Cold conditioning / lagering a belgian ale

[chivelegs]

Cheers Ken, but I think this is working quite well with time and cold weather. By the way, if you're up for helping out on an Imperial / Stout parti-gyle brew in December give me a shout.

[dedken]

Could do... I could show you the best way of spilling your mash on the patio.

[floydmeddler]

I've used recultured Duvel yeast in a recent Belgian brew and it too stopped at 1010 even though Duvel's gravity is 1002 (I've measured it).

[richc]

IIRC Duvel contains quite a lot of beet sugar, clone recipes I've heard of contain up to 3lbs of sugar which is how the final gravity gets so low.

[chivelegs]

Well, in the end I have lagered it seeing as it's so cold in the outhouse, it's a shame to waste natural resources.

However, near-disaster with the demi-john (wrapped in a bag to prevent light getting in) which is the gallon or thereabouts that I added lemongrass and saffron to.
Of course the CO2 came out of solution as the temp dropped resulting in a near "demi-john bomb" as I had put the stopper in securely. I'm now letting the pressure out every day and it does seem to be clearing quite nicely.

When adding the bottling yeast, I plan to bring the beer up to near room temp, add yeast then add sugar. is this the right way round do you reckon?

[bosium]

Personally I'd rack it into a bottling bucket while still ice cold, on top of your priming sugar solution. Do it carefully so as to leave as much sediment behind in the demi-john, this way it will leave the crud that is not soluble at cold temperatures behind. If you allow it to warm up, it will become soluble again and will be re-absorbed into the beer, undoing a lot of the work you've just done by lagering it! If you do it this way, your beer will have a degree of chill-proofing.

Bear in mind you will need less sugar when the beer is cold to achieve the same carbonation level as the cold beer will hold more CO2 in solution, but beersmith or whatever software you use should allow you to dial in the temperature of the beer. I'd add the small amount of fresh yeast slurry from a starter / rehydrated Nottingham /whatever you're using to the bottling bucket as you rack the beer into it.

[chivelegs]

Nice one, I understand I'll need less sugar, but wouldn't the yeast I add be unable to work from that temperature or does the conditioning need to be done at room temp as per usual?

[bosium]

No, the conditioning will definitely need to be done at room temperature, unless you bottle-condition with a lager strain but I can't recommend this. However, you can bottle it cold and allow it to warm up, the conditioning will start when the beer comes up to temperature. I do this all the time and it works just fine.

[lancsSteve]

Thanks for those answers Bosium - two things I;d been wondering about myself! So you'd recommend a neutral ale yeast like nottingham as a bottling strain then for conditioning purposes?

[bosium]

Oh absolutely, I love Nottingham. It's a great yeast for bottle-conditioning as it sticks to the bottom of the bottle beautifully.
I'm not sure what it's max alcohol tolerance is but I'm sure it would be fine for mid to high gravity beers as long as you rehydrate it first!

[chivelegs]

I had a bad experience with Nottingham at the weekend, possibly a duff batch as it turned the starter into a stinking mulch.

What would be better than risking that again, US-05, US-04 or I've got a spare champagne yeast kicking around?

[bosium]

Hmm, well I've never used any of those other yeasts so I can't really comment but the idea is to use a highly-flocculant yeast as it will stick to the bottom of the bottle. Also needs to be able to tolerate 8% alcohol or so in your case.

[chivelegs]

OK, bottling day is here. Nearly all the fruitiness has gone now and the beer has been sitting in the outhouse at about 2 degrees for about 3 weeks.
My question is why I have to use less priming sugar because the beer is so cold as suggested above? Can someone explain the physics behind this, as I don't want to end up with a flat Belgian?

[Gadders]

Hey,

My question is why I have to use less priming sugar because the beer is so cold as suggested above? Can someone explain the physics behind this, as I don't want to end up with a flat Belgian?

Ive not herd that one before. I know when it comes to force carbing that the lower the temp of the liquid the more easily gas will disolve and stay in solution so you need less gas overal. But as you are conditioning and priming at room temp I would go for the normal amount of priming sugar. Ive never had a problem and use the same method as above of adding sugar and yeast to the beer cold then botteling and letting it warm.
Hope all goes well

[bosium]

My question is why I have to use less priming sugar because the beer is so cold as suggested above? Can someone explain the physics behind this, as I don't want to end up with a flat Belgian?

The reason is that cold beer has a higher amount of C02 already dissolved in it. Your ice cold beer has quite a lot of CO2 already in it, straight out of the fermenter, so you need to add less in the form of priming sugar to achieve the same level of dissolved CO2 in the bottle.