Beer is stil flat... Why do you think?

Howdy,

My beer has been in the plastic bottles for 2 weeks so everything was good but I put them in the fridge and tried one the next day and it's still flat! Any ideas why it's still flat if the bottles have expanded and co2 had been released?

Head space?

Well by headspace do you mean the empty gap at the kneck? If so I would say 1.5 inchs

I don't know about the PET bottles but with the bottle's I use, I leave 1/2" head space and 1 " is recommended. Are you using a Mr.Beer?

Nope no MR Beer. I use a bucket for bulk priming and then use a spigot to fill my green plastic bottles. I fill them up and leave some space then squeeze air out and then cap.

Then it ferments and CO2 filled the bottle. WHen the bottles filled up this time after 2 weeks I put them in the fridge but after 1 day in the fridge they are still flat. Any idea why or do I just need to give it a few days in the fridge?

What temp were the bottles stored at for carbonation? I'm talking actual temperatures of the bottles. You would like to see 70F so the yeast can work on the corn sugar. Never put them in the fridge until you know they have carbed because that makes the ale yeast stop working. Put them back out in a 70F room.

You shouldn't squeeze the air out. When you fill them up, leave some head space and cap. When the sugar starts fermenting, and off gassing, it will force the CO2 into the beer as carbonation.

Sounds to me like you just didn't give it a long enough time prior to cooling (as mentioned above). You probably had enough conversion of sugar to alcohol and CO2 to inflate the bottles but not an abundance. Take them out and let them sit at room temperature for about 10 days. How long did the beer condition prior to bottling? It takes a long time, but the yeast can peter out. You might have been running on minimal yeast when you bottled.

We stored an IPA cold for about 3 weeks that never carbonated. After moving it into a 70 degree environment and agitating the bottles, it was carbed up in about 3 days. Perhaps a try at this before you start uncapping bottles.

Thanks for the info guys. I had it in the basement of a room temp of 65F for 2 weeks. I pulled them out of the fridge and will leave them for 2 more weeks until I put them back in.

I figured it might be early but i wanted to see if i could get them ready for a party....

thanks for the input guys
grimmy

mrk305 said:

You shouldn't squeeze the air out. When you fill them up, leave some head space and cap. When the sugar starts fermenting, and off gassing, it will force the CO2 into the beer as carbonation.

Click to expand...

bingo! you're creating even more headspace to fill by purging what's in there to start with due to the squeezing.


Need a mod to move this to the correct Bottling & Kegging forum please

I vote for not enough time in the bottles before chilling. I usually wait 3 weeks minimum..

I also have some pumpkin porters in pet bottles, it's really taken them about 6 weeks to be drinkable, so perhaps the pet bottles do need a litle longer.

With the pet bottles, aren't you supposed to go by the hardness of the bottles to determin whether or not they're carbonated. I thought I read somewhere that they should feel as hard as 2 liter soda bottles when they're ready.

Also, do you have a bottling wand? That would help you get the headspace correct.

I agree with not sqeezing the air out. Instead of the CO2 having nowhere to go and being forced to dissolve into the beer it is just returning the bottle to it's original shape. I wouldn't worry about the small amount of air causing oxidation (if that's why you're squeezing it out), no-one who bottles in glass worries about it.

LS_Grimmy said:

Thanks for the info guys. I had it in the basement of a room temp of 65F for 2 weeks. I pulled them out of the fridge and will leave them for 2 more weeks until I put them back in.

I figured it might be early but i wanted to see if i could get them ready for a party....

thanks for the input guys
grimmy

Click to expand...

Get them into 70F. This time let it go until you open one and see if it is carbinated well. You can not rush this, it may take 3 weeks as the yeast has been dormant.

Sounds good I'll move them upstairs and give them a few weeks. I'm in no rush since I won't make the party anyway by next weekend. I have always squeezed them to get the air out but I guess you have a point with bottling with glass bottles. I'll leave the air in from now on for sure.

Any tip that makes my beer better is much appreciated....

Another thing, both with pet bottles and regular capping. Don't immediately cap hard after filling. Put the pet caps on loosely or the crown caps on top of the bottles but don't crimp them right away. That way the first bit of co2 generated by the sugar added to the new yeast will build up and and push any air out of the bottle.

I usually fill 6 bottles, just sitting the cap on each one...when I get number 6 filled, I go back to number 1 and crimp/cap it tightly.

Revvy said:

Another thing, both with pet bottles and regular capping. Don't immediately cap hard after filling. Put the pet caps on loosely or the crown caps on top of the bottles but don't crimp them right away. That way the first bit of co2 generated by the sugar added to the new yeast will build up and and push any air out of the bottle.

I usually fill 6 bottles, just sitting the cap on each one...when I get number 6 filled, I go back to number 1 and crimp/cap it tightly.

Click to expand...

As do I, but I usually fill all my bottles before capping them. You can hear the co2 displacing the air by the noise of poping caps on the bottles.

thats actually sounds like a good idea ill try and leave the caps on loose and not squeeze the bottles. I got a batch ready to bottle Sunday so I'll give it a go then for sure

thanks
Grimmy

You said you squeeze the air out. Thats probally what doing it. Leave the bottle full ( air included) so that that air becomes pressurized, if not the co2 released will not compensate for the lost amount of albeit small amnount. If your afraid of contamination then just use more priming sugar.

Ok I bottled another batch today and I did the following:

-Left 1 inch of head at the top of the bottles
-Did not seal the cap right away
-Then I screwed the caps on this time not squeezing the air out.

I'm very curious to see the difference in my bottled beer as I have been pretty much doing it wrong for a year .

I'll post in a few weeks and let ya know if this solved all my problems. Thanks for the info fellas...

Cheers,
Grimmy