flat beer batch

[pattim]

I got a batch of flat beer - it was a big beer so may have been too steeply alcoholic and the yeasties died - is it possible to carbonate by dumping bottles into a Cornelius keg and using CO2 cartridges? I didn't want to spend $hundreds$ on a CO2 bottle setup just to save this batch.

thank you,
Patti

 

[Transamguy77]

How long has it been in the bottles? How "big" of a beer is big? I think you will spend a lot of money using cartrages to carb up that beer and also run the risk of oxidizing that beer.

 

[kh54s10]

How long in bottles, what temperature have the bottles been while conditioning, and how long has it been? It might take several months to bottle condition a really big beer.

 

[dyqik]

It'll take quite a few cartridges to carbonate a corny full of beer - typical carbonation volumes are 2-2.5 times the volume of the beer, which means 10-12 gallons of CO2 at STP. One mole of gas is 24 liters (~5.5 gallons) at STP, and for CO2, weighs 16+16+12 = 44g. So you'll need at least 100g of CO2 (e.g. 6 or 7 16g cartridges) to carbonate a corny from completely flat. If you lose any CO2 to headspace, cartridge changes or leaks, then it'll be more.

And if there's still some residual sugar and yeast activity in the keg, then you might end up overcarbonating the beer.

 

[pattim]

It's been 4 months - about 10-11% on the alcohol (according to hydrometer readings) - they are in those dark brown Mr. Beer plastic bottles so I can tell they're not carbing by how hard they are not getting (and I have opened a few). It's been highs in the mid 70's here, so that seems like a reasonable temperature for carbing. This was a AHS kit to which I added some LME and DME. I used their priming sugar packet and thought I was careful to mix...

6 or 7 cartridges doesn't seem excessive... I was thinking of buying a new 2.5 gallon Corny from AHS because I've seen too many bad writeups about reconditioned ones (on Amazon and ebay). I don't want anything blowing up!! (... or leaking for that matter ... I would feel safer with a pressure gauge on the tank.) I guess my question would be how "pure" the CO2 was in the cartridges (no air so I don't oxidize the beer). I can flush the tank before sealing the lid.

Somewhere on here I saw "carbonation" with nitrogen. I guess I could also take a 2.5 gallon corny in to work and pressurize with nitrogen...

Thank you very much for the advice!!!

patti

 

[pattim]

It'll take quite a few cartridges to carbonate a corny full of beer - typical carbonation volumes are 2-2.5 times the volume of the beer, which means 10-12 gallons of CO2 at STP. One mole of gas is 24 liters (~5.5 gallons) at STP, and for CO2, weighs 16+16+12 = 44g. So you'll need at least 100g of CO2 (e.g. 6 or 7 16g cartridges) to carbonate a corny from completely flat. If you lose any CO2 to headspace, cartridge changes or leaks, then it'll be more.

And if there's still some residual sugar and yeast activity in the keg, then you might end up overcarbonating the beer.

Thanks for doing that calculation. That doesn't really seem so unreasonable, especially if I get a 2.5 gallon Cornelius keg.