Comment on Secondary Lager Fermentation Slow?
plactagonic@sopuli.xyz 2 months agoI brewed in about the same style but mainly with S-185. If you measure gravity during fermentation you can put it in bottles with ~4,5°Bx and skipp adding sugar.
It is enough to pressurize it and fermentation isn’t completely stopped (it is just slowing down). After week in 10 - 12°C it should be pressurized.
When I miss this window I add only about 3.5 g of sugar per bottle and 30g per 30l keg.
Aarkon@feddit.de 2 months ago
I’m not convinced the particular yeast strains make that much of a difference here. How did you measure your gravity though, what tool did you use & did you correct for alcohol? 4.5° is somewhere between my corrected and uncorrected readings. For the last three days, I read 5,9°Bx / 1.024 g with a refractometer, which Brewfather converted to 2.3° Bx / 1.009 final gravity when taking the fermentation into account. Your way, I’d have had to start secondary fermentation way earlier to leave some sugar behind. Doesn’t sound like a bad idea though, saves just another bit of work and only needs me to get the timing right (and have reliable measurements of course).
plactagonic@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
I use hydrometer it gives you real gravity but you need more beer.
But when you calculate real gravity from refractometer you can use it.
The window for this method is from 4-4.5°Bx and I only used hydrometer so it may need little bit of trying to not get bombs.
Now I work in brewery and we use basically the same method, but because the tank caps work as regulated pressure relief valves, they are cooled… It is just more regulated and done before packaging (bottling and kegging).
Aarkon@feddit.de 2 months ago
Doesn’t alcohol lower the density of the liquid, so that a hydrometer reading should have to be corrected as well to some degree? You sure now better than I do, but that was my impression.
Other than that, do you have a source for the numbers you mentioned? Something were I can go look stuff up myself, e.g. when I’m about to brew something very different?
plactagonic@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
Tldr of this measurement is that density is affected only negligibly (with low concentration of alcohol). Refractive index changes a lot.
These numbers were “discovered” by trying, maybe from some 15 yo Czech seminar my dad attended when he started. I just know that it works.
For sugar I am adding the least amount possible- it has some already ~3.5 °Bx and I don’t want bombs.