What are my options for flat, bottled beer?

I definitely will. It won't be for another several months though.

looneybomber said:

Your carbonation won't get better.

And here's a tip. With every batch of beer, bottle one beer in a brown plastic (PET) bottle so you can squeeze it to check carb levels. No need to uncap.

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Dude this is a great idea for any occasion. I have just had my old Mr. Beer Bottles sitting in a cupboard.

Look on youtube, I did. "Quick carbonation beer"

What I did, bought a cheap steel CO2 tank, regulator, A auto-tire inflator chuck and hose, A "bolt in tire stem", drilled into a coke bottle lid, poured the "quart jar of homebrew" into it,squeezed out the air, turned the gas up to 50psi, gassed it, Shook like crazy, refrigerated it, shook like crazy, regassed it once the bottle softened up (the beer absorbing up the gas). If the beer is real cold, it absorbs more. IF it has a real high alcohol content, it will hot hold it thou, it releases it.. something about solubility? or Soapy texture??

Cokes, thou they tell me are shipped at near 50psi, I would never have believed that. NOW, I've done cream sodas, Rootbeer, 10 calorie koolaid zip packs, beer, wine, iced tea (that sucked), my favorite, fizzy lemonade.

They say you can use a pellet gun CO2 cartridge.. I don't know about that, how would you hook up the regulator?

I didn't have enough bottles the first time I had a batch come out, I tried to use quart mason jars to bottle, well.. some are fizzy, some are not.. hit and miss. I'd say that was my first failure. I was-am hunting a upright freezer to make myself a keg-cooler, knew I was going to end up with a CO2 tank anyways. There is one locally this morning for $30.. I am all over that.

looneybomber said:

Your carbonation won't get better.

Long story short, I've had carb issues on a couple big beers. Reydrate a $1 packet of champagne yeast. I use EC1118. Using 2oz of water let's you squirt 1mL into each of the 12oz bottles.

And here's a tip. With every batch of beer, bottle one beer in a brown plastic (PET) bottle so you can squeeze it to check carb levels. No need to uncap.

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I have the same problem and have some Lalvin D47 in the fridge from 11/12 (I'll check to make sure it's not expired) do you think this would work as good as the EC1118? I checked the d47's datasheet and it says it's good to 14%... just don't know if it ill have even close to that sparkling effervescence that the ec1118 would being champagne yeast...

Update: Well on 6/14 I went ahead and used the d47 and followed looneybomber's directions above. Since I bottle in 22oz and 16oz bottles in addition to 12oz I just adjusted accordingly (I did 1.5mL in the 16oz bottles and 2mL in the 22oz bottles). We'll see how it works out. I am thinking to leave them to sit for a month and then crack one. Will post results.

TheKeggingPart said:

I had a couple of friends over and pulled out a special bottle of a highly-aged tripel to share. It was dead flat. Fortunately I had started experimenting with modifying soda siphons to work with my Kegging Part invention and decided to give it a try. The beer carb'd instantly but came out as a glass full of foam. I still haven't worked the kinks out of that but in a pinch, putting your beer into a modified soda siphon will carbonate it. Once the foam settles, the beer that remains is carbonated.
</shameless self-promotion>

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I actually did that last night. Third batch I ever made, my brain shut down when I started bottling and I dumped sugar in the bucket instead of making a syrup. No bombs, but several are "extra fizzy" and a bunch more just suck. I dump them in the soda machine bottle and hit the button a couple times.

If I were going to reintroduce yeast into the bottles, I'd use the same yeast I brewed with. The reason is simple. Not all yeasts eat exactly the same thing. If they did, we'd probably brew with only one or two yeasts. Here's a practical example and one that I know from experience:

Ferment 5 gallons of Motts Apple juice with Nottingham yeast. OG starts at about 1.048. FG is about 1.004

Ferment 5 gallons of Motts Apple juice with Red Star Champagne yeast. OG starts at about 1.048. FG is about .995.

Champagne yeast could conceivably turn an unprimed beer into a bottle bomb because what wasn't a primer for your original yeast could be more than sufficient for champagne yeast. I realize that the gravity left is not likely to do so, but the potential is there. More importantly, why let another yeast eat something that you intentionally left there by using the other yeast.

If you decide to reintroduce yeast to the bottles, just make a yeast starter from your original yeast and use something that the yeast will stick to as a dipstick. Dip in starter, then in bottle, repeat until you run out of bottles. I'd probably use the handle of a wooden spoon that I'd soaked in star san. Wood's porous so there's still a bit of a risk of infection, but you're dealing with individual bottles and not the whole batch at once, so each bottle rolls individually against the probability of infection which should be pretty small.

