No Carbontion, yeast dead?

So I did a chamomile wheat, and it tasted fine but it's been 4 weeks and no carbonation. After 3 weeks I gave all the bottles a shake and turned them upside down and put them in a warmer spot. They've been left at about 70-75 the whole time. Then I opened one the other day and still no carbonation but a yeast residue in the bottle that was a tan color and I could even make out a yeast grain. Is the yeast dead? Could I open them and drop a single grain of dry yeast in and then recap? The beer tastes slightly sweet, but the gravity was low and the fermentation done when I bottled.

That is strange! If you did remember to prime (not insulting your intelligence, it has just happened before!) and you are sure no carbonation is forming, then your plan sounds good. I would add a few grains of dry yeast to each bottle and recap.

Germelli1 said:

That is strange! If you did remember to prime (not insulting your intelligence, it has just happened before!) and you are sure no carbonation is forming, then your plan sounds good. I would add a few grains of dry yeast to each bottle and recap.

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Cool. Yeah I remembered to prime because iinitially forgot and filled like 20 bottles before I saw the sugar solution I made up, 4 oz of corn sugar and a cup of water on the stove still so I had to empty all the bottles and redo it.

Any other thoughts folks?

4 weeks and not pop, sweet taste of the priming sugar in there means you definitely got it in there. Sounds like you were a bit unorganised at bottling (forgetting the sugar, done it a lot usually the cause is the beer being consumed, having friends there to help etc etc) Could you have added the sugar while it was too hot, killing the yeast?

I would go with the dry yeast addition (it sort of like krausening with out a starter?!?). You probably don't have enough head space in the bottle to actually krausen which is the other way to get yeast into the bottle. I would not be tempted to empty the bottles out back to the bottling bucket as there would be too much O2 contact with the beer and it would skunk.

Crack out a magnifier and razor blade to make up 50+ piles of yeast or if you don't have time to do all of them try an experiment on one or two bottles it will soon show you if it works.

Clem

Thanks Clem. I'll try it out.

McBrewskie said:

Thanks Clem. I'll try it out.

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This has happened to me a couple of times. At 3 weeks no carbonation. However, after 6 weeks carbonation was near normal. I put it down to the yeast. I had waited a couple of days longer than normal prior to bottling and I was using a yeast that vas highly floculant so vary few live yeast cells were still in suspension at bottling time. However, few does not mean zero, so eventually the beer did carbonate. My advise is to shake and wait. Your beer is safe since it has already fermented.

RavenChief said:

This has happened to me a couple of times. At 3 weeks no carbonation. However, after 6 weeks carbonation was near normal. I put it down to the yeast. I had waited a couple of days longer than normal prior to bottling and I was using a yeast that vas highly floculant so vary few live yeast cells were still in suspension at bottling time. However, few does not mean zero, so eventually the beer did carbonate. My advise is to shake and wait. Your beer is safe since it has already fermented.

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Cool. Yeah no change in last 2 weeks. I'll update if I add a yeast grain or just wait it out.

McBrewskie said:

Cool. Yeah no change in last 2 weeks. I'll update if I add a yeast grain or just wait it out.

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Well, It's been a few weeks. Any carbonation?