Priming sugar

[pvguy]

Hello,
I will be bottling a Matilda clone soon and am not certain as to priming sugar amount.
it was fermented at 70F and then bumped-up to ~ 85F for the B. bruxxelensis in the primary.
Temp has been reduced to ~ 65F for a few days and I would like to bottle in two days. Should I use
65F or 85F in the priming sugar calculator? I typically use dextrose.

Thanks, Tom

 

[sbaclimber]

Hello,
I will be bottling a Matilda clone soon and am not certain as to priming sugar amount.
it was fermented at 70F and then bumped-up to ~ 85F for the B. bruxxelensis in the primary.
Temp has been reduced to ~ 65F for a few days and I would like to bottle in two days. Should I use
65F or 85F in the priming sugar calculator? I typically use dextrose.

Thanks, Tom

I quote from the calculator...
* Temperature of Beer used for computing dissolved CO2:
The beer you are about to package already contains some CO2 since it is a naturally occurring byproduct of fermentation. The amount is temperature dependent. The temperature to enter is usually the fermentation temperature of the beer, but might also be the current temperature of the beer. If the fermentation temperature and the current beer temperature are the same life is simple.

However, if the beer was cold crashed, or put through a diacetyl rest, or the temperature changed for some other reason... you will need to use your judgment to decide which temperature is most representative.

Seeing as you fermented at 70 and are currently at ~65...anything around about there should be good. 1° or 2° +/- isn't going to make a huge difference, and the bump-up to 85 after primary fermentation shouldn't make a huge difference either, imo.

 

[pvguy]

Danke sbaclimber,
So maybe use 70F? if you go + or - about 5 degrees F or more the sugar amounts are quite different. I've put a lot of time
into this beer so don;t want it flat or bottle bombs.....

 

[sbaclimber]

Danke sbaclimber,
So maybe use 70F? if you go + or - about 5 degrees F or more the sugar amounts are quite different. I've put a lot of time
into this beer so don;t want it flat or bottle bombs.....

I guess it depends on how much you are bottling, but for 5 gallons a difference of .2 oz doesn't seem like a lot to me...
...but, that being said, I am happier with a "flat" beer than something more bubbly and always aim low.
Either way, if you use the calculator, even with a difference of 20°F +/-, there is no way you will produce bottle bombs UNLESS fermentation hasn't finished!
In other words....if you are certain that fermentation has finished, you can aim a bit high for 2-3 volumes and at worst have a gusher...though unlikely. Considering lambics and wheat beers are 4+ volumes and the bottles don't explode, a belgian at ~2 volumes gives you quite a bit of room for error. And I would agree, a flat belgian wouldn't be great, so yes, go with 70°

 

[Nosybear]

Caution: The normal thin-walled bottles we use are good to somewhere around 3 vols! But the difference between beer CO2 content at 80 degrees F and 68 degrees F is 0.15 vols - less than you can notice.

 

[sbaclimber]

Caution: The normal thin-walled bottles we use are good to somewhere around 3 vols!

Good point! I only bottle in old reusable ("mehrweg") german beer bottles, which are by default wheat beer bottles, so tend to forget that other countries have thinner bottles.

 

[Nosybear]

Good point! I only bottle in old reusable ("mehrweg") german beer bottles, which are by default wheat beer bottles, so tend to forget that other countries have thinner bottles.

Dude! Those things have walls Trump would envy! No issues with higher pressures there. And by the way, I keep them for reuse when I can get them.

 

[pvguy]

OK, thanks again!
For 5.2 gallons @ ~70F and 2.7 volumes, I'm getting between 4.7 and 5.2 ounces of dextrose. So I am
going to use 5.1 ounces.
I have a mixture of bottles; some lever-top and some brands (New Belgium and Dog Fish) of metal cap bottles
that I think may be slightly thicker than most "standard" bottles......hopefully that will not be an issue.

Regards, Tom