NO carbonation--for real

Long story short. I've been brewing and posting here for about 3 years now. Wife purchased a brewing class for me for X-Mas. Didn't want to hurt her feelings, so did the class and brought her with. We brewed a kolsch using a pre-hopped LME (german pils), a can of light, unhopped LME, steeping grains, and white labs kolsch yeast. The store had bottled and forced carbed a small sample in a PET bottle to try at bottling time, 3 weeks after we brewed. To my surprise, it was pretty good.

I bottled the batch just like I would have at home, brought it at home, stored @ 68-70 deg. After 2 weeks it was completely flat--literally, not a lick of carbonation. Same after 3 weeks. I'm just a little concerned because I've had batches that have been undercarbed early, but never completely without any carbonation, especially after 3 weeks. And this is not a high gravity, extreme beer. The guy at the store did add priming sugar (solution) to the batch prior to bottling. I've stored it at the right temp for conditioning. The caps seem to be tight. I've moved the bottles to a slightly warmer location: 70-72.

Any thoughts?

mr_bell said:

Long story short. I've been brewing and posting here for about 3 years now. Wife purchased a brewing class for me for X-Mas. Didn't want to hurt her feelings, so did the class and brought her with. We brewed a kolsch using a pre-hopped LME (german pils), a can of light, unhopped LME, steeping grains, and white labs kolsch yeast. The store had bottled and forced carbed a small sample in a PET bottle to try at bottling time, 3 weeks after we brewed. To my surprise, it was pretty good.

I bottled the batch just like I would have at home, brought it at home, stored @ 68-70 deg. After 2 weeks it was completely flat--literally, not a lick of carbonation. Same after 3 weeks. I'm just a little concerned because I've had batches that have been undercarbed early, but never completely without any carbonation, especially after 3 weeks. And this is not a high gravity, extreme beer. The guy at the store did add priming sugar (solution) to the batch prior to bottling. I've stored it at the right temp for conditioning. The caps seem to be tight. I've moved the bottles to a slightly warmer location: 70-72.

Any thoughts?

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Only thing I can think maybe the guy at the store didn't use enough priming sugar? Doubtful... I'd say give it tons more time

Tray an even warmer location. And other than flat, how did the beer taste? Any hint of something off? Oils? Soapy flavors? Anything?

If for some reason the yeast perished or mostly dropped out, that could be a cause. Sometimes its best to pitch a little yeast before you bottle to be sure on this front. Im sure there's some in there, but that must be why. Or there just wasn't enough priming sugar. Im sure there's some yeast, but it might take weeks, months even for it to produce carbonation. If it doesn't I recommend making beer popsicles. Summers almost here.

Not enough priming sugar and too little yeast would still produce something in the avenue of carbonation even if mostly flat - not completely flat.

brewhaha2057 said:

If for some reason the yeast perished or mostly dropped out, that could be a cause. Sometimes its best to pitch a little yeast before you bottle to be sure on this front. Im sure there's some in there, but that must be why. Or there just wasn't enough priming sugar. Im sure there's some yeast, but it might take weeks, months even for it to produce carbonation. If it doesn't I recommend making beer popsicles. Summers almost here.

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5 oz. priming sugar was used at bottling. They did secondary this beer, and there was very little sediment in the secondary and into the bottles. Even now, there's just a super thin layer, so thin that I can see through it, at the bottom of the bottles. I'll give it 2 more weeks (6 weeks in the bottle) and see where it's at. I'm sure if it doesn't turn out they would let me do the class again.