Carbonation without any additional sugar

[trustyrusty]

Hi Guys

FYI

I was at the end of a brew and wanted to get the beer out of FV into KEG, had a litre over and put the rest in champagne bottle.
FG was about 1012. Brew seemed to be stalled, so I thought I would take it off the yeast leave in kg for a few days before I put in the fridge. (And maybe the movement would help finish the process, stirring up the yeast.)

Anyhow, the left over litre or so I thought I would test if you could carbonate a beer without adding any sugar to the beer.

Well - perfect, probably the best carbonation results I have made so far. The beer finished nicely, tastes great.

Probably a good way to carbonate if you can time it right. I am not sure what the technique is called - natural carbonation - but works

well. No added sugars...

So my guess is 0.02 before FG would be a good guide?

This partly like something I was reading were a brewer takes some new wort and adds some to wort of same recipe ready for bottling

to carbonate it.

cheers

 

[mtb]

The problem is that you can't be certain of how much fermentable sugar is left in the beer, even if your recipe specifies its FG; brewhouse efficiency and other factors can influence the actual FG of your beer. Sounds like you got lucky in carbing that champagne bottle, but it could've just as easily finished fermenting .02 lower than your intended FG and if that'd happened, you would have carbed twice as much as intended and had a bottle bomb.

Adding dextrose or another priming sugars for bottling allows you to decide exactly how much fermentable sugar you're carbing with. Carbing with partially fermented wort sounds like a recipe for disaster!

 

[Matplat]

What he said ^^^^^

However you definitely can do it by adding fresh wort, as you know exactly how much sugar is in it. Not 100% sure of the calcs though, I feel like MHB has detailed it somewhere before though....

 

[trustyrusty]

yes probably correct, would be hard to maintain, unless you had perfect temp control, same ingredients every time....

I did see a brewery that did the wort thing on a video, so they must do it all the time,

See I can remember where I saw it...

cheers

 

[danestead]

Another ^^^^^ what he said.

Maybe fine in a keg, but in bottles... no chance you will get me doing that.

 

[Danscraftbeer]

Yes for kegs. I ferment in a keg with a variable pressure release so the beer finishes carbonated, or nearly there. Connect a jumper beer hose to secondary keg.

No for doing this in glass bottles that's for sure.

 

[MHB]

Actually its pretty easy, all you have to do is take a small sample of the wort and ferment it faster, by fermenting warmer or by adding more of the same yeast, that gives you a known FG. From there it isn't too hard to work out when to package the beer.
Braukaiser covers the calculations pretty thoroughly
Mark

Edit
You might need to read this bit to
M

 

[trustyrusty]

Yes for kegs. I ferment in a keg with a variable pressure release so the beer finishes carbonated, or nearly there. Connect a jumper beer hose to secondary keg.

@danscraftbeer - Interesting - they pressure fermentation is a good option, no O2/ less infections .... any how...after secondary do put into another keg...
Do you prime carb. in Keg or use Co2? The beer jumper hose ...does that use a lot of Co2 to transfer? Also if it is pulling from the bottom, does it not bring a lot of yeast cake with into second keg or have you cut a cm or 2 off the dip tube? All these questions thanks