9.2% beer not carbonating?

I bottled a 9.2% beer sometime in December (I can't remember when, exactly). I sampled one today (1 February) and the carbonation isn't really there; there was a slight sound when I cracked the cap and you could see the carbon dioxide rising from the bottle, but actual carbonation was minimal. The beer had a very small ring of head around the edges, but bubbles were next to none. The batch was about 3 gallons and I primed with about 90 or 100 grams of sugar.

Do I just need to be more patient or will I need to add some dried yeast?

Big beers = more time.

Remember,



You could add some fresh yeast if you want. But you have to get fresh caps, and go through that whole process....If you're getting some co2, I'm banking that a couple more weeks they'll be fine any way. I'd give them a swirl and make sure their in a warm space and leave em.

Basically what that uh...graph, says.

I have a 12.2% Belgian Noel that's been in the bottle about a year and it just never really carbed all that much. It's ok for the style, but for the first 3-4 months it was basically flat.

Revvy said:

You could add some fresh yeast if you want. But you have to get fresh caps, and go through that whole process....If you're getting some co2, I'm banking that a couple more weeks they'll be fine any way. I'd give them a swirl and make sure their in a warm space and leave em.

Click to expand...

How about if I left them until May? If I test one then I'll add more yeast if it hasn't carbonated properly. If I do that, how should I go about adding the yeast? Should I rehydrate it and if so how much should I add to each bottle?

May seems good. Since it's already in the bottles I would get some champagne yeast and rehydrate it into some warm water, and let it proof a bit. Then I would use a children's medicine dropper with ML graduations.



figuring 2-3 mls/bottle I would calculate how big an amount of slurry I would need for all my bottles, mix that much up and squirt that amount into each bottle. Or I would make a starter if deciding to use a high grav liquid yeast and do the same thing.