Bottling at 2C. How much sugar to prime?

[Jawaman]

Just getting ready to bottle my first lager that has been sitting in the secondary at 2C. I don't want to bulk prime but want to bottle it to 740ml PET bottles. Due to the high CO2 at this temperature is 1 carbonation drop going to be enough? Or should I play it safe and let the secondary to come up to 20C then prime per normal? Also is moving the fermenter (taking it out of the freezer and putting it on the bench) going to disrupt the sediment in the secondary?

[aurelius121ad]

I dont know about the priming but I have to move my fermenter every time I bottle. I try and move it as carefully and smoothly as possible them let it sit a little while (an hour or so) before racking into my bottling bin. Not much sediment gets stirred up and the little that does seems to settle OK.

[rwh]

The Technical Guide to Bulk Priming should answer your question.

[rohanbutler]

handy work RWH. been looking for something like this.

[kiwijimbob]

Hmm. Now I have a question and am a little concerned.

I've just bottled two different ales at around 8degrees. Each one had finished fermentation and was racked into a settling cube with the addition of 3 carb drops to encourage a small amount of CO2 production to expel any O2 in the cube. These were left overnight at 20degrees (till the cube puffed up and I burped it) then chilled to 4degrees for a few days in an attempt to drop out any yeast etc remaining.

When it was time to bottle I took the cube out of the fridge and left it to warm up a bit while I was getting the rest of my stuff ready.

Bottled into 1/2 stubbies and 1/2 long necks and put 1 drop in each stubbie and 2 in each long neck as normal.

Bottles are now stored away in the shed at room temp.

Have I added too much priming sugar given the temp I bottled the beer at?

From reading the link above it would suggest that I probably haven't but I just want to double check as I'm not that keen on the idea of bottle bombs!!!

Cheers

Jimmy

[rwh]

Yeah, this stuff is a bit subtle. What you're trying to do essentially is work out how much CO2 is dissolved in the liquid. Generally speaking, the temperature that's important is the temperature at which the beer fermented. This is because it's only during the fermentation stage that CO2 is being produced and is actively dissolving into the beer.

Some would say that if you ferment a lager at 12°C, then warm it up for a diacetyl rest, won't the CO2 come out of solution, and shouldn't I use 20°C as my value for the purposes of working out dissolved CO2? Well, yes and no. It does take some time for the beer to reach equilibrium, so generally it's best to use the fermentation temperature of 12°C rather than the subsequent temperature of 20°. If you left it in a 20°C secondary for a week it'd be a different story though.

Clear as mud? The upshot is that you should be just fine.

[kiwijimbob]

Great - thanks for that!

[Jawaman]

Thanks for the info. Since it fermented at about 10 C I decided to bottle straight from the freezer at about 2 C only using one carbonation drop. See how it goes. Tasted some out of the fermenter and taste wise it was allready half carbed up. Being an all malt kit (Coopers European Lager + LME and Saaz) over time (cross fingers) it should carb up ok. Considering that I've racked it and only used half priming sugar there should be even less of sediment. The taste is excelent just slightly greenish but its coming along just fine and I reckon it will be more then ready for my birthday in five month time.