Cold Crashing and Balloons

[Binkie Huckaback]

I've got an Australian sparkling ale on the go in a GF conical fermenter hooked up to a glycol chiller. The recipe says to ferment for three weeks and then cold crash. I didn't really give it much thought before I brewed, but I don't have the means to keg and force carbonate before the beer is ready to package. How will I get on with bottling it? Is it possible there won't be any carbonation left after three or four weeks of fermentation? Can I adapt the fermentation schedule? The yeast came from Australia and is Mauribrew Ale 514. Any help greatly appreciated.

Also, I'd obviously not read as much about cold crashing and using a foil balloon to capture C02. I added a balloon yesterday and unsurprisingly, it doesn't appear to have inflated at all. Is there anyway I can inflate the balloon with C02 (say, using a soda syphon) which won't require me to spend much cash?

[f00b4r]

Beer doesn’t usually get carbonated during fermentation unless using a pressurised fermenter and then you need to know what you are doing to get the right carbonation level (or part way there and finish via force carbing).
You can just bottle it as normal, either using a bottling bucket or priming the bottles individually with sugar or sugar solution.
I would also be wary about using balloons too unless you know what you are doing as a full 20L fermentation will generate a lot of CO2, 100-200L if I remember correctly.

[Binkie Huckaback]

Thanks!

[Silver_Is_Money]

Post fermentation beer is actually about 40% carbonated (temperature dependent) in an atmospheric fermentation system with a simple airlock.