Carbonation

[Danielscott26]

Ive got a question thats always confused me with the priming calculators. What temp do you put in? for instance I'm currently fermenting a pilsner thats being fermenting at 13 degs c for 3 weeks I'm going to give it a 3 day d rest at 21 deg c then cold crash it for 3 days at 3 deg c. In the calculator do i just put in the temp as 21 deg as this is the highest temp reached or do i use 13 as thats what its being fermented at. Sorry for the question its just always confused me.
Cheers Dan

 

[CrookedFingers]

Hey there,
I use normal sugar, or dex if I have it.
I usually go with the ferment temps when figuring that stuff out.


CF

 

[i-a-n]

I bulk prime with white sugar (isn't Aldi wonderful) . I'll always work outdoors (in the glorious Qld sunshine) so fermenter on the table warming in the sun, For a lager, ginger beer etc I take 2 coffee mugs with 85g of sugar in each, pour on hot water and stir to dissolve. Pour them straight into the fermenter and very, very gently give a small stir.
While I'm rinsing the bottles (there's meat for another thread ) in sterilising solution and draining them upside down in clean buckets, the primer can mix freely with the beer in the fermenter. Sterilise the syphon etc etc, all this gives the fermenter about 10 minutes warming and amalgamating time.... Then fill the bottles. I leave them I the sun while I clean up, about another 10 minutes, and I find it gives the secondary a nice kick start.

If I'm kegging, I just chuck the sugar in and syphon onto it.

Cheers!

 

[wbosher]

You leave your beer in the sun???

 

[Alex.Tas]

Ive got a question thats always confused me with the priming calculators. What temp do you put in? for instance I'm currently fermenting a pilsner thats being fermenting at 13 degs c for 3 weeks I'm going to give it a 3 day d rest at 21 deg c then cold crash it for 3 days at 3 deg c. In the calculator do i just put in the temp as 21 deg as this is the highest temp reached or do i use 13 as thats what its being fermented at. Sorry for the question its just always confused me.
Cheers Dan

Hi Dan, Sorry i'm a little late with this, but I have often wondered this too.
I've usually gone with the max temp the beer reached, so in your example i would put in 21.

My understanding of the reason for including the temp is that colder solutions can have more gas dissolved in it, CO2 for example.
So if your beer fermented at 13 degrees there would be a certain amount of carbon dioxide dissolved in the fermenting beer as a result of the fermentation process. If you raise the temperature of the beer once the fermentation is complete, the ability of the liquid to keep that amount of CO2 is solution is reduced as the temperature is increased. This CO2 is vented - either through your airlock or glad wrap or whatever.
If you then drop the temp back down to your ferment temperature or lower, then the ability of the liquid to hold CO2 is again increased, but as the yeast isn't producing any more CO2, (or at least very little) that potential isn't again realised. ie the liquid can hold more CO2 again, but as the yeast has stopped making CO2, so the beer is 'flat'.

I'm not sure that the above reasoning is correct, so if someone else can correct me, that would be good.

Cheers,

 

[wynnum1]

Priming weigh the sugar as a volume measures are different for different sugars

 

[verysupple]

Hi Dan, Sorry i'm a little late with this, but I have often wondered this too.
I've usually gone with the max temp the beer reached, so in your example i would put in 21.

My understanding of the reason for including the temp is that colder solutions can have more gas dissolved in it, CO2 for example.
So if your beer fermented at 13 degrees there would be a certain amount of carbon dioxide dissolved in the fermenting beer as a result of the fermentation process. If you raise the temperature of the beer once the fermentation is complete, the ability of the liquid to keep that amount of CO2 is solution is reduced as the temperature is increased. This CO2 is vented - either through your airlock or glad wrap or whatever.
If you then drop the temp back down to your ferment temperature or lower, then the ability of the liquid to hold CO2 is again increased, but as the yeast isn't producing any more CO2, (or at least very little) that potential isn't again realised. ie the liquid can hold more CO2 again, but as the yeast has stopped making CO2, so the beer is 'flat'.

I'm not sure that the above reasoning is correct, so if someone else can correct me, that would be good.

Cheers,

Just to clarify, the reason more CO2 doesn't get dissolved into the beer when it is chilled again in the FV is because there is only ~0.039 % CO2 in the atmosphere (sweet FA) which is way, way lower than the amount still dissolved in the beer after it was at 21 C. Everything in the universe wants to equalise, so the CO2 in the atmosphere won't go into the beer which already has too much relative to the atmosphere.

 

[GeoffN]

I bulk prime because I have a second fermenter. I make up my bottle sterilising solution in the secondary fermeneter then fill all the bottles. The secondary is sanitised as a result. Then I transfer the beer into the secondary on top of the sugar in boiled water solution.

I clean my fermenter then empty the bottles into the fermenter and so sanitise the now empty fermenter ready for the next brew. The bottles are ready for filling and the beer is ready to go into them.

I have never used drops and have never noticed a big difference between bottles when using sugar for priming into each bottle. Bulk is easier than putting sugar into each bottle for me. I like my current method as it gives me a fermenter that is ready to go.