i just finished bottling my first two 5 gal batches. i used sucrose. does anyone religiously add active fermenting wort to accomplish carbonation? or at least have any experience doing this? from the small amount of information i have read on the subject, it seems that the krausening process could diminish levels of diacetyl and acetaldehyde, as well as other unwanted by-products, and carbonate the final brew respectively. i know the term “krausening” is technically meant only for lagers, however, couldn’t this process be done with ales as well?
Have you read Kaiser’s website stuff on kausening? I think he tells how to estimate how much you need.
I can believe it would help to reduce byproducts of fermentation that weren’t taken care of, but leaving a ber on the yeast for ten days pretty much does this. The thing about krausening is that its going to be kind of difficult to know exactly how much sugar is left going on your beer ,but it can be done. I’d certainly consider it if I had a diacetyl issue.
I’m doing something similar on the current batch I’m brewing. I’m going to put a spunding valve on the pressurized fermentor and let the beer carbonate from what is left of its own sugars. Look up spunding valve, its a relief valve you can dial in to know what pressure is on your fermentor. YOu have to ferment in a conry or other pressurizable vessel.
There is really no reason to bottle carbonate by kräusening. The original purpose was 1) cane sugar wasn’t allowed in beer, and 2) the yeast of old would go dormant after lagering. With advances in yeast and the lift on what ingredients can be in beer (specifically in Germany), kräusening is now just a traditional process. It’s much easier to add sugar (and a little more yeast) for carbonation. Any off flavors and by-products would be from fermentation, not carbonating, so it would be best to handle them during fermentation.
