the_wrath_of_Khan

Recipes 

I recently made some English Bitter that came out very tasty. I had racked it to a secondary fermenter before bottling to help reduce the amount of sediment in the final bottled beer. Weather, temperature and priming sugar were all essentially the same as the other batches I have made, but they had an appropriate amount of CO2 and this bitter is almost flat. How do you ensure enough yeast is in the bottle to create CO2 when it coverts the sugar?

Yooper

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You'd have to leave it in secondary for more than 2 or 3 months for carbonation to be affected. It will be ok, just keep it at 70 degrees until it does carbonate!

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Kai

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What yeast did you use? Some bitter yeasts - I'm thinking Wyeast 1968, Safale S-04 - are extremely flocculant, that is to say, they fall out of your beer really well, leaving it nice and clear. There will still be yeast in your bottles; perhaps less, hence longer carbonation times, but it's there, and it will finish the job.

Kai

EDIT: You might try agitating the bottles a little to get the yeast back into suspension to finish the job. That's occasionally been necessary for me when I use Wyeast 1968. I've never used S-04.

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the_wrath_of_Khan

Recipes 

The temp is right for carbonation, so I will try to agitate them tonight.

malkore

Recipes 

An English bitter should have low carbonation.

http://www.bjcp.org/styles04/Category8.html

"May have very little head due to low carbonation."

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Malkore
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Got Trub?

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I concur - give them more time in a warm environment. As Malkore said though you want low carbonation. I target about 1.5 vol of CO2 and serve at 55F. I use the 1968 alot and it results in a crystal clear beer quickly - I go from brew day to drinking in 6 weeks.

GT

the_wrath_of_Khan

Recipes 

Thanks for the post. If I added the same amount of priming sugar as I always do wouldn't it produce the same amount of carbonation as my other beers? I have only had commercial examples of bitter before which were plenty carbonated.

I agitated all the remaining bottles last night and I will let them sit for a while.