Flat beer after bottling

Hey All,

Just after bottling a batch of blue moon clone, bottled with coopers drops, i opened one after 7 days to check it and it wasnt carbonated at all, no hiss from the bottle when opening, beer was as flat as i put it in,

Answer might be related to the temperature of my storage room, its about 14 degrees celcius in there at the moment, so it might be too cool to sufficiently carbonate the beer,

Just wondering if anyone had like this happen, any advice? I understand moving it to a warmer room will help but i just want to rule out the possibility that no yeast remained in the beer to eat the sugars and ferment the beer.

It was in the fermenter for 3 weeks and bottled from the fermenter.

Thanks for the help

14 C (57 F) is far too cool. Try about 20 C. Also, carbonation might not really kick in for several weeks even at the proper temperature, so be patient. Minimum 3 weeks at 70F (~20C) is the mantra for most average-gravity beers.

3 weeks in the primary should leave plenty of yeast to do the job.

You can also go a bit warmer than 20C, that is just a minimum recommendation. I carbonate my beers in a water heater closet that usually holds around 80F (~27C).


I would try to keep it below 40C, just because the higher temperatures will cause the gas pressure to increase. I do not have any direct experience, but I would start to worry about bottle bombs at those sorts of temperatures. 20-30C or so is more than adequate.

Another thing to check is how they were capped. My first batch turned out good with carbonation but my second batch was flat. I found that the caps of the second beer were not capped as tightly as they could be.

I'll see if I can snap a picture of what I mean and post it here.

thanks for the help lads, it just worried me as i never had a carbonation problem before and i use the same room all the time for storing my beer, it has been pretty cold as of late so ill put it down to that.

Cheers Celticdevildog i truly hope my capper is working fine, again never had a problem before with it..

Ill leave them a few weeks and crack another open.

Guys just an update, another beer opened, over 2 weeks since i moved it to the warmer room and its still flatish, i mean its better but by no means is it properly carbonated for the kind of beer it is.

im at a loose end, not sure if its going to improve the longer i leave it, officially it should be carbonated properly by now.

Time and patience. Also, put a bottle or two in a refrigerator and give it a few days for the cold to help the CO2 go into solution.

See one of my earlier threads here.

Good luck!

Don't use drops. Im sure your carbonation will be off for the style too.if all else fails you can go to www.mrmalty.com . Bottle with table sugar (sucrose) if you have to and see what kind of co2 volumes you need for the beer style. Those tabs seem more convenient but its easier fir your baby.. ( the beer you have worked so hard at) .. if you do the work and get it right cheers man. Best of luck and give the shizzz a lil more time. Im sure tha be fine

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Home Brew mobile app

Another question is how many drops did you use per bottle? I have never used them before but that's just something to think about.

thanks for the replies guys,

I used one drop per 330ml bottle,

thanks triplehazard, i think once i use up this next pack of drops ill use regular sugar, although i havent had a problem before with the drops,

I have been doing some reading and another brewer mentions that if you leave the beer in the fermenter for 3 weeks or more like i did, it will take a long time for the beer to carbonate as most of the yeast has dropped down to the bottom,

So im thinking i might just bottle my beers after 2 weeks from now on.

Yeast doesn't floc out that fast. I tend to leave my beers in primary for a month and have no problems carbonating. You should be able to leave your beer in primary for several months before you need to worry about yeast for carbonation.

How warm is the room in which you're storing your beers? It needs several weeks at 20C. If you are any lower than that, it can take longer.

If you bottled these just before New Years, and you stored them at 20C for the entire time, they would likely be carbonated or very close to fully carbonated now. If they were too cold for several of these weeks, you have more waiting to do. Warm them up!