Sunday 7 November 2010

Primings - real examples

Now we've been through a little of the theory of primings, let's take a look at some real examples. Courtesy of our old friends Barclay Perkins.

And what better way to present the examples than a nice, neat table. Here you go:

Barclay Perkins primings in the 1920's
date
year
beer
style
quarts/barrel
type
OG
FG
gravity points
addition to gravity
new OG
new FG
20th May
1924
RNS Raggett
Stout
3
sweet
1055.1
1019
112.5
3.13
1058.2
1022.1
20th May
1924
RNS BS Scotch
Stout
4
sweet
1055.1
1019
150
4.17
1059.3
1023.2
23rd May
1924
PA Export
Pale Ale
0

1059
1017
0
0.00
1059.0
1017.0
26th May
1924
BS c
Stout
3
invert @ 1150
1066
1020.5
112.5
3.13
1069.1
1023.6
5th Jun
1924
IBS
Stout
3
invert @ 1140
1061
1022
112.5
3.13
1064.1
1025.1
23rd Aug
1924
KKK
Strong Ale
0

1082
1028
0
0.00
1082.0
1028.0
4th Sep
1924
KK bottling
Strong Ale
0

1070.3
1023.5
0
0.00
1070.3
1023.5
17th Dec
1924
IBS ex
Stout
0

1103.4
1040
0
0.00
1103.4
1040.0
25th Feb
1925
XLK bottling
Pale Ale
0

1038.2
1007.5
0
0.00
1038.2
1007.5
16th Feb
1925
BS ex
Stout
0

1072.2
1025.5
0
0.00
1072.2
1025.5
31st Aug
1925
BBS ex
Stout
0

1079.7
1029.5
0
0.00
1079.7
1029.5
22nd Sep
1925
OMS
Stout
0

1050.9
1017.5
0
0.00
1050.9
1017.5
11th May
1926
KK
Strong Ale
0

1055.5
1015
0
0.00
1055.5
1015.0
13th Dec
1926
X
Mild
3

1042.9
1012
112.5
3.13
1046.0
1015.1
13th Dec
1926
X Special Dark
Mild
4

1041.5
1012.5
150
4.17
1045.7
1016.7
13th Dec
1926
Ale 4d
Mild
1

1028.7
1008
37.5
1.04
1029.7
1009.0
14th Dec
1926
PA trade
Pale Ale
0

1052.8
1019
0
0.00
1052.8
1019.0
14th Dec
1926
XLK trade
Pale Ale
0

1045.8
1013
0
0.00
1045.8
1013.0
14th Dec
1926
XLK bottling
Pale Ale
0

1037.6
1007
0
0.00
1037.6
1007.0
21st Dec
1927
KK trade
Strong Ale
2

1056.8
1015.5
75
2.08
1058.9
1017.6
10th Mar
1928
BS
Stout
5

1053.5
1020
187.5
5.21
1058.7
1025.2
10th Mar
1928
TT
Porter
6

1032.8
1012.5
225
6.25
1039.1
1018.8
Source:
Barclay Perkins brewing records held at the London Metropolitan archives


As you can see, not all their beers were primed. Confirming the theory, the Mild Ales (X, X Special Dark and Ale 4d) were primed. The four Pale Ales weren't.

The picture with K Ales was more complicated. KKK and the bottled version of KK weren't primed. The Draught KK trade (which would have been sold as Burton) was. Fascinating stuff, Burton. It mixes some of the characterisctics af Pale Ale with some of Mild's.

Porter and Stout take that complexity a level further. BS and TT, draught Stout and draught Porter, are the two most heavily primed beers. I calcualte that the priming for TT would have raised it's gravity by more than six points, or almost 20%. The full-strength Russian Stout, IBS ex, wasn't primed, but the weaker version was. Of the many other Stouts, the weaker ones were primed, except for Oatmeal Stout (OMS). A bit confusing.

I'd thought that I didn't have that many logs with priming details. But digging around has unearthed a few more. Noakes in particular, used masses of sugar as "Headings". Doubtless you'll be reading about that in great detail very soon.

4 comments:

Jeff Renner said...

I think your "new FG" is wrong. That would be the SG after priming, but not an actual final gravity. After the priming sugar fermented out in the bottle, the SG would be even lower than the original FG since alcohol has a SG of 0.79.

You could calculate that assuming that the priming sugar fermented out 100%. I leave that as an exercise for the reader.

Ron Pattinson said...

Jeff, most of the primed beers were draught. Yes, the final FG would have been lower after conditioning in the cask. But that's true of all the FG's that come from brewing records. With the exception of bottled beers that were force carbonated. The beers would have been sold before all the sugar had fermented out.

The only real FG's are the ones from the gravity books, which are samples taken in pubs. Except you don't know what had happened to the beer in the pub. I've seen cases where the OG didn't match the brewing records by a considerable margin.

Rob Sterowski said...

Are we to assume that the mild ales would be sold as soon as they dropped bright, but the pale ales would be kept in the pub cellar long enough to carbonate without any priming? Is that the idea?

Ron Pattinson said...

Barm, something like that.