Fresh Wort For Bottle Conditioning

[Dan Pratt]

Hi,

Last night I read that after you have made AG wort you can keep 1L to use for bottle conditioning> I read that it was to be freezed until fermentation was completed then prime the bottles with the wort. there was no ither details with teh post>>

Has anyone done this?

is freezing required or can you just chill this in the fridge? how much would i use for priming 350ml glass bottles?

 

[NewtownClown]

Hi,

Last night I read that after you have made AG wort you can keep 1L to use for bottle conditioning> I read that it was to be freezed until fermentation was completed then prime the bottles with the wort. there was no ither details with teh post>>

Has anyone done this?

is freezing required or can you just chill this in the fridge? how much would i use for priming 350ml glass bottles?

It is called Krausening. Generally only used on beers where the yeast has probably entered the dormant phase through long cold conditioning/lagering.
Basically, the process consists of adding freshly fermenting wort in order to ensure the bottles condition (and help reduce diacetyl levels).
Literature suggests retaining 15-20 % of the wort but I reckon that would give way too much carb.
Using the method you suggest, ie: adding wort (sugar), I would add just enough to raise the gravity by 3-4 points. Add it to a bottling bucket and mix the beer in. There is math out there that will help with the volumes needed as per the gravity of the wort, etc.
Google "how to krausen".

I would also suggest that this is an easy way to over or under -carbonate.

 

[Nick JD]

I read it was pretty common practice before the days when sugar was available.

I've done the cheat version of using LDME, and TBH it wasn't noticible which were LDME and which were sucrose.

 

[grimpanda]

Freezing it would be the safer option, especially if you are brewing a lager or something that needs a longer resting period before bottling. If your sanitation is even slightly out then you will get some level of spoilage of the unfermented wort, although chilling it right down may reduce this. I haven't experimented with this myself.

Collecting the wort and NOT freezing it can actually be a handy way test to see how sanitary your hot side process (boil onwards) is. The process is known as a Forced Wort test and is described in the book 'Yeast' by Chris White and Jamil Zainasheff.

It goes like this: sanitise a flask or similar container and collect a small amount of wort, seal it with aluminium foil (to avoid a potential explosion...) and then incubate it at a raised temperature (around 30c) for a few days. Each day you inspect for haze, bubbles, off-odors etc, and the number of days you go without detecting any contamination is a reasonable guide to how clean your process is... i.e: 1 day indicates something is seriously dirty, 2-3 days is a sign that things need cleaning, 3-6 days is a mild problem, and 7 days or more indicates excellent sanitation.

As for priming rates, I'm not too sure, but if you google 'priming with wort' you should get some answers.

The other thing that some brewers practice is 'krausening' - priming their finished beer with actively fermenting wort before packaging. There are a few benefits claimed from this method, but again I have no personal experience, so one for google (or others) to answer!

 

[Malted]

I think the addition of unfermented wort to fermented beer, for carbonation is referred to as Speise.
The addition of actively fermenting beer to fermented beer, for carbonation is referred to as Krusening.

Braukiser has some great info on how to calculate how much of either to add: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title...bonation#Speise


I have used speise with good success. Germans love these methods, what with Reinheitsgebot mentallity and all...

 

[Dan Pratt]

good information all round, thanks for the input. yay, more reading!!

I think the one im more likely to attempt is the method Malted suggested>

"I think the addition of unfermented wort to fermented beer, for carbonation is referred to as Speise"

Krausening seems much more effort for what im trying to achieve and that is to not use sugar as per the Germans ruling.

thanks again for the help.

 

[geneabovill]

Yeah, you can do it. I do it, since I need to rehydrate the dry yeast, and figure a head start isn't going to hurt.

Here's a pick up my set up:

NOTE: Just added this to the ghetto gear thread. Mods, feel free to delete if I'm not supposed to do this.


GAB.

 

[brettprevans]

I think the addition of unfermented wort to fermented beer, for carbonation is referred to as Speise.
The addition of actively fermenting beer to fermented beer, for carbonation is referred to as Krusening.

Braukiser has some great info on how to calculate how much of either to add: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title...bonation#Speise


I have used speise with good success. Germans love these methods, what with Reinheitsgebot mentallity and all...

You are correct. Its speise.
Newton - Adding yeast back into a brew for bottling is differant . The idea behind speise is to use the exact same fermentable as your brew, not introducing a diffrrant fermentable.