Cask co2 volumn

[PeeBee]

I was thinking about maybe transferring fermenting beer to cask with about 2 plato still to complete the fermentation and adding finings as well . Any advice from more experienced Caskmen or Women would be appreciated

I don't fall into those categories you hope to get help from. But I have come across this "cask a couple of points early" technique on numerous occasions: I don't give I a second thought. It's a commercial brewery trick, and we're home-brewers. They chuck out the same beers day after day, we chuck out whatever takes our fancy at the time. If we are brewing something we've done before we probably haven't done it for a while, and this time we're trying out this "new idea" for the first time...

Na. We haven't got a hope. We can predict fairly closely when a beer will finish, but have nothing like the control needed to reliably predict exactly when it finishes. So how can we judge when the beer has a couple of points left so it can be casked at the right moment? And will it be convenient to put everything down to get the beer casked on time?

Ferment it out. Prepare your priming sugar, and get the beer casked when it suits you. Leave the magic stunts to those who've got the time - like those doing it for their 9-5 job, or those like me who can waste time farting about with these tricks.

[guypettigrew]

Never thought of it as a 'magic stunt'.

I always keg my beers, using a King Keg, and haven't used priming sugar for years. Once the bubbles are popping out of the blow off tube at a fairly slow rate the beer is left at fermentation temperature for a couple more days. Then it's cooled to 4°C for a day or two, then fined and kegged.

All very amateur, but gives me a keg full of beer which quite often doesn't need any gas added until there's just three or four pints left in it.

As is often the case in homebrew, I guess we each have our own ways of doing things.

Guy

[john luc]

Thanks PeeBee for advice, I too have time to fart so like to . I kinda like the idea of early transfer. I do have lots of toys like a tilt to help me measure the gravity as it falls and I usually do get my yeast pitching rates fine so hit my intended finishing gravities.

[john luc]

Never thought of it as a 'magic stunt'.

I always keg my beers, using a King Keg, and haven't used priming sugar for years. Once the bubbles are popping out of the blow off tube at a fairly slow rate the beer is left at fermentation temperature for a couple more days. Then it's cooled to 4°C for a day or two, then fined and kegged.

All very amateur, but gives me a keg full of beer which quite often doesn't need any gas added until there's just three or four pints left in it.

As is often the case in homebrew, I guess we each have our own ways of doing things.

Guy

How many days in to the fermentation do you go before you decide to drop to 4C

[PeeBee]

Thanks PeeBee for advice, I too have time to fart so like to . I kinda like the idea of early transfer. I do have lots of toys like a tilt to help me measure the gravity as it falls and I usually do get my yeast pitching rates fine so hit my intended finishing gravities.

Okay, a little less dismissive. If you've got a "Tilt" that's good enough evidence of someone farting about for me! I haven't a Tilt (yet?) so take manual readings with a refractometer (what I do wouldn't suit a hydrometer). This is my last brew (20L, extract from Beersmith log):

Very leisurely fermentation, for me. But it's been at 1.011 for 24 hours so it's time to cask (1.011 is 2 point below what I expected, or what Beersmith predicted). Guy reckons his method is "amateur" but he appears to put more prep in than I do (is that 4C a "cold crash"? Yikes!) so perhaps I'm "hyper-amateur"? Unlike Guy I do chuck in priming sugar (12g) along with finings. The priming sugar is calculated to give 1.3 volumes of CO2, if it gets the chance. Remember the beer already has about 0.9 volumes of CO2 from fermentation (saturation at atmospheric pressure - the carbonation calculator should allow for this hence it asks for beer's temperature when fermenting) - it's fermented under airlock so it is in a 100% (ish) CO2 atmosphere. But all that "carbonation" calculation is for nowt 'cos I purge the airspace in the keg with CO2 from a cylinder, and pressure it to 5-10psi! The CO2 cylinder isn't left attached so the initial pressure does fall.

A few days later (only 2 for a bitter I used to produce) the beer is connected to a hand-pump and a LPG regulator (at 150mB, or 2psi-ish). The cask (Corny keg) might be vented back to 2psi but it's unlikely to be above 3psi anyway.

So mash tun to cask within 6 days, drinking within 10. I do prime, but leave nothing to chance as the beer is subject to 2psi "force carbonation" anyway. Perhaps I am doing the "2 points over" trick, but over-cook the outcome with a bit of British belt and braces.


This is my approach to "running" bitter. I might put more thought into something coming under the "keeping" category. The "less than regimented" approach has on rare occasions resulted in some dramatically over carbonated beer, but I have some "sophisticated" (err!) equipment to deal with those situations.

