My question is can you just bottle a portion, say half of the beer, and leave the rest in the fermenter. Would there be any advantage to this. .
I hate to answer a question with a question, but why would you want to only partially bottle? Seems like that would lead to greater chance of contamination, oxidation, a lot more work cleaning, sanitizing, etc. I guess I am curious of the purpose.
Maybe to age longer in the fermenter or to blend the beer
You can age after bottling. And personally I’d plan out any blending well before bottling. I’m sure you CAN bottle just some of your beer and leave the rest, but IMO you’re just asking for problems and creating a lot more work for yourself.
One thought, I sometimes split batches of beers into two 3 gallon carboys to secondary. Usually I’m adding oak, hops, whatever to only 1/2. I do this for experimenting or to possibly blend the two beers back together if I over do it with an addition. This is what I would recommend, but when I do this, I purge the carboy with CO2 before racking.
Thanks, I was just thinking as maybe an experiment. Maybe blending in different hops. I see how using two secondaries would be more efficient. Can bottle all at the same time.
Why purge?
Yeah, my main reasons for suggesting this is I wouldn’t want to introduce oxygen to the beer after bottling only some of what’s in the primary. I also HATE bottling with a passion. I personally like to get any and all bottling done the same day. I wouldn’t want to stretch it out. But that’s just personal preference. You may enjoy bottling… which would be disturbing to me :lol:
Purge with CO2 to get as much oxygen out of the secondary as possible. You don’t want to introduce oxygen after fermentation has started and definitely after it’s finished. O2 and light are like kryptonite to beer.
Well I’m just doing some fact finding since I haven’t brewed anything yet. Saturday will be our inaugural brew session. Actually I am not looking forward to the bottling day but I have no choice at this point. If I’m able to make good beer the first thing I will do is to invest in a keg. I’ve been collecting growlitos with flip tops so I won’t need to cap so many bottles.
Welcome to home brewing and good luck on your first brew :cheers:
I keg most beers now and wish I had switched sooner. I really do hate bottling. Others don’t mind as much, but I really dread bottling days when I know they’re coming. There’s also just something really nice about pouring a nice pint of draft beer in your own house.
EDIT: What’s your first brew gonna be?
Well the caribou slobber partial mash came with kit I bought so ill do that first. My next batch will be a full grain IPA. I really like lagunitas so I may try to match that.
Lagunitas IPA is one of my favorites and from what I’ve read, very difficult to clone. Their beers all have a certain flavor. Must be their house yeast. Good luck… I’d be very interested in how it comes out.
