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Carbonation
Hi im new to brewing i'm on my third batch. The question i have is on my first batch i did an english nut brown with dry yeast i let it sit in the primary for 5 days racked it off the trub and dead yeast into the secondary let it sit in secondary for 7 more days bottled with corn sugar. The problem i had was the beer didn't carbonate at all even after 2 weeks in bottles. Has anyone had this happen? It has been cold over here my house stays around 63f also there was very little yeast on bottom of bottles. My second batch carbonated perfectly but i did end up stirring the yeast off the bottom of the secondary before bottling so i was sure to have enough yeast. So my question is do i need to stir up that yeast to get carbonation or should i have enough in the beer still even if it looks totally clear in the secondary? Any tips would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
Carbonation is essentially fermentation on a smaller scale... since you used an ale yeast, it might take a bit longer to carbonate at 63 F than say 70 F. Then again, every beer is different. My holiday ale took over 6 weeks to achieve proper carbonation... just in time for my last few bottles!
You don't need to stir up the yeast in the bottle.. if the yeast is present and alive it will find a way to eat sugar. Do you at least get the sound of escaping gas when you open the bottle? Out of curiosity I popped the cap off my honey ale after 5 days in the bottle... it wasn't carbonated, but I still got that sound of escaping gas.
I would have to agree with brewrob, try and put them some place a little warmer and see it that speeds things up.
I have recently gotten back into bottling, after a long time. I took a break and was kegging all my beers for awhile. but know am getting into sending beers in for competions. And one thing that I have noticed that i never did before was that instead of just looking at the bottom of the bottle to try and see if the the yeast has settled and formed a good cake. I actually saw for the first time, the fermantation taking place in the bottle. It was an ale (so top fermenting) and I could see a tiny krausen build up in the neck. I had never thought to look for this before. I mean if you can keep an eye on the brews and look for the fermentation taking place then that is a great indicator that they are carbonating. I was a bit nervous at first though, I thought that I had screwed up since it had been so long since the last time i bottled. But I let it condition for 6 weeks and all the build up went away and the beer was excellent.
Not sure if anyone else out there has seen this, probably, there is a pretty sharp group of brewers around here. I have learned a lot in my short time here from you all. Thank you.
Cheers, and as always may your brew kettles always be full of the sweet wort.
Another thing maybe, if you are just pouring the sugar in, it will for sure take a little longer.
I made this mistake, on my first couple batches, the second did fine, the first took about a month to reall get carboneted.
Boilt the sugar in about a cup to a cup and a half of water before bottling.
That is, if you didn't allready know that.
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