Head Space In Bottle And Og Calculations

[marlow_coates]

Hi guys and girls,

I am almost ready to do a belgium after much reading and planning. The champagne bottles are sourced and cleaned, the Saison yeast is in the fridge, the bench capper is itching to be used, there are only two things I can't find around the place information wise.

The first is:

it has been years since I used glass bottles and was wondering how much head space to leave when capping? I will be bulk priming for a medium carbonation level as it will be quite a high gravity beer and I expect the long storage time planned will allow for gradual increased fermentation in bottle (don't want bombs).
Does anyone have a general guide, or know where I can view one, as to how much head space to leave?

The second is:

How do I calculate a predicted OG and FG for the brew? I will be using two cans of pale, 500gms LDME, and adding 1kg of home made belgian sugar once it is well on its way. For 23L brew.
Is it possible to calculate OG from this info (is it on can?) and how does one predict FG? Is there a database for how much of the sugars are unfermentable? I know that I should wait till 2 or 3 consecutive days of SG reading are the same prior to bottling but can this number be figured early?

Cheers for any advice.

Am getting very excited to see all this bottle cleaning and scraping come to fruition with some solid beers for the coming months.

Marlow

 

[Pennywise]

I usually leave no more than an inch of head space left in the bottle, and to calculate the alcohol content, OG and FG you can use this calculator http://www.liquorcraft.com.au/wa.asp?idWeb...p;idDetails=107 Don't know how fermentable you home made sugar is so that might be a bit of a prob with this calc

 

[randyrob]

Hey Mate,

punched your recipe into promash and it looks like it's going to come out a bit too big & bitter for the style.

hope this helps

Rob.




A ProMash Recipe Report

Recipe Specifics
----------------

Batch Size (L): 23.00 Wort Size (L): 23.00
Total Grain (kg): 4.90
Anticipated OG: 1.072 Plato: 17.49
Anticipated EBC: 32.3
Anticipated IBU: 35.1
Brewhouse Efficiency: 50 %
Wort Boil Time: 60 Minutes


Grain/Extract/Sugar

% Amount Name Origin Potential EBC
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
34.7 1.70 kg. Coopers Pale Can 1 Australia 1.038 7
34.7 1.70 kg. Coopers Pale Can 2 Australia 1.038 7
10.2 0.50 kg. Generic DME - Light Generic 1.046 16
20.4 1.00 kg. Candi Sugar (homemade) Generic 1.046 148

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.


Hops

Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
15.00 g. Can 1 Contribution Whole 10.00 17.6 60 min.
15.00 g. Can 2 Contribution Whole 10.00 17.6 60 min.


Yeast
-----

Saison

 

[marlow_coates]

Thanks fellas,

Homebrewer 79 that calculator is tops and makes all the sums I have found to figure this stuff out much easier.

Randyrob cheers for putting that through. After checking the style guidelines I am gonna be way above. Also am thinking seriously about getting Promash myself.

Going to forge ahead with it all anyway and see what happens.

Cheers again. I can't stop learning new stuff daily on this sight. Beginning to begrudge that tests are coming back around again at uni and will have to learn something boring again.

Marlow

 

[Spiderpig]

Hey guys,

How do you cap your champagne bottles?

Cheers,
Spiderpig

 

[jel]

Spiderpig,

if you have a bench capper, you can pick up a tirage bell, and tirage caps from most home brew stores. simply unscrew your standard bell from the capper (watch out for the spring loaded action) and replace with the tirage bell, and your good to go.

hth
j