How much ABV does bottle priming achieve?

The.Red.Pill

Hi All.

I'm a new beer brewer but have brewed very good elderberry wine (for fun) for a few years.

I've started a coopers malt extract IPA and will prime the whole batch 25 litres at the end @ priming rate of 8g per litre.

I didn't listen to the instuctions and added 1Kg dextose and 300g unrefined cane sugar (brown) OG reading @24degrees Celsius = 1.042 (I will keep this temperature for two days and then drop to 16ͦͦͦͦͦͦͦͦͦͦͦͦdegrees) I am using california Ale yeast from white labs.
I expect the ABV before priming to be approx 5.1% but ideally would like it to be 6 / 6.5%

Any answers or comments welcome.
Thanks.

BeerNut

Your OG is 1.043 after calibration. To hit 5.1% ABV you'd have to have an FG of 1.005, but that's not terribly likely. You can add more fermentables now, during fermentation, but I wouldn't use any more sugar. Spraymalt is better.

200g in 25L at 16C will give you way too much carbonation: about 3 vols of CO2. If your bottles don't actually explode your beer may be too fizzy to drink. I'd be aiming for about 2.4 vols, which means 143g of dextrose in 25L at 16C by this calculator.

Bear in mind that 16C is quite cool for an ale yeast. You may need to add an extra week or so to the fermentation time to let it finish.

I think the general rule of thumb is that you can expect about 0.1% ABV to be added by bottle conditioning.

jjanderton

The.Red.Pill, your brewing configuration looks nice and as a new brewer I think your effort should be appreciated but, the points which have been raised by BearNut are quite remarkable and could make your brewing configuration much better.

The.Red.Pill

Thanks BeerNut that's a terrific reply,

And thanks for the answer.

I read that brewing at a high temp can add unwanted flavours so I'm happy to be patient with it.

I have searched and found an earlier post of yours of where to pick up spraymalt in Dublin so I'll ask a friend swing by and pick me up some later.

Many many thanks.

The.Red.Pill

And thanks jjanderton for the encouragement I am feeling much more confident about my brew thanks to you both.

What a great informative and friendly forum !!

BeerNut

No bother. Boil the spraymalt to sanitise it and let it cool to room temperature (just leave it with a lid on) before adding it. Stir it in with a sanitised paddle.

As to how much, I'd add about 500g. Though trying to hit an exact ABV involves some hard sums.

bibibobo

BeerNut wrote: »

....200g in 25L at 16C will give you way too much carbonation: about 3 vols of CO2. If your bottles don't actually explode your beer may be too fizzy to drink. I'd be aiming for about 2.4 vols, which means 143g of dextrose in 25L at 16C by this calculator.

I primed a muntons wheat beer almost two weeks ago at a level of 245g dextrose in 23L as this gives approx 3.5 volumes of C02 for a weissbier (bottling at 18 deg C). The website gives a recommended range of 3.6-4.5 so I was on the lower end of that range. The problem now is the bottles (flip top) explode beer all over the place when flipped open and there is just way too much foam. Did I do something wrong? Should I just ignore the range given on the website?

evolving_doors

bibibobo wrote: »

I primed a muntons wheat beer almost two weeks ago at a level of 245g dextrose in 23L as this gives approx 3.5 volumes of C02 for a weissbier (bottling at 18 deg C). The website gives a recommended range of 3.6-4.5 so I was on the lower end of that range. The problem now is the bottles (flip top) explode beer all over the place when flipped open and there is just way too much foam. Did I do something wrong? Should I just ignore the range given on the website?

Hi just wondering, what sugars you used initially when starting? How much spraymalt or dextrose? It might be an obvious statement but did you try chilling the hell out of the bottles before pouring?

bibibobo

Armelodie wrote: »

bibibobo wrote: »

I primed a muntons wheat beer almost two weeks ago at a level of 245g dextrose in 23L as this gives approx 3.5 volumes of C02 for a weissbier (bottling at 18 deg C). The website gives a recommended range of 3.6-4.5 so I was on the lower end of that range. The problem now is the bottles (flip top) explode beer all over the place when flipped open and there is just way too much foam. Did I do something wrong? Should I just ignore the range given on the website?

Hi just wondering, what sugars you used initially when starting? How much spraymalt or dextrose? It might be an obvious statement but did you try chilling the hell out of the bottles before pouring?

This batch was done with 1kg light spray malt powder. Previous batches were done with 1.5kg liquid malt extract and 150g dextrose for bottle priming and this turned out slot less carbonated

BeerNut

bibibobo wrote: »

The website gives a recommended range of 3.6-4.5

So it does. That strikes me as completely batpoo. Sorry for your troubles, but you live and learn, I guess.

There's a bit of a discussion here, and I reckon this is one of those areas where codified style guidelines have taken precedence over common sense and making nice non-explodey beer.

bibibobo

Thanks for that. I'll be dropping CO2 levels to a more realistic level in future.

Lars

bibibobo wrote: »

I primed a muntons wheat beer almost two weeks ago at a level of 245g dextrose in 23L as this gives approx 3.5 volumes of C02 for a weissbier (bottling at 18 deg C). The website gives a recommended range of 3.6-4.5 so I was on the lower end of that range. The problem now is the bottles (flip top) explode beer all over the place when flipped open and there is just way too much foam. Did I do something wrong? Should I just ignore the range given on the website?

I've been usign this http://www.byo.com/resources/carbonation to calculate carbonation sugar quantities. You need to include residual carbonation when targeting volumes of CO2 for fully carbonated beer so that you dont over carbonate.

L