How long before I give up?

Okay, I know there are lots of Flat Beer threads and I've read quite a few of them but I'm starting to loose hope here. This is my second batch, a Scotch Ale, and it's been in the bottle for 51 days and it's still flat. I'm sure I primed it properly. 5 oz of Corn sugar (maybe a little less, didn't go by weight instead I used 3/4 of a cup and that was less than the total 5 oz. packet), boiled, added to the bottling bucket first, then added the beer but did not stir. At first, I stored the fresh bottles in the closet I ferment in which stays close to 65 all the time but after the first 3 weeks, I moved them out to my dining room and they've been sitting (in closed boxes) at room temp, which this time of year is about 80. The beer tastes fine, it's just flat....no hint of carbonation anywhere (well, perhaps the tiniest of tiny hints but it's been the exact same tiny hint since my first try at two weeks). I know from my reading on here that it can take time, especially for higher gravity beers, my IG was about 1.086 (was higher than I expected but from what I've read not uncommon as I probably didn't mix the wort well enough) and FG was 1.021 for an estimated 8.9% abv (if my math is right).

Do I keep waiting? Can I re-prime and re-bottle them? Sorry if this is a super redundant topic but any advice you could impart would be greatly appreciated.

You could try opening each bottle and repriming individually with a bit of yeast too. Your yeast may have been all crapped out when you bottled.

Took me a few batches to get it right to. I even tried putting a flat beer into the SodaStream...DONT DO IT!!! one normal shot of CO2 = major mess...do it in very very very short bursts.

I had a big problem too, since I was expecting the natural carbonation to happen while I was chilling the beer. You really need to be in the 70-74*F range. Adding yeast to the bottling bucket wont hurt either, that is what many "real" brewers do to get the bottle carb and to hide their proprietary yeast.

Bottle one in a clean plastic 1L seltzer bottle to feel the carb level. I bottled only in 1L plastic for just that reason, till i got the keg setup.

Last step, save for a kegging system life is good on forced carb.

I almost forgot, DON'T GIVE UP! Drink it! After the third beer carbonation wont be noticed

Not that this causes flat beer problems, but did you happen to use a dishwasher in your bottle cleaning/sanitizing process? I only ask because I have almost no link between dishwashers and flat beer, but I'd like to find one

If the yeast gave up on the fermentation already on a big'n like that,adding US-04 or 05 isn't going to do anything either. Too much ABV. A yeast that can handle a minimum of the intended ABV range is a better choice. Cooper's ale yeast,for example was said to me from their brew tech to take 8% Using a health load of it in my Burton ale was just enough to ferment & carb at 6.8%,for example. You gotta look at the big picture ferment-wise. It has to be enough to get the beeer to FG & then carbonate in the bottles at the ABV level it'll finish at. Not the level it may actually rech in primary.
And I've had bigger beers,even oaked dark ones,take 10 weeks to carbonate & condition. Conditioning for me is about an extra week on average. And with diswashers,soap residue & jet dry can ruin carbonation & head. Mostly head. Jet Dry has an enzyme in it (like many dish soaps do) that prevents water spots by coating the glass with the oily enzyme in it.

Could there be a small air leak in your bottle caps ? That would cause it too.......

I used wyeast 1056 and I propagated it twice which according to http://www.yeastcalc.com should have given me 324 billion cells to play with. I was under the impression that 1056 could easily handle a beer with this abv. Also, the beer spent 10 more days in primary than the recipe called for...but we're only talking 48 days which didn't seem like a big deal from what I've read.

I did use the santized cycle on my dishwasher on my bottles....no soap or anything (at that stage), just the super hot rinse.

It's easy to see if your yeast crapped out. Just pour one of your flat beers, add some malt extract, then stick some foil over the glass. If it ferments, your yeast is fine. If it doesn't, it isn't!

My bet is your yeast is fine.

SnowboarderPaul said:

I did use the santized cycle on my dishwasher on my bottles....no soap or anything (at that stage), just the super hot rinse.

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Interesting! A friend had a few flat batches several years ago and he also used the dishwasher. Do you by chance put something like Jet Dry (aka a spot free agent) in it's own little compartment in your dishwasher? This would be an agent that you only refill every 20-30 loads or something like that. In other words, fill it once and it'll be applied to the next 20-30 loads of dishes/bottles.

Just for kicks, next batch don't use a dishwasher. Just clean and sanitize with a quick rinse of starsan. I know it adds to the labor but it would be interesting to find out of that batch carbonates normally.

stpug said:

Interesting! A friend had a few flat batches several years ago and he also used the dishwasher. Do you by chance put something like Jet Dry (aka a spot free agent) that does in it's own little compartment in your dishwasher?

