Undercarbonated beer

I bottled a 9% scotch ale after aging in the secondary on oak cubes for a month. It's been 3 weeks and there is no carbonation. Is there a good way to pitch more yeast without oxidizing my beer as I dump it all back into a bottling bucket? I'm thinking I could just create a CO2 blanket in the bucket but was wondering if this would be adequate. Anyone have any experience doing this?

You could try carbonation tablets, might be a good option at this stage so as to minimize aeration.

I would wait maybe another two weeks before even thinking about re bottling. Give it some time. I see these threads pop up about people dumping all the beer to bottle it all over again. Personally I have never had a batch that didn't carb up eventually. Usually the answer to these problems is more time unless you forgot to add the priming sugar or something.

What temp were your bottles at?

My last two batches have been under carbed, but they were in my basement at. 62. Im going to give them three weeks upstairs now that it's warmed up and hope that helps.

Three weeks in bottles at 70 degrees is the baseline for normal gravity beers. High gravity beers (9% is pretty massive) and lower temps lead to longer carbonation times.

Honestly, if this is carbed up in six weeks, you are doing well.

If you dump it into your bucket, you're going to oxidize the crap out of it.

If you add carb tablets, you run a serious risk of bottle bombs.

If you added the right amount of priming sugar, the beer WILL carb up, but it is going to take some time. I have seen reports of up to three months for seriously big beers.

3 weeks at room temp are the guidelines for an average gravity/abv beer.

Higher gravity/abv beers will tend to take a bit longer.

As always, patience is key.

Like HBD said, if you added the right amount of priming sure the beer will carbonate, it's just a matter of when.

It's not worth the risks to dump and rebottle. Just wait it out.

Assuming you primed it already, there's no sense in adding carb tabs. Those are just more sugar, so if the yeast aren't fermenting the sugar you already added, they'll just continue not fermenting the additional sugar too.

DON'T DO ANYTHING!!!! IT'S TOO SOON!!!!

The 3 weeks at 70 degrees, that we recommend is the minimum time it takes for average gravity beers to carbonate and condition. Higher grav beers take longer.

Stouts and porters have taken me between 6 and 8 weeks to carb up..I have a 1.090 Belgian strong that took three months to carb up.


Temp and gravity are the two factors that contribute to the time it takes to carb beer. But if a beer's not ready yet, or seems low carbed, and you added the right amount of sugar to it, then it's not stalled, it's just not time yet.

Everything you need to know about carbing and conditioning, can be found here Of Patience and Bottle Conditioning. With emphasis on the word, "patience."

Lazy Llama came up with a handy dandy chart to determine how long something takes in brewing, whether it's fermentation, carbonation, bottle conditioning....



If a beer isn't carbed by "x number of weeks" you just have to give them more time. If you added your sugar, then the beer will carb up eventually, it's really a foolroof process. All beers will carb up eventually. A lot of new brewers think they have to "troubleshoot" a bottling issue, when there really is none, the beer knows how to carb itself. In fact if you run beersmiths carbing calculator, some lower grav beers don't even require additional sugar to reach their minimum level of carbonation. Just time.

Thanks for the advice from everyone. I will be waiting awhile longer and will make updates.

As most have said already, just give it some time. Besides, aging in the bottle will give your beer time to really come together.
As others have said to me RDWHAHB.