came up with under carbonated beer

[patroclos]

Hello everyone,

A few weeks a go I have batched my first beer kit, a lager one. Until bottling everything was fine. When I was bottling my beer, it looked really over carbonated actually. I had real difficulty filling the bottles because of carbonation and I feared if I had built an arsenal in my home After bottling I kept them at room temp for 3 weeks and another 3 weeks in the fridge around 2-3 C. Finally when I opened my first bottle I saw that my beer was no more carbonated. All the carbonation is gone since bottling them... When I pour it to a glass there was a very thin layer of foam at the top.
Moreover I have a little bitter taste with my beer. When I was bottling them I didn't have that taste, I mean it was much lighter then now. But now I have...
I used DME as priming sugar. I have two suspicions and I would like to share them with you experienced brewers so maybe you could help me with them. I really appreciate it because I'm quite disappointed with the result.
First, my primary fermentation temp was around 12C. Once I read that before bottling lager beer, another yeast solution should be prepared because the yeast in the primary might not be active anymore because of long exposure to low temp. I didn't do that because it was written as a recommendation. But now I suspect that DME inside the bottle might not be consumed by the yeast. Perhaps that's why I have a bitter taste and low carbonation in the bottle. can this be right?
And second suspicion; my bottle caps didn't fit properly and let gas get out. But I didn't see any sign of leak. So I'm not sure about that.

Do you think any of this caused low carbonation with a slight bitter taste in my beer? The bitter taste is not strong. I mean the beer is drinkable. For this reason I'm not suspecting infection. But I'm open to your suggestions. Since this is my first batch as a home brewer, I have no experience.
Thanks

 

[evchenko]

Hi bud.

I guess we'd need to know a little bit more about your process prior to and during bottling. Also, if you were priming, how much sugar you used and how much volume of beer you had.

I am pretty confused by it being over carbonated by the time you bottled as it should really appear rather flat unless you're bottling from a keg (which I suspect you won't be on your very first batch).

 

[jjeffers09]

Hi bud.

I guess we'd need to know a little bit more about your process prior to and during bottling. Also, if you were priming, how much sugar you used and how much volume of beer you had.

I am pretty confused by it being over carbonated by the time you bottled as it should really appear rather flat unless you're bottling from a keg (which I suspect you won't be on your very first batch).

This is what I am thinking, your beer should not have any bubbles or reaction from putting the brew into the bottle... something has to be off in your process.

 

[patroclos]

For primary fermentation I bought a Munton's Continental Lager kit and Fermentis w34/70 lager yeast. First I cleaned and sanitized my equipment then as instructed in Munton's sheet I boiled 3,5 lt of water and poured the kit and water into the bucket. Then put 1kg DME into the bucket and mixed them until DME is dissolved then put another 17 lt of cold ( not boiled) water and again mixed it to aerate the wort. Then closed the bucket and left it for a month. The temp ranged between 12-15C during primary.
Later on I managed to find bottles and sanitized them as well. They are not twist off so capping should not be an issue I guess. I calculated that I need to put 4 gr DME into each bottle(I didn't have bottling bucket). So with a bottling wand I started bottling the beer. Of course I couldn't measure exactly 4 gr in each bottle. Most of them were so but some had 3 gr some had 5 gr, one even had 6 gr but during bottling my beer looked pretty carbonated . IT always overflowed, I couldn't control it properly. So some bottles were quite underfilled. I even opened a thread about it:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=576522
Later on I kept the bottles at room temp for 3 weeks and another 3 weeks in the fridge and came up with this interesting situation
So looking forward to hear comments about what might cause this situation. Thanks mates.