No carbonation

[Diblin]

I recently brewed a pale ale. Primary for 2 weeks, dry hopped in secondary for 1. It tastes good already. Added boiled priming sugar, stirred in, and bottled. It's a medium gravity beer at 5.3abv finished at 1.010. Been in "tightly" capped bottles for 4 weeks at 72 degrees. Problem is that there is no cabonation. Is it cool to add a small amount of us05 to each bottle (say five or 6 small grains)? Absolutely any Advice is highly appreciated. Thanks

 

[Bamsdealer]

Sounds like you did everything as you should have. Champagne yeast saved a high gravity beer of mine and is less than a buck. As long as the sugar didn't ferment and you ass yeast, it should carb up

 

[duboman]

Your process sounds good but how much sugar did you use?

 

[meltroha]

Yea, only issue would be the amount, did you cool slightly, then add priming sugar?

 

[Diblin]

I used standard amount for a 5 gal all grain batch provided by northern brewer. I boiled for 10 min, let cool in bottling bucket for about 10 min, then racked/mixed/bottled and capped nice and tight

 

[smizak]

Sounds like you did everything as you should have. Champagne yeast saved a high gravity beer of mine and is less than a buck. As long as the sugar didn't ferment and you ass yeast, it should carb up

I don't recommend assing yeast. They don't appreciate that. But you can add some.

 

[meltroha]

Could add carbonation tabs and re-cap, from what you are saying, you did nothing wrong

 

[Bamsdealer]

I don't recommend assing yeast. They don't appreciate that. But you can add some.

Ass

 

[progmac]

there was a guy on here once who accidently added malto dextrine instead of sugar because the bags looked the same.

any possibility something like that happened to you?

adding yeast isn't going to do anything

 

[Diblin]

No malto pretty sure. Maybe I'll try carb tabs

 

[Bamsdealer]

If there are unfermented sugars and the existing yeast are crapped out or dead, fresh yeast will work.

 

[homebrewdad]

There is zero way that the yeast are dead after four weeks. Last year, I primaried an almost 9% ABV beer for four weeks, followed by four months in secondary. It carbed up with no issues at all. I've seen periods of six, nine, twelve months with no new yeast.

Think about it - people regularly culture yeast from the dregs of craft beer bottles, then use that to brew beer. The yeast is not going to die that easily!

Do not add new yeast unless you have a very high ABV beer that has been sitting for a long time.

Do not add carb tabs unless you decided that you didn't add sugar properly. Otherwise, you'll end up with all of the carbonation from the tabs, plus all of the carbonation from the sugar. At best, highly overcarbed beer, and possibly, bombs.

If you added the right amount of sugar and you are storing the bottles at 60+ degrees, they WILL carb up. It may take loger than you want, but it WILL happen.

 

[Bamsdealer]

There is zero way that the yeast are dead after four weeks. Last year, I primaried an almost 9% ABV beer for four weeks, followed by four months in secondary. It carbed up with no issues at all. I've seen periods of six, nine, twelve months with no new yeast.

Think about it - people regularly culture yeast from the dregs of craft beer bottles, then use that to brew beer. The yeast is not going to die that easily!

Do not add new yeast unless you have a very high ABV beer that has been sitting for a long time.

Do not add carb tabs unless you decided that you didn't add sugar properly. Otherwise, you'll end up with all of the carbonation from the tabs, plus all of the carbonation from the sugar. At best, highly overcarbed beer, and possibly, bombs.

If you added the right amount of sugar and you are storing the bottles at 60+ degrees, they WILL carb up. It may take loger than you want, but it WILL happen.

No carbonation at all after four weeks and I would try reyeasting. I wouldn't add carb tabs at the risk of bottle bombs till I was sure re-yeasting did t work. I've been playing arou d with re-yeasting at bottling and have had excellent results. I saved a little yeast from my saison starter... after a long primary and cold crash I added my harvested yeast at bottling. I was blown away when my beer was carbonated to 3.5 volumes in 4 days. My standard practice of bottling with a cold crashed beer would have taken me a week or more to see any sign of carbonation.

