Commercial brewing - bottle priming - how is it done?

[trustyrusty]

Hi Guys, just watched a piece on making commercial beer... Large company - not boutique brewer..
Seemed pretty simple process - grains + temp control + yeast ..10 days fermentation ..filter x 2 ..pasteurization
and bottle.... They did not mention anything about bottle conditioning or priming... How is this done in commercial beers...?
Perhaps the FG is slightly high so there is a little more fermentation after bottled or they do add liquid sugar at bottling, but then there is nothing about bottles standing in a warehouse for a couple of weeks and doubt they would have the space. But commercial beers seem to be incredible consistent ...

cheers

 

[glenwal]

Most commercial beer is forced carbed using high pressure co2, not naturally carbed by yeast in the bottle.

If the beer is pasteurised, then there is no viable yeast left in the bottle. For beer that is pasteurised and then bottle conditioned they add fresh yeast (sometimes a different strain to the original yeast) at bottling.

Many breweries actually capture the co2 from the fermentation to reuse at bottling time though.

 

[S.E]

Sounds like it was force carb’ed rather than bottle conditioned. What brewery was it or what were they brewing, 10 days fermenting is a long time?

 

[trustyrusty]

They did not say and I could not see bottle....but standard large commercial brewer...so I assume it would forced carb..?
Could this been done on a homebrew level, is there a system that can add co2 or a way to add co2 to a bottle?...I don't know much about it, how do they force carbonate...?

I think the 10 days was from start to finish...

 

[glenwal]

Do a search for counter pressure bottle fillers, should be plenty of info on doing this on a home brew scale.

 

[trustyrusty]

thanks

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Coopers add yeast & liquid sugar ( 5gm/L ) to their bottles and kegs

They use the same strain for bottling as fermentation

 

[earle]

Carbonation caps on PET bottles would require less outlay than a counter pressure bottle filler.

You could bottle as normal with no priming sugar, cap then chill all the bottles, then force carb a few bottles at a time. Could be time consuming though as you could only force carb as many bottles as you have carb caps, they need to sit in the fridge for a while before you can replace the carb cap with a normal cap, then repeat with some more bottles. Carb caps are about $20 though you can get them cheaper in bulk buys.

Search for carbonation cap if you're interested.

Might be easier to build up a bit of a stock of bottle carbed beer rather than trying to get beer drinkable real quick if thats the issue.

 

[dannymars]

U can use carb caps as a counterpressure type filler too... and then bottle off a force carbed keg.

 

[Fents]

In the early days at Kooinda when we bottled 500L batch's by hand (YES BY HAND, 4 head bottle filler and 3 blokes on a manual hand capper each) we bulked primed with dextrose. We would pump the beer from the fermenter to the kettle, bulk prime it in the kettle (all sanitised to buggery of course), then pump it from the kettle into the 4 head filler which 1 bloke would work frantically on filling bottles and then passing them to 3 other blokes on manual hand cappers, then 3 blokes on cappers would pass bottles to the poor last bloke on the manual labeller. We would do this nearly every saturday for 8-9 hours straight (sometimes bottling double batch's so 1000L's).

After we got sick of that we brought Mountain Goats second hand bottling line. Still bulk primed it from the fermenters (couldnt afford pressuirised bright beer tanks) but then the bottling line would take over from there. Still had to manually load the bottles into the machine (Framax), machine would fill them and cap them then we had to still manaully label them all.

Not sure what they do now and i tell you what, i do not miss those bottling days one bit.

Most good craft breweries carbonate in bright tanks though to answer your question simply.

 

[droid]

bullant brewery have beer in bright tanks at around 12psi then transfer to bottle filler machine at 13.5psi (approx) can't remember actual bottle psi

Look up keg king and find their stainless co2 bottle filler cap thingamy, you can put hose on it so it fills from the bottom of the bottle, they have a video on their site for it

 

[droid]

http://kegking.com.au/bottles-and-bottling-equipment/carbonation-cap-line-cleaning-cap-counter-pressure-filler.html

 

[trustyrusty]

Thanks - The issue for me is space - The reason you would have alot of bottles is waiting for carbonation and / or having a few variety options, but if I can tap off beer and carb at the same time, it would be less bottles more time saved. Does this have to be filled from a keg? ..... I guess could go the kegs option but trying to avoid running another fridge etc etc...thanks

 

[trustyrusty]

Hi Guys,

Thanks

I looked at some of the videos - I are talking about filling bottles with beer that is already carbonated in a keg (Keg King - the beer was already carbonated, interesting though) ....and PET bottles..

