My beer is flat

This is my first batch of beer. I brewed using a kit and followed the instructions. I left the beer in primary for 1 week, secondary for 2 weeks, then bottled. I used the priming sugar that came with my kit, cooked it according to the instructions, poured it in my bottling bucket and racked the beer on top of it. I used glass bottles with a hand bottler and bottled the beer. It's been sitting in my basement at 70+ F for the last three weeks. I tried a bottle a week ago, it was flat. I tried it last night and today, still flat. Don't get me wrong, it tastes great, but I enjoy a little CO2 with my beer.

What do you think has happened, and can I fix it? What can I do differently in the future to ensure proper carbonation? What is the "key" to a nicely carbed beer?

Thanks!

Hey man,

So from the looks of it, the longest the bottle has been in the fridge is about a day. Which is not enough in my opinion. Throw some bottles in there and leave it in for at least 4-5 days. I prefer a week and even longer for me is even better. All of my beers that I have in the fridge for less than 3-5 days are under carbonated and flat-ish. Assuming you did everything right as far as the priming sugar, bottling, etc. I'd say more time in the fridge is all you need. Also, when you pour do you get some bubbles that seem to stick to the bottom and sides of the glass then disappear quickly?

I had a carbonation problem with a kolsch I made recently that was in the bottle for three weeks. I had the beer on the floor of my basement (70-75 deg). My LHBS said to bring it upstairs where it is warmer. It's about 78 on my main floor. For good measure, I turned each bottle upside down and shook the yeast back into suspension. After just 4 days the carbonation was perfect.

In order for beer to bottle condition correctly, 2 things have to happen. 1) after adding priming sugar, the beer must sit 2 to 3 weeks (sometimes more) in the bottles at 70-80 degrees to allow the yeast to produce CO2. 2) after 3 weeks at room temperature, the bottles need to be refrigerated for a MINIMUM of 48 hours to force the carbon dioxide in the bottle to saturate the beer.

If the beer is not cold-conditioned long enough after the initial carbonation period (the 3 weeks at room temp), then the majority of your carbon dioxide just escapes as a hiss when you open the bottle.

I suggest putting one or 2 bottles in the fridge and letting them chill for 2 days. Then check one for carbonation. If they are still not carbonated enough, then leave the rest of them conditioning in a warm area for another week, chill one for 2 days, and check again. If you added sugar, the beer WILL carbonate, but it will do it when it is ready. Unfortunately, the beer is not always ready as quickly as we are!

Also the higher the gravity of the beer the longer it is going to take to carb.

I have read multiple times the advice that you need to put your beer in the refrigerator for it to carb up. I am having a tough time figuring out why that would be the case though. The CO2 in the beer will be in equilibrium with the CO2 in the air above it. At room temperature the beer has plenty of CO2 in it (assuming of course that there is enough yeast, priming sugar, and time for it to carbonate). The CO2 is created by the yeast and stays in solution to the equilibrium point with the air space. The CO2 is not all in the air space. Chilling the beer will indeed raise the CO2 content of the beer since it will be able to hold more CO2 but only by the relatively little amount present in the air space (and even then it won't be even all of that CO2 as once again equilibrium will be reached). The exact same thing stands for commercial bottle beers. Assuming that there is the same amount of CO2 in the bottle, a Sam Adams Lager at room temperature will have the same carbonation level as an as yet unrefrigerated homebrew clone at the same temperature.

From personal experience, I haven't ever noticed any carbonation difference between a bottle I throw in the fridge for 4 hours and one that spends a week before I find it again. Of course a bottle that has been "lagering" in the fridge for a few weeks will taste different than a beer that was just cooled but that isn't due to the carbonation.

What am I misunderstanding?

Your and my understanding is the same.

Bottle conditioned beer will not have anymore or less carbination. The amount of carbination depends on the amount of primaing sugar used. Making the beer colder will decrease yeast activity.

I have never noticed a significant difference between bottled left at 65 deg F and bottles in the fridge.

Note that in a keg with a CO2 source, the temperatuer of the beer will make a difference in the amount of dissolved CO2 in solution.

alyanddrew: what beer did you brew? what yeast? what did you clean your bottles with? Are you sure you added priming sugar? Did you cold condition before bottling?

I am one of those that only use a primary (no secondary) on ales and typically I'll ferment for a week with a diacetyl rest for a couple of days and then bottle. There is usually enough active yeast left in suspension so that my beers carbinate in about 1-2 weeks. It is possible with prmary and secondary fermentation that there is not enough active yeast.

Some yeasts are highly flocculent (i.e WLP-002), and drop out so well that it can be difficult to bottle condition without adding some yeast.

Cold conditioning can alaso drop out a lot of yeast as the protiens tend to flocculate with the yeast and settle out.

I would wait another couple of weeks. The yeast number may be small and dormant and take a while to do their job.

Your yeast might've fallen out of suspension. That's not a bad thing for the cosmetics of the beer. I like Tyru007's advice. Does the beer taste overly sweet?

If there's no yeast left, I guess you could dump it all back into a bottling bucket and add some yeast then rebottle. That's not very fun though. Maybe wait another week or two to see if there's a small amount of yeast that can finish the job.

sidepart said:

Your yeast might've fallen out of suspension. That's not a bad thing for the cosmetics of the beer. I like Tyru007's advice. Does the beer taste overly sweet?

