to let others try homebrew or bring to a party without having to explain the whole thing about not being able to drink it from the bottle, having to decant it into a jug, etc. Not to mention having to throw part of each beer away. I want to bring a six-pack of my own beer, in my own labels out on a picnic. Enjoy the fruits of my labour without worrying about the yeast sediment being stirred into the entire bottle from carrying the esky around.
I am sure some of you know what I mean..

Anyway.
I fermented as usual, then siphoned 15 liters into my cube. Morgans Mid strength 3.5 for those interested.
Bulk carbonated with 180 gr of Dextrose dissolved in some hot water. This was 50% to much after reading online about bulk priming. The thinking was to have excess carbonation so I could easily loose some when bottling without ending up with flat beer.

So I had my cube of 15 liters of bulk carbonated beer, and left the cube in the cupboard in a big plastic container, just in case it would not hold the pressure.

5 weeks later:
The cube was bulging a little, it now had a bit of head space (5 cm?). When I put it away I squeezed it completely shut with no air in it, so it was obvious that the cask conditioning had worked!!!

The Joy! Calling it "pride" may be pushing it, but I had by now discussed it with a mate at work who also homebrews (he was somewhat sceptical) and Dave from Dave's Homebrew who felt I should "smoke less crack while homebrewing", hehe! I was looking forward to this, I wanted Sediment Free Homebrew, damn it. It was going to work, I don't care what anyone (rightly) said.
I had even boasted to the guys at the North Shore homebrew appreciation club, that I would be bringing beautiful beer in sediment free bottles with labels for the next tasting. Ok, maybe I was putting a bit much into this, but it was fun trying to do something I had not tried before..

Yesterday I went up to the homebrew shop again, bought a small hand-capper from Dave who after advising about bulk priming, selling me the supplies and getting the hand capper said if it works out he will take full credit. And if it doesn't it will be all my fault... The pressure is building, this better work!!

Back at work I got help with emptying out a six-pack of Little Creatures Bright Ale so I could have some glass bottles to fill.
With the baby asleep last night, it was time..
I was ready. Bottle caps, sanitiser, bottles, the works. I was going to bottle cask conditioned beer, brilliant!!
Scrubbed off labels, washed and sanitised, etc.



The cube came out from the fridge, it has been there overnight to get the beer as cold as possible before bottling.


Taa-daa!!
It was flat!!!
Crystal clear, yes. Ok tasting, yup. Smells nice, even. But carbonation, you ask?? No. Flat. Completely flat. Completely flat, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.
Had a glass of (flat) beer while pondering it over. No, still flat. Flat beer is not to my liking. It was of course sediment free, but somehow this was not what I was after.

Not happy, I'll tell you that.
Considered tipping the whole thing out, but decided to make the best of it.
Bottled the six-pack of glass bottles, if nothing else I got to test hand capping.
Bottled 10 PET bottles against better knowledge, thinking "maybe it will get better", or "maybe I can add carbonation drops later"..

I have no explanation other than that my cube does not hold pressure? :angry:
When I put the cube in the fridge, I carefully opened the cap and released the excess pressure. It definetly said "fssssss" for about 3-4 seconds, but that was it.

After having a nights sleep between me and the FLAT BEER, I am now thinking to put some carbonation drops into half of the PET bottles and see if there still are yeasties in there.

Well, well.
I am not giving up my quest for Sediment Free Homebrew, will let you know if it ever works out

And no, I am not ready to go into kegging quite yet,

Bjorn

 

[brettprevans]

there are a lot of ways to get sediment free homebrew. some are easy. I can drink most of my brews out of a bottle if I want. besides a little yeast wont hurt you.

youve got racking, finings, cold conditioning, siphoning etc. all help massively in reducing sediment.,

 

[Supra-Jim]

+1 for the methods mentioned above. Back in my earlier K&B's days, I started racking out of the primary into a second fermenter and setting the beer sit in this for about another 5 days. I would then bulk prime back into the original fermenter and bottle away.