If the Monks and professional breweries reyeast at bottling, it certainly can't hurt a homebrewer who is having trouble getting a beer to carbonate. At $2 for caps and champagne yeast, there's no money in it either... just the time involved in opening and recapping each bottle

 

[duboman]

There is something going on here and it is definitely not the yeast. If the beer fermented and was racked properly onto the proper amount of priming sugar and the bottles were properly capped and kept at 70 or above, the beer will ferment and there is no way the yeast just up and died!

I only bottle since the day I started this hobby and have personally bottled the legal limit annually for several years which equates to I don't know how many bottles. Not once have I ever had to add yeast to a bottle, experience a bottle bomb, have uncarbonated beer, re-cap or add tabs or re-prime.

I have had some beer carbonate in as little as 10 days for a low session beer and as long as 4 months for a 10% Belgian IPA. The science is really quite simple-add a bit a sugar and the residual yeast consume it and make CO2 in a closed environment over a period of time (ie secondary fermentation). It is a fool proof process.

If the OP pops a bottle and hears any sort of phht then the beer is carbonating, just not as fast as he/she wants. My best guess is what is thought to be a properly sealed bottle is not and the gas is escaping from a poor seal. I do find it unusual to be all bottles but I'm guessing somewhere there is a bottle that is properly carbonated

If the OP filtered and pasteurized the beer it would need to be re-yeasted and I doubt that's the case. Even if only half the amount of sugar were used the bottles would carbonate but the beer would be under-carbonated, not no carbonation

Now I will cue up the mighty Revvy and his infinite words of bottling wisdom.............actually surprised he hasn't chimed in yet!

 

[homebrewdad]

There is something going on here and it is definitely not the yeast. If the beer fermented and was racked properly onto the proper amount of priming sugar and the bottles were properly capped and kept at 70 or above, the beer will ferment and there is no way the yeast just up and died!

I only bottle since the day I started this hobby and have personally bottled the legal limit annually for several years which equates to I don't know how many bottles. Not once have I ever had to add yeast to a bottle, experience a bottle bomb, have uncarbonated beer, re-cap or add tabs or re-prime.

I have had some beer carbonate in as little as 10 days for a low session beer and as long as 4 months for a 10% Belgian IPA. The science is really quite simple-add a bit a sugar and the residual yeast consume it and make CO2 in a closed environment over a period of time (ie secondary fermentation). It is a fool proof process.

If the OP pops a bottle and hears any sort of phht then the beer is carbonating, just not as fast as he/she wants. My best guess is what is thought to be a properly sealed bottle is not and the gas is escaping from a poor seal. I do find it unusual to be all bottles but I'm guessing somewhere there is a bottle that is properly carbonated

If the OP filtered and pasteurized the beer it would need to be re-yeasted and I doubt that's the case. Even if only half the amount of sugar were used the bottles would carbonate but the beer would be under-carbonated, not no carbonation

Now I will cue up the mighty Revvy and his infinite words of bottling wisdom.............actually surprised he hasn't chimed in yet!

This, this, and this. Re yeasting is fixing a problem that doesn't exist. Four weeks is no time, and a ~5% beer is not going to overwhelm the yeast.

Odds are, the OP tried a bottle or two. They were flat. This doesnt mean the entire batch is flat, and absolutely doesn't mean that they will not carb.

 

[Chuckbergman]

My Irish Red Ale yeast died out for some reason and all my bottles were flat. I waited 3 extra weeks, after the initial 3, and every bottle I opened was flat.

Opened each bottle, added just a few grains of yeast and recapped. 2 weeks later - carbonation.

 

[jwags48]

maybe didn't mix in right. I once had a batch that only half carb up right.
my advice is to start kegging....