Carbing by Speise
Posted: Sat Sep 30, 2017 10:33 pm
How it all began
Every so often I would face short volumes into the fermentor primarily b/c of underestimating the trub volume and/ or to a lesser extent ... the evaporation rate.
As a small batch brewer ... not getting 9Ls from my LBK hurts.
To make up for the lost volume ... I started collecting and chilling the trub. Within a few hours ... clear wort would come crashing down ... thanks to the collusion between an unholy triad of gravity ... density ... and time. The recovered wort was later added to the fermentor around the time of krausen fall. All was good and there was much rejoicing throughout the land. I wanted 9Ls and I gots 9Ls!
One day it dawned on me ... just maybe ... this annoying 'shrinkage' problem could be more easily fixed on the front-end instead by letting BeerSmith know to expect more trub. Problem solved. No more short fills.
But what to do with the extra ... ready to ferment ... clear wort?
Seemed such a waste to be feeding it to the nearest drain.
---
Along came speise
Bottle-conditioned beer can be carbonated with ordinary table sugar ... corn sugar ... DME ... honey ... maple syrup ... and even unfermented wort (AKA speise / gyle). Speise (pronounced: spice) is German for food / feed yadda yadda yadda.
Why bother?
- speise is a ready-to-pour. No need to dissolve table / corn sugar / etc.
- carbonation seems to have milder bite (YMMV)
- faster carb (done in < 7 days; altho ... fully carbed 'green' beer is still green)
- you get an extra pint for your trouble (a big plus for smaller batch sizes ... i.e., 2.4G [9L] in an LBK
How do you get speise? Is it available from a LHBS or on-line?
- Unfermented wort is available for sale but why bother?
- Assuming 2.4G batch-size; modify your recipe to run-off ~0.5 - 1 QT more wort than will go into fermentor.
- Or ... chilling 2 QT of trub yields ~1 QT wort (see image). Both container volumes started out as all trub. Note the amount of clear wort available after spending a night in the refrigerator. More nights = more wort.
---
My way
I ferment 2.4G (9L) in an LBK.
Always have and probably always will.
My typical speise volumes ... carbing IPAs and pale ales in the very low 2s by volume ... range between 0.5 and 0.65 QT depending on OG ... FG ... and the temperature at bottling.
After years and years of using table sugar to carb ... speise in the new standard.
---
Speise Calculator ('Volume Being Packaged' = actual batch-size from fermentor + speise addition)
https://www.brewersfriend.com/gyle-and- ... alculator/
From Braukaiser: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Kraeusening
"Besides sugar and dried malt extract (DME), beer can also be carbonated with unfermented wort (a.k.a. Speise) or actively fermenting beer (Krausen)."
Every so often I would face short volumes into the fermentor primarily b/c of underestimating the trub volume and/ or to a lesser extent ... the evaporation rate.
As a small batch brewer ... not getting 9Ls from my LBK hurts.
To make up for the lost volume ... I started collecting and chilling the trub. Within a few hours ... clear wort would come crashing down ... thanks to the collusion between an unholy triad of gravity ... density ... and time. The recovered wort was later added to the fermentor around the time of krausen fall. All was good and there was much rejoicing throughout the land. I wanted 9Ls and I gots 9Ls!
One day it dawned on me ... just maybe ... this annoying 'shrinkage' problem could be more easily fixed on the front-end instead by letting BeerSmith know to expect more trub. Problem solved. No more short fills.
But what to do with the extra ... ready to ferment ... clear wort?
Seemed such a waste to be feeding it to the nearest drain.
---
Along came speise
Bottle-conditioned beer can be carbonated with ordinary table sugar ... corn sugar ... DME ... honey ... maple syrup ... and even unfermented wort (AKA speise / gyle). Speise (pronounced: spice) is German for food / feed yadda yadda yadda.
Why bother?
- speise is a ready-to-pour. No need to dissolve table / corn sugar / etc.
- carbonation seems to have milder bite (YMMV)
- faster carb (done in < 7 days; altho ... fully carbed 'green' beer is still green)
- you get an extra pint for your trouble (a big plus for smaller batch sizes ... i.e., 2.4G [9L] in an LBK
How do you get speise? Is it available from a LHBS or on-line?
- Unfermented wort is available for sale but why bother?
- Assuming 2.4G batch-size; modify your recipe to run-off ~0.5 - 1 QT more wort than will go into fermentor.
- Or ... chilling 2 QT of trub yields ~1 QT wort (see image). Both container volumes started out as all trub. Note the amount of clear wort available after spending a night in the refrigerator. More nights = more wort.
---
My way
I ferment 2.4G (9L) in an LBK.
Always have and probably always will.
My typical speise volumes ... carbing IPAs and pale ales in the very low 2s by volume ... range between 0.5 and 0.65 QT depending on OG ... FG ... and the temperature at bottling.
After years and years of using table sugar to carb ... speise in the new standard.
---
Speise Calculator ('Volume Being Packaged' = actual batch-size from fermentor + speise addition)
https://www.brewersfriend.com/gyle-and- ... alculator/
From Braukaiser: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Kraeusening
"Besides sugar and dried malt extract (DME), beer can also be carbonated with unfermented wort (a.k.a. Speise) or actively fermenting beer (Krausen)."