My Beer is Flat!

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

CurtHagenlocher

Supporting Member
HBT Supporter
Joined
Mar 21, 2012
Messages
44
Reaction score
5
Location
Mercer Island
Help! Of the last five batches I've bottled, three have turned out essentially flat. To the best of my knowledge and (poor) record-keeping, my process did not vary notably between the two successful batches and the three failed ones.

I'm hoping the good people of HBT will help me to identify
a) ideas on what I need to change to avoid this problem in the future
b) whether or not anything is salvageable from what I have already bottled

Here's my process:

1) Boil ~4-5 gallons of wort. Chill and transfer to a fermentor without trying to filter out break or other solids.
2) Primary fermentation in a 6.5 gallon bucket for ~1 week
3) Secondary fermentation for 2-3 weeks split between a 3 gallon carboy and a 1 gallon carboy. I don't want to get into the "secondary" debate, but the main reason I do this is to free my sole bucket for other uses (ie bottling or more brewing).
4) Siphon the contents of both carboys back to the bucket for bottling. I use 3.5 oz of dissolved corn sugar and add it in stages to the beer to encourage reasonable mixing.
5) Beer is in bottles for at least two weeks before I sample it.

Some more-specific details:
1) Batches 1, 4 and 5 are the ones that are flat. Batches 2 and 3 are good.
2) Much of batch 1 was accidentally exposed to oxygen during siphoning into the bottling bucket because I didn't notice that a cracked racking cane was aerating the beer. Until the failures of batches 4 and 5, I assumed that this was responsible for the problems with #1.
3) The successful batches were both dry-hopped, and both had higher gravities than any of the failed batches.
4) Batches 4 and 5 were bottled 2.5 weeks ago, so there's still the potential for more carbonation. But batch 1 was bottled over two months ago and hasn't showed any signs of improving.
5) Most of the beer goes into 12oz bottles, but I usually fill 2-3 20oz bottles as well. For batch 1, the 20oz bottles seemed to have much better carbonation than the 12oz bottles.


Any ideas?

Thanks!
 
4) Siphon the contents of both carboys back to the bucket for bottling. I use 3.5 oz of dissolved corn sugar and add it in stages to the beer to encourage reasonable mixing.
Add your priming solution to the bottling bucket prior to siphoning. Have your siphon tube curve around the bottom of the bucket and you'll get a nice mix just by racking into your bucket.

What temp are you storing your bottles at while they carb up?
 
What's the OG of the beer? Bigger beers can take longer - even significantly more so - than three weeks (which you haven't reached yet for batches 4 & 5).
 
I typically use 5 ounces (by weight) of corn sugar for 5 gallons to prime the beer.

Are they totally flat (like from leaky caps), or just undercarbed a bit?
 
They are almost totally flat. I do get a very slight hiss when I open the bottle, and I'm using batches of caps (and a capper) which have previously produced the expected result -- so I'm inclined to think that nothing is leaking. But is there a good way to confirm that?

EDIT: As I typically end up with about 3.75 gallons of finished beer, 3.5 ounces of corn sugar seems reasonably equivalent to "5 ounces for 5 gallons".
 
They are almost totally flat. I do get a very slight hiss when I open the bottle, and I'm using batches of caps (and a capper) which have previously produced the expected result -- so I'm inclined to think that nothing is leaking. But is there a good way to confirm that?

EDIT: As I typically end up with about 3.75 gallons of finished beer, 3.5 ounces of corn sugar seems reasonably equivalent to "5 ounces for 5 gallons".

Yes, that does seem like a good amount of sugar - that's why I"m puzzled.

How long do you chill the bottles before opening?
 
They are almost totally flat. I do get a very slight hiss when I open the bottle, and I'm using batches of caps (and a capper) which have previously produced the expected result -- so I'm inclined to think that nothing is leaking. But is there a good way to confirm that?

.

immerse upright bottle in a bucket of water and check for bubbles
 
I chill for at least 24 hours before opening. I understand that this may not be long enough for an optimal experience, but I find it hard to believe that it would make such a dramatic difference.
 
I chill for at least 24 hours before opening. I understand that this may not be long enough for an optimal experience, but I find it hard to believe that it would make such a dramatic difference.

I agree.

But obviously something isn't working here. The only thing I can think of now is leaky caps. Do you have a soda bottle or two, to use for the next batch? That way you can screw the plastic soda caps on super tight and then squeeze the bottle every week to see if it's getting hard. There has to be a reason the beer is pretty flat, but if it's not leaky caps then I don't know what it could be.
 
When you taste the beer, does it taste right, or is it slightly sweet? I'm wondering if the sugar is actually being fermented or not.
 
MisterTipsy said:
immerse upright bottle in a bucket of water and check for bubbles

Or put a balloon over the neck of the bottle. If the balloon inflates then the cap is leaking.
 
The beer does not taste sweet and it does taste alcoholic and my FG has been roughly as expected.

As time has passed, the carbonation characteristics of these beers has improved pretty dramatically. Nearly every bottle of batches 1 and 4 that I opened in the first month (starting two weeks after bottling) were flat or nearly flat, while there were very few flat bottles of batch 1 after that point -- and none at all of batch 4. So for some reason, carbonation is just taking a lot of time.

Batch 5, alas, is still mostly flat -- despite having been bottled the day after batch 4. But at least I have reason to hope that it will improve just by letting it sit for a while.
 
For a 5 gallon batch I used about 4.5 oz of corn sugar, boil about 2 cups of water let cool slightly and mix in sugar till completely dissolved.
Pour into my bucket and rack on top of the "syrup" usually have carbonation in 2 weeks but 3 weeks is optimum. Just my experience.
 
The beer does not taste sweet and it does taste alcoholic and my FG has been roughly as expected.

As time has passed, the carbonation characteristics of these beers has improved pretty dramatically. Nearly every bottle of batches 1 and 4 that I opened in the first month (starting two weeks after bottling) were flat or nearly flat, while there were very few flat bottles of batch 1 after that point -- and none at all of batch 4. So for some reason, carbonation is just taking a lot of time.

Batch 5, alas, is still mostly flat -- despite having been bottled the day after batch 4. But at least I have reason to hope that it will improve just by letting it sit for a while.

carbonation always takes it's own time, and the MINIMUM time it tends to take for average grav beers is 3 weeks. That was the glaring thing in your first post. You were opening the bottles after only 2 weeks....2 weeks is not 3 weeks.

I've had beers take 6 months to carb up. It's all about gravity and the temp the beer is stored it, 3 weeks at 70 degrees is the minimum.

But it really is a foolproof process, you add sugar, the yeast eat it, and fart co2, which over a period of time carbontates the beer. But all beer if you added sugar will carb up eventually.
 
Back
Top