This thread gives me hope, I think it will probably be a year or so until my DIPA brews are ready. I was losing hope its been 4 weeks and all I get is the initial pfft when I open it and it tastes like a sugary mess.

whenever I brew a 8%+ beer I always add a few granules of a neutral or champagne yeast to each bottle just for piece of mind.

hbrookie said:

If I were going to reintroduce yeast into the bottles, I'd use the same yeast I brewed with. The reason is simple. Not all yeasts eat exactly the same thing. If they did, we'd probably brew with only one or two yeasts. Here's a practical example and one that I know from experience:

Ferment 5 gallons of Motts Apple juice with Nottingham yeast. OG starts at about 1.048. FG is about 1.004

Ferment 5 gallons of Motts Apple juice with Red Star Champagne yeast. OG starts at about 1.048. FG is about .995.

Champagne yeast could conceivably turn an unprimed beer into a bottle bomb because what wasn't a primer for your original yeast could be more than sufficient for champagne yeast. I realize that the gravity left is not likely to do so, but the potential is there. More importantly, why let another yeast eat something that you intentionally left there by using the other yeast.

If you decide to reintroduce yeast to the bottles, just make a yeast starter from your original yeast and use something that the yeast will stick to as a dipstick. Dip in starter, then in bottle, repeat until you run out of bottles. I'd probably use the handle of a wooden spoon that I'd soaked in star san. Wood's porous so there's still a bit of a risk of infection, but you're dealing with individual bottles and not the whole batch at once, so each bottle rolls individually against the probability of infection which should be pretty small.

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This is wrong. Wine yeasts only ferment simple sugars. They can't eat the stuff the brewer's yeast leaves behind. All they can eat is the simple (priming) sugar. I had some quads with this same issue (12%) and I uncapped, and added just a little squirt with a sanitzed syringe to each bottle. I mixed some washed slurry in with a little yeast nutrient to squirt in and they carbed in a few weeks when they hadn't carbed after months and months of heat, daily rolling, shaking, etc.

I recently had a similar issue with a big barely wine that I made last year. It is a mini-mash clone of the JW Lees Harvest Ale from the Clone Brews book. I followed the recipe almost exactly, I did use a time bit more grains in the mini-mash, and started with an OG of 1.126. I pitched the Irish Ale yeast that was recommended without thinking twice about it. Primary lasted about 6 weeks then I dry hopped in secondary for about 2 weeks if I remember right and the gravity was down to about 1.036. I bottled last November and the book stated that it would be ready to drink 9 month after bottling. I tasted it here and there knowing that it wouldn't be ready until mid-August and it was still dead. I decided to add a yeast that would tolerate the higher alcohol so I carefully poured all bottles back into a sanitized fermenter and pitched some dry wine yeast to it. Fermentation started up again immediately then quickly tapered off. I still have it in a carboy and agitate it frequently. I know the complaints about oxidizing the beer so I was very careful not to splash as I pour all the bottles. Wouldn't re-pitching new yeast need at least some O2 to start fermentation back up? I will let this sit for some time before I take another gravity reading. I opened them all and re-pitched because I felt like the FG wasn't where it should have been and also in hindsight I feel like there is a possibility I may have forgot to put priming sugar in this batch though I did get a small hiss with each bottle opened. I am hoping that I can salvage this batch as I have been looking forward to it for a long time.

Keg it! I had a winter saison, around 11% that didn't carb in bottles. Decided it was time to upgrade to kegging. Slowly dumped the bottles into the keg and force carbonated over the course of the next week.

ScottWa said:

I recently had a similar issue with a big barely wine that I made last year. It is a mini-mash clone of the JW Lees Harvest Ale from the Clone Brews book. I followed the recipe almost exactly, I did use a time bit more grains in the mini-mash, and started with an OG of 1.126. I pitched the Irish Ale yeast that was recommended without thinking twice about it. Primary lasted about 6 weeks then I dry hopped in secondary for about 2 weeks if I remember right and the gravity was down to about 1.036. I bottled last November and the book stated that it would be ready to drink 9 month after bottling. I tasted it here and there knowing that it wouldn't be ready until mid-August and it was still dead. I decided to add a yeast that would tolerate the higher alcohol so I carefully poured all bottles back into a sanitized fermenter and pitched some dry wine yeast to it. Fermentation started up again immediately then quickly tapered off. I still have it in a carboy and agitate it frequently. I know the complaints about oxidizing the beer so I was very careful not to splash as I pour all the bottles. Wouldn't re-pitching new yeast need at least some O2 to start fermentation back up? I will let this sit for some time before I take another gravity reading. I opened them all and re-pitched because I felt like the FG wasn't where it should have been and also in hindsight I feel like there is a possibility I may have forgot to put priming sugar in this batch though I did get a small hiss with each bottle opened. I am hoping that I can salvage this batch as I have been looking forward to it for a long time.

