Ive recently brewed a wee heavy and I’m wondering how I should condition the beer. should I rack into a secondary? I know this is risky with infections, but is bulk aging good for a large gravity beer like that? Should I just bottle and wait a while for them to bottle condition?
I’ve heard it both ways. I can’t remember who said it, maybe Vinnie, but whoever it was said that the insanely large novelty bottles age better than typical bottles of the same batch.
I would worry more about oxidation than infection. It’s easy to keep stuff clean and sanitary, harder to keep out O2.
Sounds like a good long term experiment.
that’s a good point as well. May need to grab a can of CO2 to purge the carboy if I decide to bulk age.
If oxidation is the concern, I believe bulk aging is preferable. Less surface area of the beer will be exposed to the head space of the carboy.
You could always bottle with some extract left (“Bottle Spunding”) and allow the remaining fermentation to provide the desired level of carbonation.
The upside? Active yeast in the bottle scrubs O2 and carbonates the beer.
The downside? Sediment in the bottle from settled yeast.
And possible explosive bottles. That’s the way they did it back in the “bad old days”.
Knowing the residual carbonation, attenuation from FFT and target carbonation should eliminate this worry.
Leaving yourself margin is a good idea as well.
Dr. Michael Hall talks about residual carbonation in his “Brew by the Numbers” article and Kai has an excellent writeup on carbonating with remaining extract at http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Accurately_Calculating_Sugar_Additions_for_Carbonation.
I did a brief writeup on the topic as well: http://www.lowoxygenbrewing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Bottle-Spunding-1.pdf
Obviously you have to be careful with standard longnecks but carbonating to a lower value until youre comfortable is a good idea anyway.
If I were to purge with CO2 first, then rack, would there be any positive pressure keeping any 02 out? Or would it be so minimal it wouldn’t matter and Id still be at risk?
The risk is lower the more full the fermenter is. Always fill to the neck to minimize surface area. I personally believe there are benefits to bulk against, but I don’t have any data to back that up.
This batch ended up smaller than the 3.0 gal I hoped it would be. Ended up getting about 2.5 gal so even now its not to the neck. I made an error and didn’t calculate for grain absorbtion.
In that case, would it be wise to just bottle and wait a couple months?
In that case, I would bottle.
I would not bother with a secondary for this. Let the beer sit in primary for 3-4 wks until fully done fermenting.
Then bottle, allow to carbonate (2-3 wks) then simply keep them somewhere cool and dark. Depending on where you live, a garage could be a nice place for this in the upcoming months.
Thanks for the advice guys. Gonna look at gravity in the next week sometime. Still getting a bubble every 5-10 secs. Ill raise temp, and leave for a bit then bottle. Wonder how long ill have to wait till its ready!
Depending on the OG, you may also want to consider pitching some fresh rehydrated dry yeast to ensure proper bottle carbonation in a timely fashion. After they are carbonated, I would pop one after 6 wks and have a taste to see where the flavors are at.
Dosing with spiese may be a better option to try and limit the sediment in the bottles.
While I am a relative newbie to modern homebrewing, I am a veteran of the “bad old days”. If bottle spunding is bottling before FG is reached, one of my college roommates and I bottled about 6,000 quarts that way back in the day (qt. bottles were the thing back then). We only had one explode when one of our roommates left a bottle on the clothes dryer in the basement and another roommate loaded it up and turned it on. We never did find all the pieces of that bottle.
If I bulk age, I rack the beer then add about 50g of invert sugar. The yeast will act up again and purge the oxygen.
Cheap, easy, works for me.
mjk
That’s an interesting idea. When I have one that’s actually filling a carboy up, Ill look at doing that. Seems like an effective way of purging without buying CO2!
Restarts the air lock to bubbling.
One more thing about bulk aging especially for a high alcohol brew.
Pitch some fresh yeast at bottling that is of course if you are bottling. Seem the longer the yeast sits without activity the tougher it is to carbonate/get out of dormancy.
I always bottle because I cant afford a keg. I think I would always bottle some beer even if I had a keg.
One extra day of fun and beer!
I don’t have a keg either so I am a bottler. I would be OK with a lower carb rate on this beer overall though since its a scotch ale. Looking for moderate low carbing.