I am meaning carbonating flat beer (from fermentor) and using bottles if possible.... Did I miss something..

Are you all saying can only be done from a keg set up of sorts..

cheers

 

[trustyrusty]

Thanks Found video on counter pressure "How to Counter Pressure Fill a Bottle of Beer" - see if that is what I am looking for, thanks

 

[droid]

Edit) whoops you got in first

ah

yes that is a co2 thing

the following is just blah blah

my understanding is that these are the options:

sugar in each bottle and fill and cap, or malt or tabs etc
bulk prime by using some food grade plastic bucket with a tap, so you'd transfer your fermented batch to that new bucket that has the full amount of sugar in it and mix it up then bottle, some people have mixed there sugar into the fermenter with all the yeast on the bottom and bulk primed that way but imho there's yeast in that trub that you don't want in the bottle
when your ready to bottle have another brew underway and on day 3 of an active ferment you take 5%? Can't remember the number exactly but you would use the young beer to bulk prime your fermented out batch, only good if doing the same brew
or go down the co2 route allowing you to carbonate with co2

the benefit of co2 is that a brewer can filter out any suspended yeast and have a crystal clear brew with no sediment that is carbed to the level desired. when you use sugar you need yeast in suspension for the sugar to feed on

when beer is cooled it has dissolved co2 in it, the cooler the beer is at bottling time the less sugar is needed. in theory there should be a temp at which no sugar is required but all I know is that the priming calculators state less sugar is needed if the temp is lower

cheers

 

[Bribie G]

The problem with most home brew sized counter pressure bottle fillers is that you need three hands to work them properly. Most of the people I personally know who bought them have disposed of them, including myself.
Carb caps are good for a couple of bottles at a time if you absolutely have to have some carbed beer, for example if entering a bright beer in a competition or just taking it round to a BBQ to impress people. I've got one somewhere, haven't used it for about five years.

For a consistent supply of carbonated beer at home the only two really easy options that won't drive you bonkers after the first couple of bottles are bottle priming or kegging.

ed: there was a huge CPBF craze on the forum about five years ago, haven't seen much lately... along the lines of the huge filtering craze before that, again it seems to have faded into history.

 

[Mr. No-Tip]

I know of at least a couple former nationals champs who swear by CPBF for consistency and predictability - if you can get it right.

Personally I've never gotten homebrew scale CPBF the way I want it (though I have been able to use other people's set ups with great results) so I tend to bottle condition my home brew a my default.

I strongly believe that Belgian and German Wheat beers strongly benefit from the "third fermentation".

For super hoppy beers you're probably selling them short by bottling conditioning.

 

[JDW81]

For super hoppy beers you're probably selling them short by bottling conditioning.

Not necessarily. They are just better fresh.

I've bottle conditioned plenty of super hoppy beers and the flavour and aroma is outstanding when fresh. It does fade after about 2 months, but most don't last that long anyway. Even when the hop aroma fades you're still left with a terrific beer, it is just a slightly different animal.

I do tend to only make smaller hoppy batches so I can drink them fresh and not lose that lovely hoppiness.

 

[Mr. No-Tip]

Not necessarily. They are just better fresh.

I've bottle conditioned plenty of super hoppy beers and the flavour and aroma is outstanding when fresh. It does fade after about 2 months, but most don't last that long anyway. Even when the hop aroma fades you're still left with a terrific beer, it is just a slightly different animal.

I do tend to only make smaller hoppy batches so I can drink them fresh and not lose that lovely hoppiness.

Sure, by no means am I saying you can't have a bottle conditioned hoppy beer, but that's the first 2-3 weeks of prime freshness written off for priming.