4 months and still no carbonation?

Hey guys

So I know that I should be patient, but 16 weeks and still no carbonation has me getting a little worried...

I brewed a russian imperial (OG 1.095 FG 1.018) back in sept/oct. About 3 weeks in primary and 6 weeks in secondary before bottling. On bottling day I only had about 4-4.25 gallons to package (I did a 90 minute boil on brewday and didn't nail my water needs as well as I should have) so I only used around 2 or 2.5 ounces of corn sugar for carbonation - I was going for a low to moderate carbonation level.

My concern is that, after around 4 months in the bottles I'm still not getting any carbonation. I've periodically swirled the bottles and stored them at room temp for the whole time. I did have one test bottle that had decent carbonation after 8 weeks, but all I've tried since have been almost totally flat. Maybe I used to little sugar and didn't adequately mix it? Although I used my typical bottling practices, which have always yielded good results in the past.

So - what to do? I know that higher gravity beers can sometimes take much longer to carb, but 16 weeks?

Did I secondary for too long maybe? I pitched three wyeast smack packs (london ale I think), so there should been plenty of yeast, at least originally right?

I don't mind waiting longer, but maybe its time to think about adding fresh yeast to each bottle and recapping? Anyone have any experience or success going that route?

Thanks

Jjwp

I should probably clarify - the reason I'm getting really concerned is the fact that I did have the one bottle that had decent carbonation (weeks and weeks ago). So I'm beginning to think that I A. used too little corn sugar and B. didn't mix it well enough in the bottling bucket.

So - if it was you, would you be ready to pop each bottle and sprinkle some dry yeast in? If I go that route should I add some corn sugar as well? I also have a pack or two of muntons carb tabs laying around - I suppose I could drop on of those in each bottle and sprinkle yeast in, then quickly recap. Has anyone done this?

Or - is patience really what I should exercise here? (btw - I did not make a starter with the three smack packs... maybe the high OG stressed the yeast out too much? - but again - there was that one bottle that carbed pretty well....)

Thanks

I am in exactly the same boat as JJWP. RIS with high, high gravity. Anyway, if its any consolation, I did a forum search, and I found that high gravity beers, RIS et al, can take anywhere from 6 months to a year before they start carbing. The yeast are simply in a bind, which makes sense, when you consider all the alcohol they generated during primary and secondary. They're going to putt around for a while, being biochemically inhibited by the alcohol in their environments (AND the adjucts, AND god know what else is floating around in that tarry mess).

My RIS was bottled about two months ago. I'm personally going to shove them to the back of my under-sink space, where it is pretty warm (I live in LA, CA). In 4 months, I'll check up on it and see what's up.

I am VERY proud of the flavor its got. I adjuncted and primed with an unfiltered chestnut blossom honey that I got from a Korean market (Koreans are notorious sticklers for unadulterated, natural foods). I also dry-hop/spiced with very high quality "dark" spices from an Indian market: pipal, black cardomom, carraway, allspice, cinnamon bark, a couple mashed prunes, coriander, clove, and star anise. It tastes incredible.

I have faith, and this is why. I had a bottle the other night with some friends, and they were being a little whiney, so we tried an experiment. I poured some beer into a capped plastic jar I had nearby, capped it, and shook it up. It started foaming and squirting out through the threaded cap. Obviously, there's some carbonation there. It's above what I'd call 'residual atmospheric' carbing, since it reacted like it did. It is just taking a long time. The yeast are working, just very slowly.

For a while I was thinking the prune may have introduced some sulfites or something to the mix, which could have stalled any microbial actions. I still think the jury is out on that one.

I'll give it at least six months. In the meantime, I'm going to get a few others going, like a strong, spiced saison. This way, I'll have an incredible RIS for the holidays 2010, and the saison for Spring 2011.

Here is where I got some info:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/bottling-tips-homebrewer-94812/#post1030387

So I'm wondering, reading this thread, about adding a small amount of fresh yeast to the bottling bucket when bottling a high gravity brew.

I've read some warnings about this, that (unless you're using the flip top bottles, or champagne style corks) you're looking for trouble in the form of bottle bombs.

I'm going to be doing a Dubbel soon and would like to see good carbonation levels.

I had decent carbing in my first brew, a Belgian blond, but it took about 6 weeks (and my yeast ended up seriously stressed out because of poor temperature control).

I would hope that my Dubbel will be ready to drink the first few bottles around Christmas (about 5 months or so after brew day).

thoughts?

I'm not sure that will help, but I won't entirely discourage you since I have only been brewing for a year. From what I am gathering, and from my understanding of yeast-microbiology (I did my undergrad in BioSci and did a lot of coursework in Micro), I don't think the lack of carb is necessarily due to a "lack of yeast" in the bottle.

I have doubts because alcohol actually has an *inhibitory* effect on yeast metabolism. That inhibitory threshold depends on the yeast strain, but, in the end, the upper threshold is approaches 9-ish, 10ish percent, and with some strains its even lower. So when you go through primary and secondary fermentation, you're producing alcohol, and with a high gravity (high-sugar) wort, you're definitely going to approach that 9-10% threshold. At that point, the yeast are going to be inhibited, i.e., they aren't going to continue metabolizing. There is simply too much alcohol in their environment to biochemically allow it.

What I further extrapolate from that, is that the yeast will go dormant and/or slow down in one fashion or another. This is why even when you bottle prime, etc., you aren't seeing carbonation--the yeast are not capable of metabolizing the priming sugar. There's already too much waste product around them, too much alcohol.

So, that's the rub, and that's where the problem lies. If you want the high gravity, you have to figure out some way to deal with the inhibitory effects of the high resulting alcohol.

Apparently, there's some microbiological magic that I am unaware of, and that is the 6 month-1 year time frame during which the yeast decide to metabolize residual sugars in the face of all that inhibitory alcohol. Why they do this, I can really only speculate. Maybe it is the product of an inhibited and albeit *slow* metabolism in the presence of high alcohol. Maybe it is the product of developing a genetic resistance to the alcohol over a thousand yeast-generations. I personally do not know for sure.

The result of my pondering is to, firstly, be careful about creating a wort with too high a gravity (easier said than done), and this is to avoid self-inhibiting the yeast come bottling/priming time. The second is to trust to the gods that you'll see some carbonation after 6 months.

It's not an answer, but its some reasoning. Hope that helps.

Some more encouraging words for y'all.

Note that one of these guys has an 11%-er

no-signs-carbonation-after-2-months-70997/

I'm thinking I'll bottle half (and cellar it) and then get a TAD system to enjoy some over the holidays.

If I pick up a few mini-kegs, regulator, C02, etc. then I can also enjoy some other brew that is ready "faster".