audiophool
Well-Known Member
I have a new brewing buddy who wanted to bottle the batch of Edmund Fitzgerald Clone porter we made, sine he has no kegging capability (yet). I haven't bottled my home-brew since the 1990s, but had a bag of corn sugar that I bought sometime in the 1997-1998 time frame but never used.
Anyhow, I went ahead and used that sugar, calculating the amount using the Northern Brewers calculator, which worked out to 1/2 cup for the 5.5 gallon batch (for a 2.1% carb level). In reality we only got about 4.75 gallons to bottle from the fermentor.
Now, 2 weeks later at room temp the beer has no head. The carbonation tastes low, but still has some of that carbonic acid bite. The sweetness from the bottling sugar lessened, compared with the sample I tasted that did not fill the last bottle.
This is a long story for a little question. Could the sugar have "gone bad?" Or, is 2 weeks in the bottle at room temp not long enough to carbonate? Or, what???
Thanks for any input.
Mike
Anyhow, I went ahead and used that sugar, calculating the amount using the Northern Brewers calculator, which worked out to 1/2 cup for the 5.5 gallon batch (for a 2.1% carb level). In reality we only got about 4.75 gallons to bottle from the fermentor.
Now, 2 weeks later at room temp the beer has no head. The carbonation tastes low, but still has some of that carbonic acid bite. The sweetness from the bottling sugar lessened, compared with the sample I tasted that did not fill the last bottle.
This is a long story for a little question. Could the sugar have "gone bad?" Or, is 2 weeks in the bottle at room temp not long enough to carbonate? Or, what???
Thanks for any input.
Mike