Bulk Priming and Cold Conditioning

[barefoot]

Good afternoon everyone,

I had a bit of a search around without much results, so thought I'd throw a quick question up.

My first brew is a simple mid strength K&K using mangrove jacks classic bitter, and approximately 250g Dextrose, 125g Light Malt Extract and 125g maltodextrin, topping up to 23L total volume.

Fermentation of my first brew has just completed, with two identical 24 hour apart SG readings. I have since placed my fermenter into the fridge for cold conditioning. In a few hours, I hope to rack the cold beer into a secondary fermenter with the bulk priming sugar in there already. After which I will again refrigerate for a few days, potentially a week I guess before bottling.

First question, is this ok?

Second question:

When preparing my bulk priming sugars, I intend to mix 200g of Light Malt Extract with some water, but at the same time add some cluster hops. I was thinking of boiling the cluster hops prior to adding the priming solution. Should I do this or should I just pop it in into the secondary dry?

Cheers,
Brett

Sorry if this has indeed been discussed previously, but my searches returned few results.

 

[KingKong]

Hi Barefoot,

I'm no guru but I'll try help you out.

Good afternoon everyone,

I had a bit of a search around without much results, so thought I'd throw a quick question up.

My first brew is a simple mid strength K&K using mangrove jacks classic bitter, and approximately 250g Dextrose, 125g Light Malt Extract and 125g maltodextrin, topping up to 23L total volume.

Fermentation of my first brew has just completed, with two identical 24 hour apart SG readings. I have since placed my fermenter into the fridge for cold conditioning. In a few hours, I hope to rack the cold beer into a secondary fermenter with the bulk priming sugar in there already. After which I will again refrigerate for a few days, potentially a week I guess before bottling.

First question, is this ok?

Second question:

When preparing my bulk priming sugars, I intend to mix 200g of Light Malt Extract with some water, but at the same time add some cluster hops. I was thinking of boiling the cluster hops prior to adding the priming solution. Should I do this or should I just pop it in into the secondary dry?

Cheers,
Brett

Sorry if this has indeed been discussed previously, but my searches returned few results.

Normally cold conditioning is done over a week to a couple of weeks. Try searching 'cold conditioning'.

Normally you would bottle straight after priming. Try searching ' bulk priming ' .

In regards to adding the cluster hops. Simple answer is... 'i don't know' . But I wouldn't recommend something like that for a first brew. Concentrate on the fundamentals.

It looks like you have done some research which is good !

Happy brewing, hope it turns out to be a ripper.

 

[DUANNE]

foget about the secondary for now. cold condition in the primary for at least 3 days preferably a week or two and dry hop with your cluster for the last 3-5 days. when the beer has settled and your happy with the dry hop then you can transfer to the secondary and add your priming sugar or dme to the amount recomended by a priming calculater and bottle from there.

 

[barefoot]

I realised after a bit more reading, that what I was suggesting was a bit of corner cutting, and being that I'm not short on time, isn't really required. So as beerhog suggested, I dropped the hops in to the primary which is still in the fridge, I'll leave it in there until Saturday, when I will bulk prime into a secondary and then bottle.

KingKong, I have done a heap of research and reading but without a little experience to back it up, I was a little lost, hence my question. I definitely need to start simple and build up from there, I don't know how you guys can stand the agonising wait between batches to see what improvements you were able to make.

 

[carniebrew]

barefoot, if you're in a bit of a hurry then perhaps just skip the cold crashing? As I understand it the only real purpose is to drop more yeast out of suspension, resulting in a beer that should brighten more quickly. It's primarily aesthetics...if you're not worried too much about how your beer looks in the glass, then you can just go straight from fermentation complete to bulk priming and bottling.

The other draw back for cold crashing is that it may very well slow down your bottle carbonation, due to the fact there will be less yeast in each bottle to do the job. So it'll be an even longer wait between batches to make those improvements!

Do you have any reason for using DME for priming? It can vary quite a bit in fermentability, and really you're not likely to notice any difference in taste between using light DME and straight table sugar....there's so little of it in each bottle. Personally I use raw cane sugar, because that's what I have at home....160 grams in 250ml water boiled/mixed on the stove to give me 2.7 vols of co2 in 23 litres of beer fermented at 18 degrees (as calculated here).

Lasty, 200 grams of dried malt extract sounds a little low for 23 litres of beer, I think that works out to around 2.2 vols...is that what you're after? To get 2.7 vols you'd need more like 280 grams....but really, it's just easier to use sugar...

 

[Black Devil Dog]

As KingKong said concentrate on the fundamentals, once you've got those sorted you can look at experimenting.

I cold condition for about a week and that clears the beer enough for me. (After fermenting for 2 weeks).
As for bulk priming, you would want to bottle immediately once you've done that.
Add your hops before cold conditioning, not when you're bulk priming.

When making improvements to my brewing, I always try to do at least one thing better than the last batch, rather than trying to perfect my technique straight up.

Be patient grasshopper.

 

[barefoot]

Taking the fermenter out of the fridge tonight to warm prior to bulk priming and bottling tomorrow afternoon. Looking forward to it.

 

[Aydos]

No need to take it out to warm it up, bottling cold makes no difference. Just make sure you keep it out of the fridge for around 2 weeks for it to properly carb up after you have bottled.