Beer not carbonating after an absurdly long time

[ianhoopes]

So, I searched the forum but couldn't find anything similar enough to my issue.

I bottled an oak-aged coffee/vanilla porter (Oak was soaked in bourbon for a few weeks) back in October of last year. As of now, it's STILL flat in the bottles. I've uncapped, added carbonation tabs, turned and shook the bottles every couple of weeks and nothing has happened. I'm assuming this beer is just gone, but I put a lot of time, effort and money into it. It tastes pretty good flat, but I want it to carbonate. I don't have a kegging setup yet, so I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas before I just give up on this beer. Thank you all so much.

 

[tmurph6]

Only thing I can think of doing would be to add a pinch of dry yeast to each bottle then cap it. Most likely the yeast are dormant or dead.

 

[unionrdr]

Yeah,it sounds like maybe the yeast either reached their ABV limit,or it was aged to the point where too much yeast settled out. Or did you cold crash it?

 

[DocScott]

Yeah,it sounds like maybe the yeast either reached their ABV limit,or it was aged to the point where too much yeast settled out. Or did you cold crash it?

Cold crash wouldn't kill/cut count low enough not to carb. Sounds like your yeast quit due to abv or time. As suggested, I think your best bet is to add a little bit of high abv tolerant yeast to each bottle and recap them.

 

[ianhoopes]

Hmm, sounds like an easy enough plan. It was a smaller batch, so I'd only have about 15 bottles to do this with. Any recommendations on how much yeast to use, and should I add any more sugar with them?

 

[DocScott]

Do you have something lying around? If not, anything with high alcohol tolerance should work. You're adding them to a pretty hostile environment (assuming this is a high abv batch) and need something that can tolerate it. Type doesn't matter that much because you're just looking for it to be able to survivie and digest the small amount of priming sugar in the bottle. It won't contribute any noticeable flavors to your batch. I'd say San Diego Super Yeast would be a safe bet if you need to order something, but if you have something lying around, S04, S05, Belgian strain - they may work.

Adding additional priming sugar is questionable. Since you got no carb, you either had a poor seal on the bottles and what carbonation was produced leaked out, or the yeast were dead/dormant and never processed the original sugars. You then added carb tabs, whcih introduces more fermentables (then the same thing happened, either yeast ate them, and you lost CO2 from leak, or the sugar is still sitting in the bottle) I'd err on the side of caution and assume the yeast were dead/dormant and that there is still enough priming sugar dissolved in your bottles. I'd hate for you to go through the trouble of all of this only to have exploding bottles.

OR - treat this as a "cask conditioned" beer and enjoy it flat. If its only a dozen bottles, it may not be worth all of this!

 

[ianhoopes]

I think for me, it's more wanting to enjoy what the beer would taste like with carbonation. I feel like it will be even better with the carbonation. I'm assuming if I use dry, just a grain per bottle should be plenty...they're in bombers, and yes, high ABV. Should be in the 8-9 percent range.

The only thing I have sitting around is a smack pack of Weihenstephaner (Wyeast 3068) and a dry pack of Munton Fison yeast. Wonder if I can get away with the Munton's stuff.

 

[jungatheart]

You could force carbonate the bottles one at a time. I do it with my hydrometer sample to see how it will taste carbonated.

 

[unionrdr]

I always felt if a beer was cold crashed long enough,there might not be enough yeast to do the job. Most that talk about cold crashing keg anyway.
But a couple grains of yeast would get it working again,albeit slowly.

 

[tmurph6]

I would think dry yeast would be best to keep extra liquid out of your beer.

 

[paulster2626]

Where are you storing the bottles for carbonating? I bet it's somewhere cool.

Move them to the warmest part of your house for 2 weeks and see what happens.

 

[ianhoopes]

I've had the beer in room temp areas since I first bottled it. Going to put in a couple grains for each bottle, re-cap and shake 'em up. I'll put them somewhere warmer this time.

 

[tmurph6]

No need to shake. Unless you like oxidized beer.

 

[Coff]

I wouldnt shake the bottles up, not necessary and you'll oxidize the finished beer.

Edit: Beat me to it!