Just for kicks, next batch don't use a dishwasher. Just clean and sanitize with a quick rinse of starsan. I know it adds to the labor but it would be interesting to find out of that batch carbonates normally.

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Nope, never use any of that crap....just plain old fashioned hippie soap that my wife buys. But I didn't use any soap when I sanitized them.

As I mentioned earlier,many dish soaps now have that same anti-spotting enzyme as dishwasher jet dry does. Kills head & effects carbonation. That's why I clean everything with PBW & sanitize with starsan.

give the bottles a gentle shake or three. Any leakage of air or beer? Make sure they're capped well. That high ABV can take a LONG time to carb, and as mentioned, adding fresh yeast is potentially necessary, though somewhat uncommon. PacMan would be a high-grav yeast that could handle it, and I know many use Nottingham for bottling, too. Also, you're not adding boiling hot priming solution to the bucket then racking beer onto it, right? Obviously let the primer cool down to beer temp before racking on it. I never have used the DW to sanitize. Just keep a bucket or tub of star-san near where I'm bottling and dunk the bottles (well-cleaned) in there, swish around, empty sanitizer, then fill. Yeast and StarSan get a long fetchingly, so no need to rinse.

You NEVER want to add more sugar (reprime) a beer to try to fix carbonation. UNLESS YOU WANT BOTTLE BOMBS.

If you've ALREADY ADDED THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF SUGAR. the problem is NEVER that there needs to be more sugar. It's that the yeast hasn't eaten the sugar that is there. if you add more sugar, and the yeast does finally eat the sugar (which it will eventually if you show patience) then you will have over carbed beer at the least bottle bombs at the worst.

How hard is this to understand gang? If you added sugar your beer WILL carb, even the most tired yeast will slowly consume the fermentables. It just may be if the yeast is tired, it may takes MONTHS, rather than weeks.

If you FEEL the need to move it along, ADD FRESH YEAST NOT SUGAR. Get some champagne yeast and rehydrate it into some warm water, and let it proof a bit. Then I would use a children's medicine dropper with ML graduations.



figuring 2-3 mls/bottle I would calculate how big an amount of slurry I would need for all my bottles, mix that much up and squirt that amount into each bottle. Or I would make a starter if deciding to use a high grav liquid yeast and do the same thing.

I'll say it again, in ALL my years of bottling, I've found that there are rarely any carbonation problems, only patience ones.

The 3 weeks at 70 degrees, that we recommend is the minimum time it takes for average gravity beers to carbonate and condition. Higher grav beers take longer. Beers stored cooler than 70, take longer.

Stouts and porters have taken me between 6 and 8 weeks to carb up..I have a 1.090 Belgian strong that took three months to carb up.


Temp and gravity are the two factors that contribute to the time it takes to carb beer. But if a beer's not ready yet, or seems low carbed, and you added the right amount of sugar to it, then it's not stalled, it's just not time yet.

Everything you need to know about carbing and conditioning, can be found here Of Patience and Bottle Conditioning. With emphasis on the word, "patience."

Carbing is foolprrof. You ad the right amount of sugar, leave it at the right temp, and it will carb.

If a beer isn't carbed by "x number of weeks" you just have to give them more time. If you added your sugar, then the beer will carb up eventually, it's really a foolroof process. All beers will carb up eventually. A lot of new brewers think they have to "troubleshoot" a bottling issue, when there really is none, the beer knows how to carb itself. In fact if you run beersmiths carbing calculator, some lower grav beers don't even require additional sugar to reach their minimum level of carbonation. Just time.or, some lower grav beers don't even require additional sugar to reach their minimum level of carbonation. Just time.


Getting beer to carb is NOT rocket science, or magic all it is is Sugar+ proper Temp + PATIENCE....That's really it. It's not leaky caps, it's not poorly mixed sugar, it's SIMPLY NOT GIVING THEM ENOUGH TIME.

Thanks Revvy, I had read your other posts about this situation (where you said exactly the same thing) but being a newb I just wanted to be sure. I'll stash it out of the way, move on to my next batch and revisit it in a month or so.

And to answer other questions from above...as I said twice before, I made sure not to use any dishwasher soap when I sanitized the bottles. I washed them by hand (er, by brush) with dish soap and then put them through the sanitize cycle twice in my washer prior to bottling them. Also, I cooled the priming solution in an ice bath before adding it to the bottling bucket. If anything, it was too cold. And as far as the caps leaking air....I guess it's a possibility....there is the ever so faint sound of pressure release when I open the bottle but it's nearly imperceptible.