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See my post just above yours. Wine yeast won't help your FG, it'll just eat the priming sugar and then stop. This makes it ideal to pitch at bottling to carb your beer without over-attenuating. E.G., if you pitch 3711 at bottling, it'll overcarb because it attenuates so much, so it'll eat the priming sugar and whatever your primary strain left behind. Wine yeast will only eat the priming sugar.

Thanks for the info. I will let the BW set for perhaps a long time and see if anything happens with it. Right now I only have a single keg that is currently occupied but if I can get another keg I'll just keg it or I'll wait until my current keg is empty. I'd really prefer to have this beer around for a long time which is why I wanted to bottle it but I guess now I would just prefer to not let this beer go to waste.

buy some cheap beer pour 6 oz of the cheap beer in a cup and pour the flat one on top of it.

yewtah-brewha said:

buy some cheap beer pour 6 oz of the cheap beer in a cup and pour the flat one on top of it.

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I'll probably go ahead and not do that. Thanks for the thought though.

Hovik said:

I have the same problem and have some Lalvin D47 in the fridge from 11/12 (I'll check to make sure it's not expired) do you think this would work as good as the EC1118? I checked the d47's datasheet and it says it's good to 14%... just don't know if it ill have even close to that sparkling effervescence that the ec1118 would being champagne yeast...

Update: Well on 6/14 I went ahead and used the d47 and followed looneybomber's directions above. Since I bottle in 22oz and 16oz bottles in addition to 12oz I just adjusted accordingly (I did 1.5mL in the 16oz bottles and 2mL in the 22oz bottles). We'll see how it works out. I am thinking to leave them to sit for a month and then crack one. Will post results.

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Sorry for the late update. 1 month after the above process I cracked a bottle and it was mildly carbonated. and after the 2nd month it was perfect. If you have the time to wait for the bottles to carb up this is a great option for flat beer, if you don't have the time I suggest you keg...

So despite my posting about what to do with my flat barleywine I pretty much have gone against the advice that most people have recommended and have done what I felt would work best. I carefully opened and sanitized all of my bottles and carefully poured back into a sanitized glass carboy and re-pitched with 5 grams Red Star Premier Cuvee Dry Wine yeast prepared as instructed on package. It has been back in fermenter for about 3 weeks now and I rouse they yeast pretty frequently. I took a gravity reading last night and it is only down to 1.030 (from 1.036) which is not surprising to me given what others have said about wine yeast munching on different sugars than the ale yeast would but it tastes much better. I will let this set in the fermenter until probably around November or so and see what else it does if anything and will probably end up re-bottling it around that time, this time making sure that the priming sugar does get in there. I am liking where this is going so far and I am reluctant to keg it since I want to keep it around for a long time and I only have 1 keg.

Since I typically use the 3/4 cup corn sugar to 5 gal batch of beer should I keep that same amount for a big BW or should I adjust that up or down because of the gravity. I really want it to carb appropriately. Thanks to all who have chimed in with their 2 cents, this has been a good learning process.

Well, I finally opened my control bottle, and it was flat, just as the others were before I added champaign yeast.

So in my particular case, I think adding new yeast to the bottles was the way to go.

hellbus said:

Hello! I tried searching for suggestions, but have not found anything solid (If there is a thread that exists, I apologize in advance)

I brewed a big beer (O.G. 1.10). I ended up leaving it in the primary for 3 months, after which I bottled it (F.G. 1.02). In hind site I should have probably pitched more yeast prior to bottling, but thanks to my inexperience, I did not.

Anyway, It has been bottled since 2/17 and has not carbonated at all. I read through the forums and tried some things, such as moving it to a warmer room (It has been there for about a month now), and occasionally shaking the bottles to try to re-suspend any yeast.

I am convinced that it will not carbonate now, so I am wondering what I can do with it, save for dumping it.

I do not have any kegs or Co2, but if that is my only option, I can procure them.

IS THE BEER WORTH IT? GET A KEG

I am wondering what I can do to end up having it in the bottles, and carbonated nicely (I am trying to avoid buying any new hardware right now).

I saved some of the yeast I used to brew it, but I am unclear on what process I would have to go through to help it.

Would I just make a starter with the yeast I have, slowly pour it in the bottling bucket, pitch some yeast, then re-bottle, or is there a better way? Should I let it sit in a fermenting bucket for a day or so after I pitch more yeast in it?

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if you do go this route you need to make sure that you have a highly alcohol tolerant yeast in order to prevent the alcohol content from stoping the small amount of fermentation that is going to produce your all so elusive co2