secondary too cold.. no carbonation. Any Hope?

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.

KathPaul

New Member
Joined
Jan 12, 2013
Messages
3
Reaction score
0
greetings
we brewed a recipe for an IPA. we bottled on 12/26, waited two weeks and opened our first bottle this week. it was completely flat. flavor wasn't bad, and it seemed to have some alcohol content, but no carbonation. we primary fermented it a week, racked it off and dry hopped it to a carboy, and secondaried it another week. it was a very cold two weeks, and the fermenting room wasn't very warm (60-62 probably). we figure it was two cold for the yeast.

any hope of saving the batch? can we pour the bottles back into a carboy, and re-yeast? maybe add some sugars?

thanks
KP
 
greetings
we brewed a recipe for an IPA. we bottled on 12/26, waited two weeks and opened our first bottle this week. it was completely flat. flavor wasn't bad, and it seemed to have some alcohol content, but no carbonation. we primary fermented it a week, racked it off and dry hopped it to a carboy, and secondaried it another week. it was a very cold two weeks, and the fermenting room wasn't very warm (60-62 probably). we figure it was two cold for the yeast.

any hope of saving the batch? can we pour the bottles back into a carboy, and re-yeast? maybe add some sugars?

thanks
KP

Did you add priming sugar when you bottled ?
 
They just need more time and if the bottles are in the same area at 60ish they will take longer. Move them to an area that is 70 or above and give them another week, they will carb up for you, just be patient!
 
You don't have any carbonation because it's ONLY been 2 weeks. And it sounds like your beer's been stored below 70, which means that it will take longer than the NORMAL 3 WEEKS MINIMUM we talk about here.

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.

Temp and gravity are the two most important factors as to how long it will take.

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.

And just because a beer is carbed doesn't mean it still doesn't taste like a$$ and need more time for the off flavors to condition out.

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

Carbonation is actually foolproof, you add sugar, the yeast eats it and farts co2 which carbs the beer. It's not a complex system, and there's very little that can go wrong...It just takes time.....

There really is no other answer than patience, because there really isn't a problem. It really is a simply and fool proof process. The problem arises that we try to govern the behavior based on our timeframe, and not the yeast's. They don't read calendars or instruction sheets, they just do their own thing in however long it takes them.

I've been doing this for years, and bottled nearly a thousand gallons of beer, and have never had one that didn't carb eventually. And I don't do anything special to them at bottling day, that isn't explained in my bottling sticky. You just gotta wait.
 
What Revvy said. OP, there is literally no problem whatsoever, aside from the fact that you are being unrealistically impatient.

Make sure the beer is as close to 70 degrees F as you can get it, and leave it alone. It WILL carb up - yeast know how to carbonate, if you'll just let them do so.
 
thanks for the word.
I momentarily forgot rule #1.
relax - have a homebrew.
 
Back
Top