SnowboarderPaul said:

Thanks Revvy, I had read your other posts about this situation (where you said exactly the same thing) but being a newb I just wanted to be sure. I'll stash it out of the way, move on to my next batch and revisit it in a month or so.

And to answer other questions from above...as I said twice before, I made sure not to use any dishwasher soap when I sanitized the bottles. I washed them by hand (er, by brush) with dish soap and then put them through the sanitize cycle twice in my washer prior to bottling them. Also, I cooled the priming solution in an ice bath before adding it to the bottling bucket. If anything, it was too cold. And as far as the caps leaking air....I guess it's a possibility....there is the ever so faint sound of pressure release when I open the bottle but it's nearly imperceptible.

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Sounds like you have SOME carb, so the yeast is working...just slowly. Keep the bottles in the 70s and give them another few weeks to months.

Yeah, but that is what concerns me the most....it's pretty much exactly the same as it was a month ago. A tiny escape of pressure and the barest hint of a carbonation tingle.

Don't give up amigo. It's all part of the learning curve, you'll get there.
One idea for you (this might be a waste of time, so someone ease tell me if it is), buy some soda water and bottle it in one of your bottles. You're going to lose quite a bit of carbonation from this method, but if you open it up in a couple of weeks and there's still a bit of fizz in there, at least you know it's not you bottles that are causing the problem.
Once you get this figured out, you'll have a really good understanding of carbing. Certainly better than me

SnowboarderPaul said:

Yeah, but that is what concerns me the most....it's pretty much exactly the same as it was a month ago. A tiny escape of pressure and the barest hint of a carbonation tingle.

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As Revvy said, some big beers have taken 3 months. Also, chill for at least 48 hours before you try the next one.

SnowboarderPaul said:

Yeah, but that is what concerns me the most....it's pretty much exactly the same as it was a month ago. A tiny escape of pressure and the barest hint of a carbonation tingle.

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I posted this earlier, Have you checked your caps for a hairline air leak? Your method seems fine, so maybe, just maybe it's the way they were capped or you're using cheap caps ??...

50 days without a beer carbing is a valid cause for other answers rather than the basics........

dstranger99 said:

Could there be a small air leak in your bottle caps ? That would cause it too.......

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Ha ha ha.

Pop top bottles, right? Not twist offs.

On a beer that big, it will take a long while to carb with your normal english or american ale yeasts.... Give er time

I'll check the caps but its same bag I used the first time...plain gold caps from Northern brewer, capped with this. Exact same setup and procedure as my first batch and those carb'd up just fine.

I have never had a carb problem and I always bottle. I can guarantee it isn't a dishwasher issue because I use mine to sanitize my bottles on high temp wash and rinse with no cleaning agents at all added and I have never had an issue. Like others have said, a beer that big may just take more time. I'd say just put it somewhere dark at room temp, forget about it, and brew more beer. Try going with a lower ABV and using the same exact methods and see what you get.

dstranger99 said:

I posted this earlier, Have you checked your caps for a hairline air leak? Your method seems fine, so maybe, just maybe it's the way they were capped or you're using cheap caps ??...

50 days without a beer carbing is a valid cause for other answers rather than the basics........

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But why, how many people on god's green earth have ever experienced this???? Come on be realistic. If caps had the potential to have "hairline cracks" don't you think millions of people would have experienced this? Do you think commercial breweries would continue using them? This is the most balls to the walls far fetched idea I've ever heard.

So he's the first brewer on this entire planet out of millions of people who have been bottling beers as long as crown caps have been in use to suddenly experience this?

Really?



50 days on a big beer isw STILL less than 90 days that I've experienced.....

^

It's a conspiracy to make us buy more bottle caps, can't you see ?? These people also probably know who killed Kennedy..........

dstranger99 said:

^

It's a conspiracy to make us buy more bottle caps, can't you see ?? These people also probably know who killed Kennedy..........

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Maybe we need to make little tinfoil hats for each bottle.



I love this pic. The guy looks like this buddy of mine who's and nurse by day in an old folks home and a 40 year old guy in a heavy metal band by night.

A pipeline is a wonderful thing. Once you get a ton of beer brewed letting them sit for months is no big deal. Heck a fast turnaround time for me is 3 months from bottling to drinking.

my 1st batch i used the cheap gold caps. I also single bottle primed. It was a failure by the 3rd batch I boughr a higher quality cap. it says "real beer" on the cap. I also bulk primed as you did. ( batch 3 forward). I haven't had a problem since. im on # 9 now

all of my beers have been 6 percent and under and I use 3/4 cup priming sugar. people say to weigh it not measure it, but I havn't had an issue and dont own a scale yet.

