Carbonation/Fermentation

A lot of beers are 'force carbonated' - that is finished flat beer has CO2 forced into solution under pressure, not carbonated water. A lot of microbreweries do this as well as macro brewers. Depending on style and your personal taste any beer could be overcarbonated, it doesn't matter if you force carbonate or add some priming sugar and bottle condition. I know I've made a few overcarbonated bottle conditioned beers!

If by cheaper beers you mean industrial mega swill like Bud, Miller, Pabst et al then I agree. I think it's more of a style thing. The people who drink those beers are looking for a tasteless soda-pop like experience. Give them anything else and they think it's "flat" (and of course if it's not 33 degrees in a frozen mug then it's "warm").

_Randal

Cool, thanks, very helpful

I thought beer was originally only carbonated due to natural yeast activity (or whatever the fermentation process entails). Isn't that how it would have been in, lets say, the 18th century? What would be the purpose of adding CO2 to modern day high quality beer?

As for my personal taste, I have had that "industrial mega swill" of course but I never drank it because it tasted good! I only started paying attention with the better quality stuff, I am into bridgport currently. I love all styles (porter, stout, ipa, etc..) so far, with pale ale being at the bottom, they can be a little boring compared to the others. Who knows though, mabey my palate needs education!

Any good websites for this kinda info?

drinkin bridgeport esb

Making large quantities quicker.

Tom W

Yes, and still today for some beer.

Consistency. Catering to a public that can't deal with a bit of sediment. Probably a few other reasons as well.

Well you can still get bottle conditioned beers that aren't force carbonated. Lots of Belgian beers are bottle conditioned - naturally carbonated - and those actually tend to be on the more highly carbonated side a lot of the time, but again it's more of a style thing.

When beer is finished fermenting, it is essentially flat. Most of the CO2 produced during the fermentation process has come out of solution. So to get CO2 volumes up to style levels you either need to add a small amount of fermentables so the remaining yeast can carbonate the beer, or force CO2 into solution some other way. There is a debate that rages periodically among homebrewers as to which way is best. I am of the opionion that CO2 is CO2 and it doesn't matter if it came out of a yeast or a cylinder. Of course force carbing a beer should not be used as a shortcut.

_Randal

bruce snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote in news:1113534254.174050.179250 @g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

You can talk with a plethora of other beer geeks at ratebeer.com (and rate these beers you love/hate). Belgian beers are the main topic of discussion at babblebelt.com, but it's a great place for beer info and happenings in general too.

Cheers, Ern

Thanks for all the info people,

Ok so...

-Bottle conditioned means "extra" yeast added in the bottle just before it is sealed up. right?

-Beer drunk 200 plus years ago would have been flat tasting to us?

Now I'm curious, what specific beers (assuming there are still some authentic recipes being used) were people drinking 2 hundred plus years ago? I have had beers such as, Guiness, Bodingtons, and Belhaven Scottish Ale, all of these claim to have been drunk in the 1700's or

Thanks again for all the info

Cheers!

Not extra yeast, extra sugar - fermentables - food for the residual yeast.

And no, beer 200 + years ago would not have been flat because just like today, once the fermentation was complete they would have added additional fermentables to the finished beer to get it to carbonate.

_Randal

Some breweries do add yeast: more specifically, some breweries filter the beer, then add yeast back along with some sugar for carbonation. Often this is not the fermentation strain - I've heard that lager yeasts are commonly used because they are less prone to autolysis (note, I don't know that the last point is factual, just somethin' I heard).

Yeah I've actually heard this with Paulaner Hefe.

_Randal

Y'know, Randal, you sometimes have good stuff to say, but if you answer a post without quoting at least some small part of it, there's a good chance that a thread will get cut off and nobody will know what you're responding to.

I think there's an option to make sure Google Groups includes the quoted posting when you follow up.

Just a friendly suggestion is all.

"Randal" wrote in news:1113597963.082915.126040 @o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com:

Extra yeast is often added at bottling time for commercial beers, either with or without extra sugar.

Cheers, Ern

Usually no. What is added is sugar, malt, or something else yeast can east and turn to alcohol and CO2. You can use fruit juice, honey, etc.

The reason most commercial brewers remove the yeast and force in CO2 is that bottle conditioning leaves dead yeast on the bottom of the bottle, and most people don't like the taste. So you pour from the bottle to a glass and stop before you quite get the last of the beer out. And do it in a single pour to avoid shaking out the yeast.

Yeast won't hurt you, most people (including me) don't care for the taste.

Probably true, the technology to storage beer under pressure was more expensive in those days. You would probably get a head from a keg, which would be cask conditioned (live yeast again), but even into the 1900 beer was sold by the pail, pulled from a keg and rushed home to be shared before it went flat. Needless to say drinking at home was less common until modern bottling arrived. I can't give you a date other than to say beer by the pail was still sold in the 1915-1920 time frame.

Pretty rare in commercial beer, I've tried it in homebrew and can't say it made a huge difference. Using two strains in the primary and secondary fermentation is used in some recipies, both commercial and micro scale. That does make a difference, particularly if you mix an ale yeast and a beer yeast (top vs. bottom fermenting) in primary and secondary fermentation.

I believe some microbreweries in Europe use a wine yeast in secondary, but I can't recall any details.