conditioning

[njal67]

Hi

I have been given 2 different ways to condition my beer before bottling. One is to transfer the beer from the fermentation bucket to a clean bucket just used for conditioning. The other is to leave the beer in the fermentation bucket till it has conditioned. Which would you say is the one I should be doing.

Quick other question, when bottling after conditioning do I still need to put the half teaspoon of sugar in each bottle.

Thanks

Njal

 

[oz11]

Conditioning needs to be done in a vessel that can hold pressure. such as a keg or bottle, which will not let the CO2 produced escape and so will eventually be absorbed into the beer. Trying to condition in a fermentation bucket will not work. The CO2 will be lost and your beer will not get any condition i.e. fizz!

 

[njal67]

so basically once it has brewed for the 7 days, bottle it and leave for the conditioning period.
That means the other bucket can now be used to brew more

 

[PD]

putting your brew in a 2nd vessel or leaving it in the first vessel after the yeast has finished its job, is NOT conditioning. Its a period of time to let the yeasts clear up and settle out. You then bottle with the priming sugar ( or keg ) and leave it to carbonate for a couple of weeks Then you condition your brew by letting it stand cool for as long as you can.

 

[oz11]

7 days would be about the minimum time for fermentation. If you can leave it for a few days a longer it would allow the yeast a chance to clean up some of the undesirable products of fermentation. Assuming this is a kit the instructions are generally a little on the optimistic side when it comes to timescales and patience is your friend. Don't rush to get it in the bottle and don't rush to drink it once bottled (thought tasters are required to see how it's coming along :drink: ) and you should get a better beer as it matures.

I've not brewed a kit for many a year so there are others on here who can give better advice than me on how to get the most out of your beer.

 

[njal67]

ok, so I can leave longer in the fermentation bucket to clear, then bottle with priming sugar. Still means I can brew more as I can use the extra bucket to get another brew going.

I am only kit making at the moment and trying Brewmaker Best of British Old English Ale, I can now nip out to wilkos and get the IPA :grin:

 

[njal67]

Thank you all for your posts it has cleared the confusion that was caused by conflicting terminology

 

[Sandimas]

Tend to leave mine at least 2 weeks in the FV, sometimes 3, then keg/bottle. You should be looking for a steady / low hydrometer reading over 2-3 days, ideally around 1.010. Bottle it too early and you may end up with exploding bottles due to it still fermenting :shock:

Let us know how the Old English Ale turns out - I was in Wilco's earlier and nearly bought it, but went for the Yorkshire Bitter instead. Even though I brew mainly extract these days, it's nice to stick a kit on when you haven't much time, and at £15 for a 2-can (Muntons) kit the temptation was too much.

 

[winelight]

There have been lots of threads on this recently - seems to be that what many people do is something like this:

1. 2 weeks in FV (to ferment)[/*:m:h4cx5s14]
2. 1 week either in the same FV moved to the cold or racked into a second FV then put in the cold (to settle / clear)[/*:m:h4cx5s14]
3. bottle/keg[/*:m:h4cx5s14]
4. 2 weeks in warm to carbonate[/*:m:h4cx5s14]
5. 2 weeks in cold (minimum) to condition[/*:m:h4cx5s14]

This has my kits coming out tasting as good as the beer in the bar or bottle-conditioned ales I purchase.

 

[njal67]

that is what I have gleaned from the responses thanks all.

I will try leaving in the FV till bottling, freeing up the other vessel to become another FV and brew more.

Tomorrow I will start off another Brewmaker Best of British but this will be IPA.

I have 90 bottles that I have saved up plus an old rotakeg but unsure whether you can get the gas bottles to screw on. It has a screw cap with a valve unlike another rorakeg I was given that has some strange metal plates so not entirely sure if it will work

 

[jonnymorris]

1. 2 weeks in FV (to ferment)[/*:m:3fcrlj6i]
2. 1 week either in the same FV moved to the cold or racked into a second FV then put in the cold (to settle / clear)[/*:m:3fcrlj6i]
3. bottle/keg[/*:m:3fcrlj6i]
4. 2 weeks in warm to carbonate[/*:m:3fcrlj6i]
5. 2 weeks in cold (minimum) to condition[/*:m:3fcrlj6i]

This should be a written in stone. Well said. It may even head off the 'should I rack to secondary' discussion.