Need Ideas/Thoughts on Maintaining Bottling Temp.

Hey Guys,
I have two separate batches that did not carbonate. Read through the forums and pretty sure I pinpointed my problem to room temperature. It is cold in N. IL. right now and I'm not at my house very much so the heat is set at 65*. The fermometer on all my carboys that are fermenting read the same (64*-66*). My bottled beer sat in the same room for 3 weeks and did not carbonate at all. My thought is to set the beer next to a heat vent and build a cardboard enclosure around it attaching the cardboard to the wall so that no heat escapes then put a blanket over the box/enclosure. Has anyone tried this or have any other solutions to try? Thanks!!

That ought to work. Don't forget the give each bottle a little shake.

Strange. 65F Room temp should be pretty ideal for bottle conditioning and ale fermentation. Are these your only two batches so far or have you had luck bottle conditioning in the past?

I will remember to give them a shake to re-suspend the yeast.
These are the first 2 batches I have bottled. Little frusterated that I have wasted the last 5 weeks waiting for them to carb up, now I have to try a new approach and wait another 3 weeks.....

Did you check your OG and FG for these batches.
Did you taste some the uncarbed beer. Did it taste sweet
What yeast did you use
Did you get any carbonztion at all. IF Not i am thinking you got a bad batch of yeast or something happened.

OG & FG were not perfect but within range of where they should have been. The beer tasted good....maybe a little sweet but not overpowering. I used Nottingham which was re-hydrated for a 1/2 hour in warm water before I pitched. There was absoloutly no carbonation at all....it was like drinking beer-juice. Didn't even bubble when I dumped the sample I opened in to the sink.

What method are you using to prime?

Using 5oz of priming sugar boiled for 5 min. in 2 cups of water. Racked right about 5 gal of beer over in it bottling bucket followed by a gentle stir for a minute or so.

As Revvy says, 3 weeks at 70 minimum. Everything will carb eventually with time, but Ive noticed a big increase in carb times with air temps at slightly less than 70. This winter has been nutty with the mild temps, my basement is actually cooler because the furnace hasnt been running as often to heat the upstairs.

Many people on the forum build some kind of warm box or use a closet with an incandescent bulb for heat. Some suggest using a metal coffee can to block the light.

Recently ive been using an adjustable aquarium heater bath in a plastic tote many use for primary ferm temp control. Just keep the water level below the caps and the heater off the plastic. I find the thermal mass of the water bath to be better suited to my unfinished drafty basement. My current version will hold two five gallon batches worth of 22oz bombers, has a pump to keep water circulating, and overflows to maintain water height.

Its over the top but I like it.

Has got to be the yeast. As long as you're priming properly (sounds like you are), capping properly to get a good seal (hard not to), storing at ale temps (65F is fine) then it should be working. The Nottingham ale yeast is highly flocculent (settles out of the fermenter) which may be causing the issue. Suppose it's possible you're not getting enough yeast across to the bottling bucket if it has mostly settled in your fermenter, but typically there's still enough yeast in suspension to do the job. Just to identify the yeast as the issue I would open a few bottles and put a tiny pinch of dry ale yeast in each and recap. If they carb then you know the problem is just the cell count of your primary yeast active in the bottles. You can fix your current batch using the shake and wait method hoping to get whatever yeast is in there active again or you could uncap, put a few grains of dry yeast in each bottle and recap. Usually the waiting game will work but three weeks without anything is odd. Might go option b.

WhiteEagle1 said:

OG & FG were not perfect but within range of where they should have been. The beer tasted good....maybe a little sweet but not overpowering. I used Nottingham which was re-hydrated for a 1/2 hour in warm water before I pitched. There was absoloutly no carbonation at all....it was like drinking beer-juice. Didn't even bubble when I dumped the sample I opened in to the sink.

Click to expand...

Something is not adding up. You ferment your beer which has good yeast in it. then you add more yeast and sugar. so even if the added Nottingham yeast was not good you still had the yeast from your fermentation process.

I have forgot the sugar before and bought the sugar tabs, and un-cap the bottles and added 1-2 tabs and re-caped. You could try adding a spoon full of sugar to 2-3 bottles for a trial. If they blow up ... well it was not a yeast problem.

Try to find a warm place for your beer. Like under your desk at work or in a closet with a 100 watt light bulb.

Thanks guys.
Don't think its the yeast....I had very active fermentation. It's gotta be the temp, I hope. I built my cardboard enclosure against the wall and heat vent last night, woke up this morning to very warm bottles. threw a thermometer in there for a bit to check the temp......82*!!! I'm going from one extreme to the other! I didn't realize it was going to be this hard to carb my brew in a spot that maintains 70*.........

The heater itself does not put out 70° air. It's putting out hotter air and when the area around the thermostat reaches 70, it turns off the hot air.

What you need is to build a box that's thermostatically controlled. Meaning you need a way to shut of the heat source when your box gets to the right temperature. There's no details, but on a soda blog I frequent there's a thermostat unit hooked to a lightbulb, so the lightbulb actually does the heating, when the box is hot enough, it turns off the bulb. Like I said, there are no details, but the concept is fairly simple.

Mr. Food.... That is a very good idea, and probably a pretty inexpensive one. Time to do a little research at Menards...... Thanks!

long time troller first time poster, i found on youtube, a craigtube video to be exact, that taking bottles and stringing xmas lights around them works great, i place a fresh bottled batch in a rubber tote with a loose lid for usally 7-10 days i chill and try one and if its carbed i remove the bottles to cellar temp for another 2 weeks to stay within revvy's carbing/condition motto

i've tried this on 3 batches 1 of which an IPA and had great sucess, g'luck


edit: i forgot to mention you can take an empty bottle filled with water to take your temp readings i use roughly 100 lights or so and its stays perfect at 75*

[ame]http://youtu.be/YUcWADuFhTg[/ame]

Rhaop,
I have actually seen that video on Craigtube....Thank you for reminding me! Do you leave the lights on the whole time or set them on a timer? I guess it will take a little trial and error depending on the room temp. The bottle of water is an excellent idea to check temp... Consider your first post a good one because I'm going to give this a try tonight! Thanks!

your set up may be different but i'm lucky to have a basement ranging from 64 in winter to 68 in summer if AC is on so right now i leave a wired thermometer probe in the water bottle so i can check without opening the lid, it was at 74-75 everyday so i just left the lights on all the time, but you may have to rig a timer or more complex thermostat but i figured its easier to use fewer lights and leave it all the time

i'd monitor it close for a fews days especially because your storage tote/box may be different then mine and hold heat better, mine is a sterilite 45 gal from wal mart i emptied out so its got lots of headspace