I took a bottle out of the fridge (extra pale ale) and noticed it was fuller than I normally fill them. I normally fill to the bottom of the flange on the neck then remove the bottling wand to leave head space, and this bottle looked a bit fuller than normal. I fully expected a gusher, but instead I got a beer that had better lacing than normal. :shock: I believe that I filled this bottle all the way to the top, then removed the wand leaving a smaller headspace.
So, I guess my question(s) are:
How full do you fill bottles, and
with less headspace does it force more of the CO2 into suspension in the beer resulting in the smaller bubbles and better lacing in the glass?
…I prime with sucrose, all bottles carb uniformly except this one with less space. Could be the hop oils helping retain a head on the beer…the IPA I did laced well too.
[quote=“DrGonzo”]I took a bottle out of the fridge (extra pale ale) and noticed it was fuller than I normally fill them. I normally fill to the bottom of the flange on the neck then remove the bottling wand to leave head space, and this bottle looked a bit fuller than normal. I fully expected a gusher, but instead I got a beer that had better lacing than normal. :shock: I believe that I filled this bottle all the way to the top, then removed the wand leaving a smaller headspace.
So, I guess my question(s) are:
How full do you fill bottles
when I bottle I always fill to the top then remove the wand. I believe this us the correct headspace for bottling.
with less headspace does it force more of the CO2 into suspension in the beer resulting in the smaller bubbles and better lacing in the glass?
this makes sense, but I don’t know how much difference it would make. The volumes of CO2 is dependant on the amount of priming sugar you use. However, it is going to equalize with the headspace. The more headspace that requires CO2 the less that is going to remain in solution.
…I prime with sucrose, all bottles carb uniformly except this one with less space. Could be the hop oils helping retain a head on the beer…the IPA I did laced well too.
I always fill it to the top then pull out the bottle filler. There is probably more carbonation in the higher filled bottle than the rest which you see as better head and lacing.