This calculator says you should have used .65 cups so you probaly ok. Dont give up. youll get it right eventually. when you do youll stare at amazement in taste and sight of the bubbles. my wife and kids thought I was crazy when I got it right, i couldnt stop staring at the beer.

http://www.northernbrewer.com/priming-sugar-calculator/

Also an infection will cause the beer to not carbonate.

yewtah-brewha said:

Also an infection will cause the beer to not carbonate.

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No it won't. Just the opposite, an infection will cause the bottles to overcarbonate and sometimes explode. An infection breaks down non-fermentable sugars and turns them into alcohol and of course co2. So you end up with too much gas in the bottles.

An infection doesn't do anything to the yeast already in there. It's just another micro-organism going after the beer in the bottle. So you end up with two different critters eating two different types of sugars and making a mess of things.

ive read in a book it can go either way depending on the organism, but Ive been wrong, and glad you pointed this out..

Agreeing with Revvy on everything. You don't have hairline cracks on your caps - the metal they are made from doesn't crack.

An infection will overcarb/explode your bottles. Been there, done that. As Revvy states, an infection is another organism that's eating your sugar.

OP, if you added the correct amount of sugar and distributed it properly (i.e. your boiled your sugar in a little water then racked the beer on top of it to mix), the beer WILL carb up in time. Maybe not as quick as you want, but it WILL happen 100% of the time.

If you dumped dry sugar in, some bottles will be flat and some will be overcarbed; you didn't mix the sugar well.

If you don't know how to work your capper, they will stay flat... but since you have a small amount of carb, this is not the issue.

The thing to do here is to make sure that the bottles are warm enough, them go do something else. Try back in a month.

tre9er said:

As Revvy said, some big beers have taken 3 months. Also, chill for at least 48 hours before you try the next one.

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This ^ , As Revvy said the beer will carb up in time, and as tre9er said chill for at least 48 hours before you try one next time.

If you just put a bottle in the fridge and in 2 or 3 hours you pop it open and drink it, it will be flat, you have to give it enough time in the fridge for the co2 to get into solution.

Cheers

homebrewdad said:

Agreeing with Revvy on everything. You don't have hairline cracks on your caps - the metal they are made from doesn't crack.

An infection will overcarb/explode your bottles. Been there, done that. As Revvy states, an infection is another organism that's eating your sugar.

OP, if you added the correct amount of sugar and distributed it properly (i.e. your boiled your sugar in a little water then racked the beer on top of it to mix), the beer WILL carb up in time. Maybe not as quick as you want, but it WILL happen 100% of the time.

If you dumped dry sugar in, some bottles will be flat and some will be overcarbed; you didn't mix the sugar well.

If you don't know how to work your capper, they will stay flat... but since you have a small amount of carb, this is not the issue.

The thing to do here is to make sure that the bottles are warm enough, them go do something else. Try back in a month.

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And just for the record, I said Hairline Air leaks, not cracks....... :fro:

So, it's been months, I check each week and the beer is still flat. I'm bottling a IIPA tomorrow and I find myself short of bottles so I figure I'll just dump the rest of my 22's. And, just as I expected they're all flat....except for the very last one! It was perfectly carb'd and it was at room temp.

So what does that mean? Did I cap them all wrong (to loose)? Still have most of a case of 12 oz bottles (which are the ones I've been pulling from to sample) but they've all been flat too. Could I have done everyone but that one 22 wrong?

I'm not sure if it has been asked or not, but are you using twist top bottles?

can you even do that?

SnowboarderPaul said:

So, it's been months, I check each week and the beer is still flat. I'm bottling a IIPA tomorrow and I find myself short of bottles so I figure I'll just dump the rest of my 22's. And, just as I expected they're all flat....except for the very last one! It was perfectly carb'd and it was at room temp.

So what does that mean? Did I cap them all wrong (to loose)? Still have most of a case of 12 oz bottles (which are the ones I've been pulling from to sample) but they've all been flat too. Could I have done everyone but that one 22 wrong?

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Is this your first batch? What type of caper did you use? Bottle lip type. priming method and amount of priming sugar? style of priming sugar i.e dextrose!

My first batch I used a 4.00 hammer caper, corona small flange bottles and single bottle prime method. they were all flat except a few. I also frequently disturbed the beer during fermentation by opening the lid every few days to see how cool it was and how great it smelled. .. bad idea. leave it sit w/o disturbing it for the ferment cycle. If it gets oxygenated it will ruin the beer.

I now use the wing style capper, brown large flange bottles and I bulk prime. with 5 oz weighed out or 3/4 cup (dextrose)priming sugar to 1 cup depending on recipe. finished batch 11 a few weeks ago and it was a 8 out of 10!