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  • Bottle conditioning questions

    Hi all,
    I've been using flat bottom plastic 500L fermentors for a year now and I've finally managed to scrape some cash together to upgrade to 500L stainless steal pressurised cone FV.

    My bottling process was after primary fermentation was complete cold crash 2 days then bottle with dextrose. There was no way to remove the yeast cake and additional dead yeast.

    With the new FV I can remove the yeast cake with the bottom value (something I could not do with the plastic FV) but I have no way to count yeast cells so I'm worried I won't have enough yeast left from the initial primary fermentation yeast pitch to be able to bottle condition.

    Is it better practice to try removing all yeast possible by crash chilling then removing the yeast over a few days and during the maturation process and then when bottling add something like Fermentis R2 bottling yeast with the dextrose? Or is better to crash chill remove the initial yeast cake then bottle with dextrose?

    Unfortunately I don't have a pressurised bottling machine yet so can't bottle under pressure. Hence the bottle conditioning.

    Thanks,

  • #2
    If you are not using finings to drop the yeast during cold crashing you should be fine, even after cold crashing and removing the yeast cake from the bottom of the PFV there is usually enough yeast left in suspension to carb the bottles.
    Sedimentation in the bottle is to be expected. The best way to know for sure is a microscope analysis and yeast count, Thera are very cheap microscopes that can be useful for that.
    We use the same strain for bottle conditioning. Hope this helps!
    Cheers


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    • #3
      Thanks for the reply. Really appreciate it.

      So are you adding additional R2 yeast as well as the left over yeast from primary fermentation? Or do you remove all primary fermentation yeast where possible then use only the R2 yeast and dextrose to me more accurate?

      My old process was not the best so I'm looking to try and improve. I will try and locate a cheap microscope as well.

      Thanks,

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      • #4
        We do not add any more yeast. After cold crashing, we remove all the settled material from the bottom of the conical, and let the temp free rise to bottling temp which for us is a couple of days.
        A couple of hours before bottling we add the dextrose. Conditioning usually takes 6 to 10 days.



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        • #5
          ok thanks its clear now. Do you mind me asking how many days you cold crash for?

          Cheers,

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          • #6
            We cold crash for 3 days.



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            • #7
              At 34 f.


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