Canning / Bottling / Recipe Alteration

[alwilson]

Good Morning Gang,

I'm running a 6 UK Barrel plant here in London, we produce mostly cask condition beer (we bottle condition small runs too).

I'm interested to hear your experiences of bottling (outsourced to a bottler) and canning.

Do you find you have to alter your recipe at all to acheive the same taste as other packages? I understand the extra co2 will change the flavour in canned beers - but what about force carbing bottled beers? does my recipe need reformulation for that?

My cask beer usually gets 6 weeks cool conditioning (some longer, but minimum 6 weeks) if I was to outsource bottling would I need to bulk condition my beer in a tank first? I'm entirely a 1 man band which is why I'd rather outsource the extra packaging where possible.

Whats your process for shipping beer to be packaged, be it can or bottle?

Cheers All,

Alex

[dick murton]

Surely, the first port of call is to talk to whoever is going to do your bottling. They will know what works well for them. Then you alter your processes as necessary to be able to transport the beer, and get the quality that you are looking for - with current bottled beers from the bottlers being the minimum standard.

[alwilson]

Hi Dick,

Thanks for your reply.

I did speak with their 'technical team' but they would not offer recipe formulation advice, my only advice received was do not fine it, load it into an IBC or a as many casks as necessary and they will bulk condition for 3 days.

So, at this point im not sure whether I should bulk condition it myself in a CT before shipping it to them to filter/fine/carb and pack?

They also would not offer advice on conditioning, alluding to 'whatever works best for you'

I'll be shipping off a test batch though soon, so I guess its wait and see


Cheers!

Alex

[alwilson]

Hi Dick,

Thanks for your reply.

I did speak with their 'technical team' but they would not offer recipe formulation advice, my only advice received was do not fine it, load it into an IBC or a as many casks as necessary and they will bulk condition for 3 days.

So, at this point im not sure whether I should bulk condition it myself in a CT before shipping it to them to filter/fine/carb and pack?

They also would not offer advice on conditioning, alluding to 'whatever works best for you'

I'll be shipping off a test batch though soon, so I guess its wait and see


Cheers!

Alex

[dick murton]

After six weeks cold conditioning, there is likely to be virtually no yeast, and virtually no fermentable sugar left in the beer. If you are going to send it to them for bulk conditioning, then you will have to add some priming sugar, in the form of fermentable sugar syrup such as VHM (very high maltose) or suitable block sugar (normally this is largely sucrose) and some yeast, just before you send it off. If you don't, then there is no chance of it conditioning in the tanks at the bottlers, and so the beer will be as flat as ditchwater. Similarly if you filter it, then you will remove all the remaining yeast, and so will not develop any condition in bottle. Unless both sets of loading and unloading procedures are very good and ensure no oxygen pickup at all, then you are also at risk of hazes and more to the point, flavour changes, particularly diacetyl type compounds.

You need to tie up the amount of fermentable sugar added with the CO2 currently dissolved in the beer, and the desired CO2 content in bottle once it gets to the consumer.

I suggest you do some home bottling trials (go and buy some kit from a homebrew shop if necessary) before you potentially waste a complete batch of beer, bottles etc.

Who is doing your bottling?

Cheers

[alwilson]

Hi Dick,

Thanks again.

Bottled in Cumbria are doing the bottling.

I'm pretty ignorant of contract bottling (maybe I need to attend one of the brew/packing courses at IBD!)

I was under the impression that the bottlers wanted flat beer and they filter and force-carb it at their end. Is this wrong and not actually what happens?

In regards to loading procedures, I was going to fill an IBC using co2 back pressure - I cannot vouch for the unloading process though.

Cheers
Alex

[dick murton]

It sounds as though you need to find out from them exactly what they can and can't do then. They need to know what you want the product to end up like, and you need to know what they need from you, to be able to produce beer to your spec. Different packagers have different facilities, so they may not actually be able to do what is required to process and package your beer to achieve what you want it to look and taste like (referring particularly to CO2 content here.)

Standard IBCs cannot be pressurised, but can simply be purged with CO2 from the inlet. And don't forget to purge out all your hoses with water / CO2.

I realise they are 200 miles away, but it might well be worth a visit to them to have face to face discussions.

[alwilson]

Dick, impeccable timing again... I've just organised a face-to-face with them, so that I can take my beers to them - be easier than tryign to describe what a beer should look and feel like, and that will answer (hopefully) what Volume of co2 is in there. Our bottles are bottle conditioned using priming sugar, so the current specifc vol is not really known, its estimated and we all know what estimate are like!

Cheers!

[dick murton]

Well if it is any help, the residual CO2 in ales out of large conicals used to be 1.5 to 1.7 volumes (0.75 - 0.85 g / litre). Probably the best estimate is gained by using the temperature pressure CO2 chart. Have a look at Meheen-manufacturing.com if you can't find one elsewhere. Well, they used to have one on their site.