I found doing this, i dramatically reduced the amount yeast sediment in the bottom of the bottles, so the point where you could quiet confidently drink direct from the bottle and not get a mouth full of yeast. The only drawback, was that i found the bottles took a little longer to carb up, but the extra conditioning time was a nice trade-off.

Good to hear you haven't given up. Keep experimenting and good luck!

Cheers SJ

 

[brettprevans]

look up party keg, party cubes etc for info re cubes holding pressure.

 

[WarmBeer]

The process of carbonation is performed by the leftover yeast consuming any excess fermentables, excreting CO2, and multiplying. Hence, sediment in the bottom of your bottle is inherently linked to the carbonation of your beer if you intend to bottle condition.

It's pretty easy to see a correlation between the amount of post-primary fermentables, and the amount of lees in the bottom of your bottles. I've got some low carbonated Milds that only have a slight dusting of yeast in the bottom of each stubby, while a big, sweet Dr Smurto's GA clone I tried to make has enough yeast in the bottom of each bottle to start a new batch!

The only option for homebrewers I know of is the use of forced carbonation in a keg, where you are not introducing sugars, so there is nothing to promote yeast propagation. You have already stated you are not interested in moving to kegs yet. You can also use a counter-pressure bottle filler to pressurise the bottles, but I've no idea how these work.

You could possibly bottle condition to achieve desired carbonation levels, then uncap and decant the majority of the beer of the lees into another bottle. You are going to need to do this with a steady hand, so as to minimise disturbing the yeast in the bottom of the source bottle. Additionally, you want to get the beer as cold as possible, so as to avoid losing too much beer to foaming when you transfer.

Me personally, I've got nothing against drinking brewers yeast, it's even suspected it has beneficial effects on the human digestive system.

Good luck in your investigations, and make sure you keep us informed of any discoveries.

 

[Nick JD]

I bottle into 1.25, 1.5 and 2L PET.

For the "sediment free" six pack at a BBQ, I decant one extra cold PET (3 degrees) into another clean empty PET leaving the sediment behind.

Then I fill a six pack of LCPA bottles with beer (quite full) and cap immediately. Re fridge them and they're good for 24 hours, okay in 36 ... 48 getting flat.

Not a long term solution to sediment free bottleing, but it works.

 

[Snow]

There's also this product. Brewers Choice sell them in Brisbane - bit excey though..

Cheers - Snow

 

[Bribie G]

+1 with Nick. If you are working to a certain date (Xmas BBQ, visit to rellies etc) then one very practical method is to bottle some of the brew in 2L PETs (ALDI cola bottles are good and cheap) then when they are mature, take your glass bottles, chill everything down to just above freezing when the beer will dissolve more CO2. Then, making sure that the insides of the bottles are wet, very carefully decant. Good if you can have an assistant to cap them as you fill them. You will lose a percentage per 2L but the beer will be quite respectably carbonated, especially if bottle - swigging. I've taken beer to Sydney in this form and it was good for a fortnight. The cloudy beer left over is still drinkable, use a pewter tankard


660ml green Bavaria tallies are also good, they hold a good 'pint' and there is something graceful about their shape and colour that they don't look too Bogan when being swigged.

 

[Swinging Beef]

Brew beer that traditinally is ALL bottle conditioned.

 

[gibbocore]

just tell people that they're wheat beers.

 

[BjornJ]

Snow,
thanks for the link to the brodie sediment extractor!



They are $2 per piece here :
http://sedexbrewing.com/index.html

Maybe I should try a couple as a novelty thing, while waiting to find another way,

thanks
Bjorn

Edit: Just ordered a six-pack of the brodie's to test them out.

 

[canon1ball]

Taa-daa!!
It was flat!!!
Crystal clear, yes. Ok tasting, yup. Smells nice, even. But carbonation, you ask?? No. Flat. Completely flat. Completely flat, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

Hi Bjorn,

So you didn't have to open your cube outside with a towel wrapped around the opening as I suggested.

There was a thread not long ago about cubes not holding pressure, how to make sure that they do before buying etc. One even lost the bung and spillt hot wort all over the floor. Have a search.

