Bottling Uncarbonated Beer

[Bigga]

Any folks out there bottling uncarbonated beer (followed by bottle conditioning)? If so, what are you doing to mitigate headspace oxygen?

Just looking for ideas--we'll be bottling a small number of 750s "by hand" with a single-head filler. So far I've got the following thoughts:

- fill high

- oxygen-scavenging crowns (though from what numbers I've seen I think they can only absorb the oxygen in ~1 mL of air, at most)

- either purge the bottle with CO2 prior to filling, or purge the headspace with CO2 after filling, then cap quickly

[bone yard]

Don't bother with scavenging crowns, the yeast in your beer will do a better job (I have assumed that you will have a fairly high yeast count if you're looking for a secondary ferment in the bottle).

Purge the bottle with CO2. Most manual fillers have a purge function, but it's an easy work around if not.

That'll do.

[Swordboarder]

Carbonate the beer 80-90% of what you want the final CO2 volume to be. Add a small krausen of fermenting wort. If the yeast do their job well you'll hit your target CO2 level and purge all O2 from the bottle. If they do their job badly they'll purge the O2 out of the bottle but won't make too much headway on the CO2 level. But your beer will still be carbonated and your customers won't be disappointed by flat beer.

[mattman688]

Carbonate the beer 80-90% of what you want the final CO2 volume to be. Add a small krausen of fermenting wort. If the yeast do their job well you'll hit your target CO2 level and purge all O2 from the bottle. If they do their job badly they'll purge the O2 out of the bottle but won't make too much headway on the CO2 level. But your beer will still be carbonated and your customers won't be disappointed by flat beer.

This is the safe bet way... I would suggest this too

[JTremblay]

Garrett Oliver of Brookly Brewery has a presentation about BB's process for their bottle conditioned beers -- I saw it a few months back. If you get in touch with him, I'm sure he'll fill you in.

Jason