Carbonation observations .. Thoughts ?

Is it possible that you had a mild contamination in a few bottles? Overcarbed from not mixing in the priming sugar is easy but shouldn't effect flavor. Overcarbed, dry, less flavor leads me to believe it was a bacteria or wild yeast. I had one go through my brew house almost 2 years ago now and it would overcarb and strip the flavor from the beer. It didn't really give an off flavor, just gushing and missing flavor. Just a thought.

 

IMHO carbonation is carbonation, given that everything is done correctly. If you vary your process/techniques/ingredients you will get varying results, but as far as carb levels, it should be the same.

I prefer force carbing purely for the control it gives me. I can dial in exactly what I want and not worry about the yeast obeying my commands.

When I do bottle, I stick to corn sugar or table sugar (beet or cane). Using DME/LME will change your beer slightly. But sometimes you may want that.

If only a few bottles were over carbed and the rest were ok. It could mean poor mixing of the sugar (like you said) or poor sanitation (bottles).

I think you'll enjoy your 2.5 gal kegs. I keep wanting to buy a few, but I have so many 5 gal cornies I just can bring myself to get more. :-)

 

1. I do not notice a difference in flavor with keg carbing versus bottle carbonation. I have experienced uneven bottle carbing before, probably as a result of the problems you mentioned. With the keg this is easily eliminated.

2. I would not recommend bottle carbing with DME. With DME you are adding a sugar source whose fermentation level can not be accurately predicted for the purpose of estimating CO2 volume. With simple sugar you know all the sugars will be fermented by the yeast. This happens if you are a Belgian monk or a US homebrewer . . . a lot of yeast or very little yeast . . . even different temps (within reason) allow for all simple sugars to be consumed with a fairly predictable CO2 volume. This would not be true with the complex sugars of DME. The amount of DME actually fermented in a late addition would depend on yeast quantity/health and temp . . . far too uncertain to accurately predict the volume of CO2 produced

Also, not sure I agree with the idea that bottle carbing enhances dryness. . Remember, all simple sugar is consumed if bottle carbing is done correctly. You add a trace of alcohol, but essentially no difference in taste. Your unfermented complex sugars (as determined by your FG) will be unchanged for bottle carbing (or kegging). I would expect no change of flavor with any late addition (DME or sugar) because the majority of your flavor is produced in the first couple of days in the primary. Simple sugar additions (early or late) are for the purpose of increasing alcohol and/or CO2.

 

In a pint of beer, I'd rather start over carbonated. I can always swirl the beer glass to get some of the bubbles out. You can't put bubbles back into the pint glass.

I'd exclusively use table sugar to prime bottles, or even kegs. It's 100% fermentable and therefore predictable. It's cheap too.

Kegging is nice because you can pour 1/2 a pint if you're winding down at the end of the night. It's faster to clean and pretty easy to maintain. It's pricey, but worth it.

 

I'm sort of puzzled by your reference to the "carbonation/drying" process. Carbonation doesn't have anything to do with what I think of as the dryness of a beer, which is a product of the relative amount of fermentables in the wort. Mash at a lower temp, or add some cane sugar, you get a drier beer. If your beer is too dry, I would suggest mashing at higher temperatures, or if you're brewing with extract, use a less attenuative yeast.

But to try to answer your questions directly:

1) Force carbing does not, in my experience, change the flavor of beer one way or the other.

2) In my opinion, the best priming agent for bottle conditioning is cane sugar, mainly because it's cheapest. I have heard of people using DME to try to increase maltiness, but there are better ways to do that, IMO.

 

Gotcha. I think a lot of us use it differently, basically as an expression of the level of alcohol vs body, with the lesser bodied beers referred to as "dry."

Carbonation, like serving temperature, affects our perception of bitterness and other aspects of beer flavor, and it could indeed contribute to a perception of dryness. Force carbing does offer certain advantages in this regard in that you can adjust the carbonation level somewhat after you've sampled the beer. So there's that. But if you're bottle conditioning and carbonation levels have been a problem, I doubt if switching to DME will solve that. The most common problem, I think, is failing to accurately measure the priming sugar and/or the volume of beer to be carbonated. I think if you use one of the calculators available online (like, say, this one: http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator/carbonation.html ) and measure everything with care, you'll get the level of carbonation you need without switching to more expensive DME.

 

To get even more technical, "dryness" (or lack thereof) is just a measure of the level of residual sugar, regardless of ABV. But most of us do sometimes say 'dry' when what we really mean is 'thin.'

 

This is a valuable attribute . . . has helped me more than once. It isn't too hard to research the CO2 volume you want for your brew, but I've had a few that just didn't work out. Carbed a saison exactly as recommended by the brewery I was cloning and it was really lacking. No problem, just move a valve . . . more bubbles show up. I just kegged a porter and realized my target volume was too high. Turn the valve the other way and problem solved. You will like your kegs.

Regarding sugar and dryness: Of interest to me was the experiment by the Mad Fermentationist on how different sugars effect the grain bill and carbonation. They have run tests with different sugars (and DME) and tasted the results blind. Pretty good read here:
http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2009/12/canditablecorn-sugar-belgian-beer.html

 

I tend to use wheat DME when priming hefeweizens. I've noticed that beers with the same fermentables primed with table sugar seemed to possess slightly less body than those primed with DME. However, achieving proper carbonation in a weizen requires much more sugar than achieving proper carbonation for an APA. YMMV.

A great experiment would be to bottle half a batch with DME and half with table or corn sugar.

 

You probably know this already, but just in case you don't: the Jamil Show is a great resource when you're trying to clone a commercial beer, and they did do a show on Maximus. I haven't tried this particular recipe, but these guys always have a lot useful tips. Link below. Good luck!

http://thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/714