Word of advise: don't bring it to our next meeting in September. Gives you an excuse to brew another one.

Pete

 

[Kodos]

How cold was the cube when you bottled? Like many other brewers I like cold condition beer for a while before I bottle (to drop out as much yeast as I can and accelerate smoothing out the flavours) and the levels of dissolved CO2 tend to be relatively high at 0-2 deg. I only find I need to add a small amount of priming sugar (60g per 21L) to get my favoured level of carbonation.

If you primed into a cube, and let it sit at 20deg, that extra head space in your cube probably was CO2, but because it was so warm, there was little of it disolved in the beer. Try pouring a bottle of beer at 20 deg. it's probably much flatter than you're used to.

If you try again, let the conditioning happen in the cube at normal bottling temps, then drop the temp as much as you can, leaving it for a few days. (this will have the added benefit of encouraging more yeast to drop out of suspension). Then bottle, but as they others have suggested, keep your bottles cold and let the beer run slowly and gently (you don't want it to gush out the top!) It might work? I expect it would be a little flatter than usual, but probably enough for most ales (most homebrew is way overcarbonated IMHO).

Otherwise you could think of carbonator caps or similar (I think craftbrewer sell them, or there's instructions on how to on the old oz.craftbrewer website: http://oz.craftbrewer.org/Library/Gear/GLi...d/TyrePET.shtml but this would probably require a CO2 vessel of some sort (soda stream canister or similar).

Good luck!

 

[Nick JD]

660ml green Bavaria tallies are also good, they hold a good 'pint' and there is something graceful about their shape and colour that they don't look too Bogan when being swigged.

Very true. People love my beer out of a "commercial" bottle. When they see me pour from an old coke bottle ... "eewwwww! homebrew, yuk!" Same beer.

I like to get bottles that don't have paper labels too - so they continue to look good and less ... homebrewey.

 

[pdilley]

My LHBS has about 6 packing boxes full of the brodie's.

I looked and was like oh, I see but I like my yeast, I swirl it up and drink it in the beer I like it that much!

I guess thats why this weekends planned brew is hefeweizen!


Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[Nick JD]

...but I like my yeast, I swirl it up and drink it in the beer I like it that much!

Brought up on Vegemite and Milo eh, Pete?

I swear Milo (malt) and Vegemite (yeast) are Australia's way of creating the next generation of swillers.

 

[pdilley]

Spread it thick, as it should.

Milo im off of as its just too sweet. As a kid it was by the spoonful, forget
the milk!

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[BjornJ]

Hi Bjorn,

So you didn't have to open your cube outside with a towel wrapped around the opening as I suggested.

There was a thread not long ago about cubes not holding pressure, how to make sure that they do before buying etc. One even lost the bung and spillt hot wort all over the floor. Have a search.

Word of advise: don't bring it to our next meeting in September. Gives you an excuse to brew another one.

Pete

Pete,
I opened the cap carefully with my arm inside the big plastic box I had the cube in with the lid still on to make sure it didn't squirt all over the place :lol:
As it turns out it sounds like I should not have vented it but just left it in the fridge a couple of days before bottling it. I must admit I don't really buy that venting it emptied the whole thing of CO2?

I will definitely try it again, but not sure what to cask condition it to keep the pressure..
I looked up the pressure barrels they use in the UK they were like 40 pounds plus postage, it seemed a bit excessive.
Will have another ponder but bringing sediment free naturally carbonated beer for the September meeting is looking unlikely. Unless the "brodies" I ordered today does the trick, then!

Bjorn

 

[manticle]

Isn't proper cask conditioned ale uncarbed?

As mentioned the yeast is necessary for carbonation.

The only way would be to filter, keg and force carb then bottle from that.

Sorry if I'm incorrect.

 

[BjornJ]

well, my cask ale certainly was uncarbonated, maybe I can pass it off as "true to style PomFlatBeer"

Already decided to try it again, just need a container that holds the pressure.
I am hoping it won't be any different than bottle carbonating, just a biiig bottle