Can a forced carbonated lager be cold conditioned?

[DocAnna]

So this weekend is going to be a super big bottle day. The kit IPA and kit cider are going to be portioned into bottles and bottle conditioned. The two other beers, a Bohemian Pilsner and Festbier. are going to be taken off their yeast into kegs for what I hope to be a longer period of lagering.

Here's the bit I'm a wee bit stuck with, I would like to send in a couple of beers for this month's competition, but would prefer to have the rest of the beer lager for longer. I could keg and force carbonate to then take a couple of bottles off but if I do that, will the carbonated beer be able to cold condition properly? The alternative is to keg and bottle flat beer but try to force carbonate in the bottle aka sodastream style with the counterpressure filler?

Force carbonating the whole keg sounds probably easier, and given my past experience force carbonating in the bottle seems like a recipe for getting sprayed with beer.. it might be fun trying though .

Anna

 

[samale]

@Hazelwood Brewery is the man to answer this. I have seen him force carb bottles to send out. I think he force carbs then almost freezes the beer and replaces the cap.
Saying that I read that much stuff on here I could be wrong

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

@Hazelwood Brewery is the man to answer this. I have seen him force carb bottles to send out. I think he force carbs then almost freezes the beer and replaces the cap.
Saying that I read that much stuff on here I could be wrong

That’s exactly what I do for anything urgent/unplanned. I have bottle caps with Schrader valves - pressurise, shake vigorously, repeat several times, chill to freezing, swap cap for regular bottle cap.

 

[DocAnna]

That’s exactly what I do for anything urgent/unplanned. I have bottle caps with Schrader valves - pressurise, shake vigorously, repeat several times, chill to freezing, swap cap for regular bottle cap.

Thanks, the lager is already at 1 deg in the fridge and I don't have any nice caps with valves though. I think I'm going to try force carbonating in the bottle with a counterpressure filler, which after all isn't much different from the way a sodastream works.
I might chill the beer even further before I try though and transfer to a keg, chill without much by way of pressure other then enough to keep the lids sealed, then bottle from that and try to carbonate the lager at 0-1 deg. On a precautionary basis I think the use of plastic bottles might be a good idea as exploding a glass bottle this way doesn't seem such a good idea.

Anna

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Thanks, the lager is already at 1 deg in the fridge and I don't have any nice caps with valves though. I think I'm going to try force carbonating in the bottle with a counterpressure filler, which after all isn't much different from the way a sodastream works.
I might chill the beer even further before I try though and transfer to a keg, chill without much by way of pressure other then enough to keep the lids sealed, then bottle from that and try to carbonate the lager at 0-1 deg. On a precautionary basis I think the use of plastic bottles might be a good idea as exploding a glass bottle this way doesn't seem such a good idea.

Anna

We’re all holding our breath now waiting for the update. Good luck!

 

[Random Badger]

We’re all holding our breath now waiting for the EXPLOSION. Good luck!

Fixed that for you...

 

[RoomWithABrew]

Ooh tricky.
Do you have a small keg or a 2 litre pet bottle and the kegland T adapter and the ball lock connectors that go on them.
If the above option available just force carbonate in small keg or the bottle then counter pressure fill from this.
I wouldn't have any success at all force carbing in a bottle with the williams warn counter pressure filler that I've got. It does a " stellar job" on already carbed beer. You'll struggle to get enough condition with the sodastream method I'd say.

 

[DocAnna]

Ooh tricky.
Do you have a small keg or a 2 litre pet bottle and the kegland T adapter and the ball lock connectors that go on them.
If the above option available just force carbonate in small keg or the bottle then counter pressure fill from this.
I wouldn't have any success at all force carbing in a bottle with the williams warn counter pressure filler that I've got. It does a " stellar job" on already carbed beer. You'll struggle to get enough condition with the sodastream method I'd say.

Sadly no small kegs and though I do have a couple of carbonation caps on order they aren't here yet. I've read that glass bottles should be able to sustain over 40 psi pressure comfortably and I've found that my filler stopper is too small for the plastic bottles really...

So.. I think gloves, eye protection and long sleeves and I'm going to try this with glass bottles at near zero deg C and 30psi. It's the sort of thing I rather like trying - the theory says it should work so it is a wee bit of an experiment. Hmmm... thinking a bit more on this, I think we have a chainsaw guard helmet with a mesh face guard somewhere in the garage from years past - that might be wiser but could also be the most 'Breaking bad' of brewing outfits I've tried. I might just pair it with some flower patterned trousers just to feel a bit better about it .

Anna

 

[RoomWithABrew]

Maybe put the glass bottle in a hacked pet 2 litre bottle with the top and bottom cut off to act as a shield in case anything goes bang as well.
If you can get some champagne bottles they are super strong and can cope with 6 vols or more.
Safety gear sounds badass but maybe just a pair of red trousers with a belt around each thigh as a ready to do up tourniquet.

 

[DocAnna]

So the short version is.... nope you can't force carbonate like a soda stream in a bottle.

It is though a teeny bit more complicated. I know I've posted this picture elsewhere but I really did wear the helmet, gloves and had the bottle inside a plastic tub so if it did shatter it would be contained. The lager I was trying to carbonate was at 0.5 deg C and I was using 30psi via a counter pressure filler.

Two problems. My counterpressure filler leaks. Despite determined wrapping of ptfe tape around the guilty joints it still leaks, and I'm not strong enough/have the right tools to take apart the joints concerned. I do plan to coat the joints in epoxy to seal them properly at some time in the future. Secondly, it's hard to hold the stopper in against the pressure... and if you let it go just a tiny bit then and it goes a long way - ceiling walls, everything in a blast radius of about 3m gets delightfully sprinkled with beer... I speak from today's experience as well.

2 minutes of bubbling and the lager was only slightly carbonated though interestingly when I added some dextrose to bottle carbonate the bottles I'd filled and struggled to carbonate, they did foam up a lot, so hey at least I capped on foam. (hmmm.. that's very glass half full)

So the Bohemian pilsner has gone in a keg, force carbonated and will just have to lager in the keg under pressure, I'm tempted to label it 'April Showers' .

Anna

 

[Random Badger]

So the short version is.... nope you can't force carbonate like a soda stream in a bottle.

At least you have expanded the extent of human knowledge!