If there's no yeast left, I guess you could dump it all back into a bottling bucket and add some yeast then rebottle. That's not very fun though. Maybe wait another week or two to see if there's a small amount of yeast that can finish the job.

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Don't do this. You will oxygenate the beer. Give them a few more weeks. Tip them over and re-suspend the yeast. If they still aren't carbed give them longer.

Micheal a couple things: cooling beer allows all the particles and yeast to drop out of suspension. So if we recall the mentos experiment, with warm beer you have more floaties and more nucleation sites floating in the beer. This means if the beer is heavily carbed, it geysers or foams out. With lightly carbed beers you will loose head quickly as CO2 rapidly heads out of suspension. That process does indeed take a bit longer than 4 hours.

Second at higher temperatures CO2 is more apt to stay in the air than in the liquid. Even with a pressure imbalance there is only so much CO2 a beer will absorb. Dropping the temp allows that last little bit to get absorbed into the liquid. Now I am not saying it is a detectable difference, but the science does support the reasoning.

Recently saw another post where the priming sugar was completely forgotten during bottling. After all the bottles were capped he realized what happened. The consensus then was to open all the bottles and use the carbonation tablets and re cap the bottles. Since you did have priming sugar, I would also +1 on waiting it out for a while longer, but I would think this would be a much better last resort, than dumping everything back into a bucket, way too much to wrong with that method.

Good luck!

What kind of bottles did you use? They weren't twist-off's in a previous life were they? If so, you cannot use a bottle designed for twist-off caps. The tops of those bottles are more flat than rounded like a pry-off and therefore won't adequatley seal (i.e. hold in CO2) when you manually cap them.

Draken said:

Micheal a couple things: cooling beer allows all the particles and yeast to drop out of suspension. So if we recall the mentos experiment, with warm beer you have more floaties and more nucleation sites floating in the beer. This means if the beer is heavily carbed, it geysers or foams out. With lightly carbed beers you will loose head quickly as CO2 rapidly heads out of suspension. That process does indeed take a bit longer than 4 hours.

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That makes sense. Not a "degree of carbonation" issue, per-se of course. I guess it is a matter of perception, but wouldn't a "lagered" beer with fewer nucleation points seem less carbonated as less CO2 would come out of solution when poured.

Draken said:

Second at higher temperatures CO2 is more apt to stay in the air than in the liquid. Even with a pressure imbalance there is only so much CO2 a beer will absorb. Dropping the temp allows that last little bit to get absorbed into the liquid. Now I am not saying it is a detectable difference, but the science does support the reasoning.

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I agree wholeheartedly, and this was what I was attempting to say. People seemed to be arguing that the cooling was necessary for carbonation, which isn't true.

I brewed a irish red ale kit. It was a dry yeast packet that I used. I'm going to try to refrigerate them for a few days and see what happens. I'll also try to resuspend the yeast and see if that works.

I think I may investigate kegging. I purchased the bottles and caps from a local supply store. No twist offs here.

I have a porter with the same problem--completely flat. I left it in primary for over a month and racked it very cleanly into the bottling bucket. I am thinking I might not have enough yeast left in suspension? The beer tastes fine (not overly sweet).

After reading this thread I inspected my bottles. There seemed to me much less sediment at the bottom than with my other brews. I shook the bottles to re-suspend what is in there--hope it works!

MichaelBrock said:

I have read multiple times the advice that you need to put your beer in the refrigerator for it to carb up. I am having a tough time figuring out why that would be the case though. The CO2 in the beer will be in equilibrium with the CO2 in the air above it. At room temperature the beer has plenty of CO2 in it (assuming of course that there is enough yeast, priming sugar, and time for it to carbonate). The CO2 is created by the yeast and stays in solution to the equilibrium point with the air space. The CO2 is not all in the air space. Chilling the beer will indeed raise the CO2 content of the beer since it will be able to hold more CO2 but only by the relatively little amount present in the air space (and even then it won't be even all of that CO2 as once again equilibrium will be reached). The exact same thing stands for commercial bottle beers. Assuming that there is the same amount of CO2 in the bottle, a Sam Adams Lager at room temperature will have the same carbonation level as an as yet unrefrigerated homebrew clone at the same temperature.

What am I misunderstanding?

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I think you're underestimating how much CO2 can exist in the air-space. If I'm right then that space is where all the pressure on the bottle exists (I assume dissolved CO2 exerts negligible pressure). And whilst the equilibrium position might cause CO2 to dissolve under pressure even when warm, the minute you open the bottle that pressure is lost, and the 'excess' dissolved CO2 is free to fizz away immediately.
It's exactly the same as opening a warm coke: The second you twist the cap, there's a big hiss and loads of bubbles fizz out of the warm coke and it goes flat quickly.

If a batch has been in the fridge for weeks/months, can you still take it out, turn upside down to resuspend yeast and leave at room temperature for a week or two to increase ecarbonation?

Tiredboy said:

If a batch has been in the fridge for weeks/months, can you still take it out, turn upside down to resuspend yeast and leave at room temperature for a week or two to increase ecarbonation?

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Yes. then leave at room temp for another week before re-cooling. Yeast works much faster at room temp than it does in the fridge.