Force carbonating, more prominant than I thought...

Yeah, when you have a benchmark beer like the Pale, your best bet is to not mess with it at all, I bet.
Don't fix it if it ain't broke, right?

 

What's wrong with force carbing? It ensures the beer will be properly carbonated, even at high ABV (take note, LA and HotD). And doesn't have any negatives, as far as I've heard/read/tasted.

 

I force carb all my lost abbey duds. makes them really good again!

 

Good article on the subject:
http://thankheavenforbeer.com/2010/03/22/natural-carbonation-vs-forced-carbonation/

 

I've often wondered the same thing (about the negatives.) Are there any? Can you tell a difference between one that has been force carbed and one that has not? My first guess would be the non-carbed might be more smooth, but if everything was running smoothly and the science of carbonation was spot-on, would there truly be a noticeable difference?

 

BAs will seek out LA and HotD beers on tap, because they know they'll be carbonated properly. I've literally never seen a review or heard someone say "that forced carbonation hurt the beer." The response is almost always the opposite, "was glad to have this on tap, properly carbed, etc."

 

No offense, but I wouldn't call that a good article. It's a blog post with a simple explanation of what the terms mean and some anecdotes from the author.

And I've yet to see any plausible explanation for the whole "tinier bubbles" thing besides the carbonation level and temperature of the beer.

 

I think (as in, don't hold me to it) you can achieve a higher level or carbonation, or at least far easier (in theory), than when force carbing. For Belgian styles, bottle conditioning makes a lot of sense because you can push the beer to the higher carbonation level it needs.

 

I don't think force carbing precludes yeast character, since AFAIK most of the compounds that drive that character emerge during primary fermentation, not conditioning.

 

Not sure where you heard that but it's not true. You can force carb beer (or any other beverage) to crazy levels far exceeding anything commercially desirable.

 

Bottle carbing can build up a layer of yeast on the bottom of the bottle/can, if poured in your beer can add off-flavor bitterness and haze. Kind of hard to instruct all your customers to leave the last dregs inside the container.

When you are operating at a certain level of production I'm sure force carbing is a million times less of a headache than bottle carbing every single individual container on the line.

Also you can leave yeast in the beer and still force carb, lots of beers are unfiltered but not bottle carbed.

 

Sorry Joe, not being clear here. Force carboncation isn't a problem for me but in the past there were too many beers on the market which were way too over carbonated. In the same way there were (and in some cases still are) too many bottle conditioned beers which were way too undercardonated.

 

The true benefit to bottle conditioning is that the yeast with take up some oxygen, lowering the amount of dissolved oxygen, giving greater stability.

 

this is true in theory only. the amount of O2 that the bottle yeast consume is so minimal to be insignificant. if O2 is a concern, the brewery has much bigger problems to deal with and bottle conditioning is not the fix.
Cheers.

 

Yes, but you can't then put it into a bottle. TenHornsProud hit on a big factor: if you are going to run a beer through a commercial bottling line, the more carbed it is the slower you have to run, the more inconsistent fill levels are, and its just a bigger pain in the ass. Bottle-condition has some downfalls of its own, but the packaging will generally go more smoothly than 100% force-carbed beers.

On a related note, many "bottle-conditioned beers" are force carbed to somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 volumes and then get enough priming material to bring them up to the desired level of dissolved CO2.

 

the reason breweries are mostly adding CO2 to the beer after fermentation and not relying on bottle conditioning or krausening is not very complicated.

force carbonation-
is faster. more reliable. cheaper. pours a clear beer. allows for filtering and stabilization. can be pasteurized if needed.

think about what brewers are relying on bottle conditioning. home brewers who have little choice, traditional brewers who also have little choice and brewers producing a specialty that most likely should be aged. they also have little choice.
Cheers.

 

Okay, yeah -- it's a BLOG post, but isn't that an article? To that, it was nice that he brewed a beer and carbed it both ways -- good experiment.

Plausible reason for the small bubbles? How about all natural method? You have to admit that forced carb from a can is a little removed from natural. I learned that when I first home-brewed in '89 and see it in a lot of different natural carbonation around the world.

 

While yeast do readily perform aerobic respiration I would expect most of the respiration would be anaerobic due to the small surface area of the beer in the headspace. I am by no means a brewer but the biochemist in me is telling me that this may not really be a significant factor.