[guypettigrew]

How many days in to the fermentation do you go before you decide to drop to 4C

Depends. My beers start at about 1.050 +/- .004. The bulk of the fermentation is usually over in 4-5 days using White Labs yeast in the middle of the recommended fermentation temperature range . The beer then gets a day or so more at fermentation temperature. If I'm harvesting the yeast (from the dump valve at the bottom of the fermenter) the beer is first cooled to about 12°C to drop some of the yeast out, but still leave it 'gooey' enough to be able to run it off. Then the beer is cooled to 4°C for a day or so.

Then into a keg with finings (auxiliary and isinglass) but no priming. Clear after 24 hours usually. Another couple of days and there's plenty of condition (gas) in it.

The current brew is being fermented with a Fermentum Mobile 11 yeast. It started at 1.051 and seems to have finished its main fermentation after 2 1/2 days. Not sure if this is a good thing!

Guy

[guypettigrew]

If you've got a "Tilt" that's good enough evidence of someone farting about for me! I haven't a Tilt (yet?) so take manual readings with a refractometer (what I do wouldn't suit a hydrometer).

No Tilt? Want to borrow mine? I don't find it at all helpful!

PM me if you'd like to try it out.

Guy

[Robwalkeragain]

What yeast are you using. At our place I just cask up and it carbonates itself when using us-05, s-04. For nottingham it’ll need priming cause it goes dry as a bone. You can only really chalk a definitive answer up to experience imo, and our attenuation alters slightly through the year (ambient temps, changes in yeast - us05 is reported to be a blend of at least 8 yeasts.)

[john luc]

I have the slurry of Wyeast1968 on offer to me from a club member atm.

[john luc]

Coming off a London Pride clone

[PeeBee]

Coming off a London Pride clone

Snap! That's a London Pride clone brewing in the graph above. It's using WLP002 yeast which is allegedly the same as WY1968 which is allegedly Fuller's yeast - if you believe all those wild speculations.

By way of a warning and a possible explanation of my belt and braces carbonation routine: If pressure in a Corny keg drops to zero, a hand-pump keeps drawing beer (Corny kegs weren't designed for negative pressure and air gets dragged past the seals). "Hooray" say the CAMRA die-hards. I figured this when a keg of beer started to show signs of going off. "Boo" says I. Fortunately there wasn't a lot left, so it got drunk quick! But not before it chucked a couple of "logs" on my paranoia "fire".

[PeeBee]

No Tilt? Want to borrow mine? I don't find it at all helpful!

PM me if you'd like to try it out.

Eee! Can't say no to that. Cheers Guy. PM in the making...

[Kev888]

this not bothering with the secondary ferment popped up

It is true that beer engines perk up the poured pint somewhat and perhaps some would find that alone suits them (it is all down to personal preference really), but for me and I suspect for most people then some gentle carbonation in the beer is still wanted for optimum results.

So, If you leave the beer a long time in a fermenter/secondary (or equivalent) then personally I would prefer to prime. Aiming well below the volumes you see in carbonation charts for force carbonating of kegged beers, but certainly not flat.

If you don't leave it a long time before casking then you'll likely get a little residual co2-making activity after FG has nominally been reached. So this might to a degree offset a lack of priming. I would personally still prime, but I'd be even lighter on the priming sugars - IMO it is harder to judge as different yeast and worts will act slightly differently (part of the black art of casking and subsequent cellar techniques).

The next level would be to cask before FG, which is even harder to judge. If you were to try this then I'd suggest a forced ferment so that you can judge FG more accurately. This isn't something I usually do because it seems like more work and more to get wrong, but there are people who like this method and use it successfully.

[john luc]

Thinking maybe that since I'm going to use 1968 yeast I should finish it out in the fermenter first and do a diacetyl rest as well. Reading the spec sheet on this yeast says it does need one.

[PeeBee]

Thinking maybe that since I'm going to use 1968 yeast I should finish it out in the fermenter first and do a diacetyl rest as well. Reading the spec sheet on this yeast says it does need one.

Be suspicious of what you read from the States, they are still very hung up on making "lager". "Di-acid-tell" rest??? Don't know what that's all about. But as your query is about "cask" beers you don't need to worry about it either. In fact worrying about it and delaying the essential bit of actually making beer is probably likely to make all sorts of random things happen.

I'm not anti-American-style-beer by the way. I will churn out some favoured American pale ales and amber ales, but I'm careful not to serve them at frigid temperatures - perhaps I'd notice this di...a-thingy stuff if I ramped the pressure up to something over 12PSI and chilled it to some tongue numbing sub-ten degree temperature?

I've never drank a beer that tastes (or smells) of "creamed corn" … or whatever it is. Don't think I've ever tasted "creamed corn" anyway.

My next beer planned is my first ever lager (DIYDog "Zeitgeist"). Perhaps I should take note of some of this American babbling for that? And perhaps skip brewing in last night's cabbage water like I normally do.