bottles and kegs

[batkins]

I am in the middle of my first brew. I acquired a complete corny keg system with my supplies. I'm going to keg my beer. BUT.... I was also thinking of bottling a few beers to save for a while. Since I am going to carbonate my kegs with the Co2 canister, is there an "amount of sugar per bottle" formula for bottling only a few beers? Any way to accomplish this?
Thanks,
Bill Atkins

[YamahaXS]

can't remeber for sure.... check out one fo the beer brewing books. i think a capful is suffiency.

generally its one cup / 5 gal batch.

there are about 48 12 bottles/ batch

about 48 teaspoons in a cup

so about 1 teaspoon per 12 oz bottle.

:D

[danno]

I highly recommend Primetabs, you should be able to get them at your LHBS. You just drop 3 or 4 in each bottle, no muss, no fuss... They work great...

The other option is to prime the whole batch, bottle what you want, and put the rest in the keg and let it carbonate naturally. You'll end up with any sediment in your first glass, after that it will be clear....

[Richard English]

Quote "...and put the rest in the keg and let it carbonate naturally...."

This is the ONLY way that beer should be carbonated if it is to attain its proper flavour. Indeed, by the definition of Real Ale used in the UK by CAMRA, no beer can be considered "real" if extra carbon dioxide has been added.

Those of you who have been fortunate enough to drink UK draught beers from the cask (not keg, that's a pressurised vessel as used by fizz-beer manufacturers over here) or to have drunk bottle-conditioned beers such as Fullers 1845 will know the truth of this. Indeed, if you use a cask, not a keg, then you have no option - casks cannot be pressurised.

The full flavour and lack of carbonic acid "bite" is a feature of natural carbonation and it's what makes the difference between wonderful beers and "also rans".

Leave your carbon dioxide in its cylinder or use it for an appropriate purpose - such as making soft drinks (sodas). It has no place in real beer!

[Tweek]

Richard,
I totally disagree with you. I have read this from you many times now. While I agree that sometimes carbonation through a second fermentation is a good thing and does make the beer better, there are other times when that is not the case. Perhaps you are not force carbonating correctly. When correctly done you will not have a fizzy end product but a perfectly carbonated "real" beer thats flavor profile was stopped exactly where you wanted it to stop. I think that your insistence that using force carbonation will not yield a real beer is asinine. I have had many force carbonated brews that blow fullers 1845 and the like out of the water. It really comes down to a matter of taste, there is no right or wrong. I dont want a flame war here, I just dont want someone that is new to homebrewing thinking that they are doing something wrong for using force carbonation.

Cheers

Tweek

[Beer Nazi]

Bat - you could also add a bit of dry brewers yeast to each bottle.

One package per 5 gallon batch works well.

[Richard English]

In fact, if you check my post you will see that I said "...Indeed, by the definition of Real Ale used in the UK by CAMRA, no beer can be considered "real" if extra carbon dioxide has been added..."

You have the right to consider their remarks asinine if you wish, but they are CAMRA's, not mine.

I do stick to my guns, though, about flavour. I have NEVER had a pressurised beer that is as good as a naturally carbonated one - although I accept that brewery-conditioned beers can be good (Sam Smith's bottled beers are fine). Indeed, there is some merit in the suggestion that blanket pressure can be beneficial in preserving draught beer (although, again CAMRA does not accept it)

I would be happy indeed to try any beer that "...blow fullers 1845 and the like out of the water..." but I have yet to find any one such of either US, UK or indeed of any other country's brew.

Similarly I have never drunk sparkling wine created by artificial carbonation that is the equal of that created by the "Methode Champanoise" system of secondary fermnetation.

I agree, of course, that taste is a matter of preference although, clearly, if all other things being equal, a team of unbiased assessors awards a winning place to a particular brew, then there are grounds for suggesting that the brew under question is a good one. Fuller's 1845 has won the supreme accolade for best bottle conditioned ale at the last two Great British Beer Festivals (which competition is open to all who care to enter) so I suggest that it should be considered a fine beer, even though there may be those who prefer something else.

Incidentally, I have brewed beer (and wine) at home for around 30 years and have never found it necessary to pressurise using external carbon dioxide neither when using bottles nor when using casks. Let the home-brewers out there invest in carbonation kits if they wish - after all, Anheuser Busch do, and they are the world's most succesful brewer.

Me? I'll stick to CAMRA's way.

[Tweek]

Richard,
Like I said I didnt want to turn this into a battle. I apologize for my use of the word asinine, it was not my intention to insult you.

I do find it interesting that you have been brewing for 30 years and that Fullers 1845 is the best beer you have had. While I would agree that it is a good beer, the beers that come out of my house are far superior.

We do agree that AB mass produces swill, but for many reasons, not just because it is force carbonated.

I cannot speak about Camra. I dont know much about them. I also dont read the beer and wine review mags with any sort of regularity, as I think that many of them are handing out better reviews to those that have more advertising dollars (this is a lot more evident in the wine rags). I think it is great that you found a source that you are willing to trust so deeply.

Cheers

[Richard English]

Thank you for this.

As we both agree, beer preference is a matter of taste and it is likely that you will have modified your recipes over the years to make your products match you tastes. It's a bit like mon's home-made apple pie - it's always better than anything you get in the shops.

I should have made it clear that, when I was speaking of beers and their relative superiority I was speaking of commercially-brewed products. Of course, it is possible to judge homebrews as well but as the products are not available to other than those who have brewed them, and their close friends, the results are not of great moment to the world at large.

I am quite prepared to accept that your homebrew is superior to 1845 - I regret that I am unlikely to be able to try it. What I do maintain, though, is that there are few bottled beers to equal, far less to surpass, 1845 for overall quality.

CAMRA is probably less well-known in the USA than it deserves to be but then, considering its background as a UK pressure group, that's maybe not surprising.

However, it is true to say that CAMRA saved real ale. In the UK no new ale breweries were set up in the UK for the fifty years before CAMRA was founded and the UK was going the same way as the USA had done a few years previously. All the proper breweries were closing and the UK was drowning in a sea of fizz. Now there are now around 300 new UK brewers producing real ale.

CAMRA is arguably the world's most successful consumer organisation and its efforts have indirectly been responsible for the beer revival in the USA. Before CAMRA only Anchor Steam were still producing half decent beer; now there are 1500 US craft breweries. Had it not been for CAMRA it is unlikely that this would have happened - no comparable US pressure group existed.

You can trust CAMRA implicitely; they do not accept advertising bribes; on the contrary they say what they mean and they are listened to by the majors. A-B complained about the fact that their brewery was not mentioned in the UK's Good Beer Guide and so they reported upon their activities. The report is worth reading!

And, incidentally, I agree that it is not just the carbonation that makes Budweiser such an apalling drink - the fact that its wort is around 40% rice has a lot to do with it as well.

The wonders of the Internet mean that you can now find out about CAMRA for yourself if you, too, wish to read an unbiased source. Go to http://www.camra.org.uk/. If nothing else the picture of Ninkasi is worth looking at!