My beer is under carbonated.

It's been in the bottle for almost two weeks now. After two weeks in primary and one week in secondary.
I used 4 oz dextrose with 2 cups water.
Does it need more time or can I do something to fixit?

5 ounces is the normal amount so 4 ounces might leave your beer missing the carb level you want but still carbonated just the same. don't worry about it, but as anyone else will tell you - give it time. six weeks for me is the golden timer. at six weeks in bottle carbonation has hit, the crap has all dropped out, and the beer is nice and mellowed.

give it time, I know waiting is a pain. to cure this, brew more. start a pipeline. brew twice a month if you can, then you will have great beer coming in every month.

Ian

Yea. I've been trying to brew every weekend. Usually get 3/4 a month. I was a little worried that the secondary ferment would leave less yeast in the beer making it under carb. Is that possible or no? The beer was very clean, just tasted flat.

Yeah, just wait it out. 3 weeks is my minimum for perfect carbing, before I start thinking anything may be wrong (conditioning can take longer though). Not to say I don't try some at two weeks every now and then. Also, make sure you put them in the fridge for at least 24-48 hours beforehand. You can't just do a 30 minute chill. CO2 dissolves into the beer better at cold temperatures, so if you don't give it some fridge time, they can seem undercarbed. The CO2 will be in the bottle, but mostly in the neck.

You'd really have to try to get all the yeast out of there so they wouldn't carb at all. If you have less yeast in the bottle, then it can just take longer, but eventually they'll carb up. Also, bigger beers can take longer to carb, because the yeast can be stressed.

Will leaving it in the fridge stop it from carbing further?

Yes it will. For a normal gravity beer, 3 weeks at or above 70 degrees F should be enough to carbonate it. After that you can store it wherever. If this is a strong beer it can take months (6 isn't unheard of) to carb up.

My 1.060+ OG IPAs usually carb up very nicely in a week, in fact I had a 1.080 OG/1.014 FG DIPA that carbed up perfectly in a week with 3.75 oz of sugar (I was shooting for 2.3 volumes of CO2 and I would definitely say it hit that). On the hand, I have a 1.080 OG/1.014 FG batch right now that is not carbing up so well. I think it has to do with how much yeast is in the batch because I once had a similar problem with a 1.050 OG/1.005 FG batch that I strained after dry hopping. With the 1.080 OG/1.014 FG batch I poured it directly into the primary fermenter and left the trub in the bucket, with 1.088 OG/1.014 FG batch, I poured everything through a strainer. It could be due to the level of dry hopping as well because the 1.080 OG/1.014 FG batch only had a single dry hop of 2 oz/5 gallons whereas the 1.088 OG/1.014 FG batch had multiple dry hops totaling 6 oz/5 gallons. I have another 1.086 OG/1.013 FG excessively dry hopped batch that I also strained that I am going to bottle soon, so I am going to add a little yeast to it to see if that makes a difference.

Ian...... Let me know how that carbs for you.


I tried another bottle after atonal of4 weeks in the bottle. There was more carbonation but still very low. I will try another one this weekend or next.

The 1.086 OG/1.013 FG batch that I added yeast to had very low carbonation after a little over a week, so there is something else going on. I brewed a Pliny the Elder clone 3 days ago with an OG of 1.075. I split it into two parts. One part was strained, as per my 1.086 OG/1.013 FG batch, the other part was kept in the kettle with the spent hops to ferment, as per my 1.060+ OG IPAs that have carbed up in a week. I'll see what difference that makes and report back.

My 1.088 OG/1.014 FG batch finally carbed up after close to 4 weeks, while my 1.086 OG/1.013 FG batch still isn't there after a little over 2 weeks.

A friend of mine bottled a 1.066 OG/1.020 FG IPA on Monday. He put a couple of bottles in the fridge on Friday afternoon and it had alright carbonation when we drank it that night, but probably could use a few more days.

I just added the second dry hop addition to my 1.075 OG/ 1.009 FG PTE clone, so I will be bottling that in a week, so in about 2 weeks I should know if the straining is what is making the difference.

It seems the initial straining does make a difference. I have no idea why, but the part I didn't strain before primary fermentation (I actually strained it before transferring to secondary) carbonated faster than the part I strained.

ianmatth said:

It seems the initial straining does make a difference. I have no idea why, but the part I didn't strain before primary fermentation (I actually strained it before transferring to secondary) carbonated faster than the part I strained.

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It is interesting that the batch you strained going into secondary carbed faster. Do you prime your beer the same every time?

I strained both of them going into secondary. The difference is that the part I didn't strain before adding the yeast in primary carbonated faster.