Apfelwein not carbonated.. or is it?!?

Ok so I made the basic Apfelwein recipe, and at bottling I added corn sugar for carb as well as back sweetened with lactose. It's been almost 2 months in the bottle and they are still not hardly carbonated at all. They have been conditioning in my garage at a pretty constant 65-70 degree temp.

Here's the weird part. The first couple I tried a few weeks ago had been in the fridge for a week or more. They were real flat and I realized that was because I didn't let them condition long enough before I chilled them. so a couple days later I tried one that had not been in the fridge. Perfect! Nice and sparkly, starting to get a nice apple flavor instead of the dry wine flavor.

But that was it. I've tried at least three more since then and they all are still flat and very dry.

What happened to that one that made it so good? They are all in the same crate in the same part of the garage. Weird.

I'm going to wait until next week at the 2 month mark before I try another.

Two things I can think of. The first, although unlikely, is that your priming solution did not thoroughly mix in the apfelwein prior to bottling. Sometimes, it could explain some variation in carbonation and in this case, the backsweetening.

The second is based on your conditioning time. I told a friend recently I was aging my apfelwein for 4-5 months and he suggested redosing with fresh yeast just prior to bottling. Perhaps more yeast have fallen out of solution than expected and it's just taking them a while to come back to the party.

are you sure the caps are sealed tightly?

did you follow the apfelwein recipe to a T? didn't use a weaker yeast or added a lot more sugar?

the difference between 65 and 70 is a lot to yeast trying to force carb a bottle...maybe keep em warm in the house for 3-4 weeks and try again.

malkore said:

are you sure the caps are sealed tightly?

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I could see this happening to one or two, but not the majority.

malkore said:

did you follow the apfelwein recipe to a T? didn't use a weaker yeast or added a lot more sugar?

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Yup. Exactly as Ed's recipe on the first page. Only difference is I Back Sweetened and added priming sugar. I'm trying to remember the exact amount of lactose, I think it was 3/4 cup? I'll have to check. Priming sugar was 3/4 cup.

malkore said:

the difference between 65 and 70 is a lot to yeast trying to force carb a bottle...maybe keep em warm in the house for 3-4 weeks and try again.

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I agree and kind of expected this, but why did the one bottle come out so good, and the rest still seem flat?