Bottle Conditioning without additional priming

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Kingfisher4
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Bottle Conditioning without additional priming

Post by Kingfisher4 » Thu Apr 05, 2018 8:04 am

If a discussion on this topic already exists, I have failed to find it searching the forum, please excuse my error and direct me towards the thread.

Otherwise, experience of Graham Wheeler’s BYOBRA suggestion for conditioning beer in bottles, with no added priming would be invaluable.

As I enjoy cask type bitters, IPAs and british golden beers It would be ideal to simulate a hand pulled pint with slight effervescence, poured from a bottle at home. His technique of bottling seems most likely to produce that effect.

How is it best to condition the beer, once bottled, with no additional priming? The choices are limited to ambient temperature inside the house, or much cooler, especially currently, in the garage. These will obviously vary with time of year.

I guess a week or two in the warmer inside option, followed by further conditioning in the cool garage? How long would people who have used his technique recommend to expect beers between 4 & 6 ABV to optimally condition?

Or perhaps I’ve missed the point completely?

P.S. at this stage, I would prefer to bottle than keg.

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orlando
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Re: Bottle Conditioning without additional priming

Post by orlando » Thu Apr 05, 2018 8:22 am

Kingfisher4 wrote:
Thu Apr 05, 2018 8:04 am
If a discussion on this topic already exists, I have failed to find it searching the forum, please excuse my error and direct me towards the thread.

Otherwise, experience of Graham Wheeler’s BYOBRA suggestion for conditioning beer in bottles, with no added priming would be invaluable.

As I enjoy cask type bitters, IPAs and british golden beers It would be ideal to simulate a hand pulled pint with slight effervescence, poured from a bottle at home. His technique of bottling seems most likely to produce that effect.

How is it best to condition the beer, once bottled, with no additional priming? The choices are limited to ambient temperature inside the house, or much cooler, especially currently, in the garage. These will obviously vary with time of year.

I guess a week or two in the warmer inside option, followed by further conditioning in the cool garage? How long would people who have used his technique recommend to expect beers between 4 & 6 ABV to optimally condition?

Or perhaps I’ve missed the point completely?

P.S. at this stage, I would prefer to bottle than keg.
Commercial brewers cask their beer a couple of gravity points above FG. As they brew their beers over and over again with a yeast that they know very well they can be very precise with their calculation of how much conditioning the beer receives. The home environment is very different so be careful when using the same technique with a beer and yeast you don't know well. Fermenting the beer right out, with the added benefit of the yeast clearing up after itself, means you do have a little more precision over the dissolved CO2 that ends up in the beer. I understand your desire to bottle rather than keg and to benefit from that type of conditioning, but I would save that technique for kegging and avoid the potential problems. I'm not convinced the difference at bottle scale is worth it.
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MTW
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Re: Bottle Conditioning without additional priming

Post by MTW » Thu Apr 05, 2018 9:27 am

I did start a thread on this recently: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=80118
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Re: Bottle Conditioning without additional priming

Post by McMullan » Thu Apr 05, 2018 10:00 am

Cask is cask. It's something I've got into recently and I'd say it's got a unique quality of its own, especially with a beer engine. What you'd need is easily available on eBay for a good price. Why not go for the real deal? I don't think it can be imitated in a bottle. I don't recommend packaging beer before it's gone bright, so careful yeast selection is required, especially if you want to avoid priming sugar. Like orlando says, be careful. Bottle conditioned beers are great, even with a little priming sugar.

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Jim
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Re: Bottle Conditioning without additional priming

Post by Jim » Fri Apr 06, 2018 12:22 pm

I agree with McMullan that you can't get close to cask using a bottle.

If you don't carbonate much it just seems like flat beer - unlike cask which manages to still have life in it despite the low carbonation. I've been unable to fully define why using a cask and beer engine produces such a unique drinking experience, but there's no doubt (for me anyway) that it does.

I also concur that bottling from our home brew systems is potentially dangerous unless you allow it to (pretty well) fully ferment out then add a measured amount of priming.
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Kingfisher4
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Re: Bottle Conditioning without additional priming

Post by Kingfisher4 » Wed Apr 11, 2018 5:13 pm

Thank you all for that feedback.
So far, books have been helpful to get me started, but much more valuable have been my early experiences with trial and error and particularly being educated by browsing this forum.
Also very keen to avoid the experience of exploding bottles, for obvious reasons.

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