Bottle priming or no?

[Portreath]

I've been reading a few brewing resources and I've read a number of times that it's not really necessary to add priming sugar to the bottles. If the mash, boil and fermentation have all been done appropriately there should be some residual sugars left to carbonate the bottles. What I'm led to believe is that this method does need a much longer conditioning period though to get the desired result. Has anyone had any experience of this approach?

 

[Graz]

You could be waiting a long time and still end up with flat beer.

Only time I've done it was with a Brewferm Christmas kit that finished at a fairly high gravity. Reading around this was normal for this kit and advice was to bottle with no priming. After about 9 months it did have a head when poured but wasn't the fizziest beer in the world. I've got some bottles of that left for this year, will be interesting to see how it is.

 

[Mavroz]

I always prime the bottles.
I tried 2 bottles without any priming whatsoever a couple of brews back.
There was definitely a light Co2 taste/effect on the tongue while drinking but they were as flat as a fart with no head etc, just didn't seem right..

 

[Duxuk]

When I did a commercial brewery tour they didn't use priming sugar. In their carefully controlled process they could keg after 7 days, leave it another 7 to carbonate, then send it to the pubs. We don't have such accurate repeatability so I wouldn't try it.
I just use a funnel and add a level teaspoon to each bottle of pale ale (500ml). If I leave them for months they do tend to have more life than after 2-4 weeks but I like to drink my late hopped beers fairly young to get the best from the hops.

 

[DavidDetroit]

This is very interesting. It seems counter intuitive even if it does work. I wouldn't want to wait more than two weeks for carbonation to occur unless it's a heavy beer.
Batch or bottle priming is proven to work quickly.

 

[Mavroz]

Batch priming into the bottling vessel has never let me down.

 

[Portreath]

I normally batch prime before bottling. I once bottled with wilko carb drops when I first started, a Muntons kit and 1/2 a dozen exploded!!!
I'm bottling a stout this week so I'm going to leave the priming out of 10 bottles and put them away for a few months to see what happens. Probably trying one a month after April.

 

[Pavros]

You could be waiting a long time and still end up with flat beer.

Only time I've done it was with a Brewferm Christmas kit that finished at a fairly high gravity. Reading around this was normal for this kit and advice was to bottle with no priming. After about 9 months it did have a head when poured but wasn't the fizziest beer in the world. I've got some bottles of that left for this year, will be interesting to see how it is.

When I first did the Brewferm Christmas kit, the instructions said to bottle at 1.020 with no priming sugar. It was excellent at between 12 - 15 months (all finished then so don't know if it would have improved further). I did another one which was bottled 31.12.17 and the instructions (and possibly the yeast) have changed as it now ferments down as normal to about 1.010 and you bottle with priming sugar.

I understand that you can bottle a normal kit without any priming sugar but, as Graz says, it will take a long time to carbonate, if at all, and you will probably end up drinking flat beer

 

[Tony Palmer]

You are best of priming. It is possible by measuring the PG to leave enough fermentable sugar but it is far more consistent to ferment to dryness and prime as the professionals do.

 

[stz]

Short answer is no it isn't necessary. For home brewing I'd ferment out dry and prime to ensure consistency.

When you brew professionally time is a luxury. Plant doesn't pay for itself sat idle. You also brew the same or similar things following an identical process week in week out. As a result it is REALLY common and pretty straightforward to rack to cask at provisional not final gravity and not prime. The alternative is what? Let it crawl down at the slowest point in the fermentation? Take an extra day to ensure stable reads? Use extra energy and/or insulation to keep the heat up while it is no longer self sustaining? Buy in sugar which is more expensive than malt? Add time to your day measuring out sugar and trying to batch prime? Allow the natural evolution of co2 during active fermentation to dissipate exposing your beer to oxygen pick up, especially as it pulls negative pressure contracting as it cools? Wait for your yeast count to go random and your viability to fluctuate?

You need good control over your fermentation profile and processes to ensure this is safe and consistent, both yeast count and residual sugars. You also need to test further down the line to determine actual final gravity to keep HMRC happy. All of these controls get WAY tighter if you plan to bottle, the danger of exploding bottles is far greater than a mere lively cask. I know a lot of breweries who do prime and will say it is for beer quality, but arguably it is to ensure consistency as a compensate for less than reliable process and shouldn't be necessary. I wouldn't say ferment out dry as the professionals do.

That said home brewing is another world. Batches are rarely the same twice. Pitch rate, yeast variety and fermentation is rarely the same. Volumes can be a bit random. Saccharometers are usually nowhere near as accurate.

For ideal cask conditioning I need the same amount of dissolved co2 at the point in goes into cask which means fermentation halts at the same temperature. I need 1-2 points and 0.5-2x10^6 yeast cells per ml at a good (85%) viability. For bottling I need 0.5 points and 0.2-1.5x10^6 per ml. Cask conditioning is basically free secondary fermentation. You'd probably think it a bit quick, but beer is usually in cask 5-7 days from pitch.

 

[Portreath]

Thanks @stz for a really insightful response.