Carbonation problems

Hi all,

I recently tried brewing an imperial stout for the first time, and I am having issues with it carbonating in the bottles. This is the highest gravity beer I have brewed, and I made sure to make what I thought was a pretty good-sized yeast starter (1500 mL of water, 1 cup of light DME, and a packet of Wylabs 1056). It got through primary and secondary just fine (as it came fairly close to the target final gravity), but after 3.5 weeks in the bottles, it just hasn't carbonated. Of course I added priming sugar at bottling, and racked on top of it into my bottling vessel as to mix it well. Does anyone have any suspicions of something obvious I may have done wrong? Thanks!

I'm having the same issue. I brewed an Imperial back in June, bottled it in August and still, there is almost no carbonation. I read somewhere that they can take a LONG time to carbonate.

I open up one a week just to see if there has been any progress. At most, I have about a 1/8th inch of head that dissipates in about a minute.

Well I guess I'm glad I'm not the only one haha. I was planning on not touching it until after the first of the year, but after what you said, I may wait longer!

What temp are you carbing at?

67-69f

Is there any carbonation at all? Bump it up to 73F, give or take.. if you can.

There is a bit of carb, but not a lot. I bumped up the thermostat a little, so I'll see what that does after a few weeks. Thanks!

Also, rouse the yeast in the bottles after you get the temp up. If you aren't already, store them up high on a top shelf of a closet or something (since heat rises). Bottles in my closet on the top shelf carb in 3 weeks, bottles on the floor of my back bedroom take 5 weeks... Good luck!

Ah thanks for the tip, they are on the floor right now...I've gently shaken them a couple of times to get the yeast back into suspension, and I can tell it is doing some work as the last couple I have tried have gotten progressively less sweet. I guess I should just be patient at this point.

For a big beer, 3 weeks is not long. I've gone 6 months before getting a decent carbonation in some bigger beers.

I popped a 6 week Barleywine (13%) two days ago and got a few bubbles. I might try another one on New Years.

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.

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.


Temp and gravity are the two factors that contribute to the time it takes to carb beer. But if a beer's not ready yet, or seems low carbed, and you added the right amount of sugar to it, then it's not stalled, it's just not time yet.

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

Lazy Llama came up with a handy dandy chart to determine how long something takes in brewing, whether it's fermentation, carbonation, bottle conditioning....



If a beer isn't carbed by "x number of weeks" you just have to give them more time. If you added your sugar, then the beer will carb up eventually, it's really a foolroof process. All beers will carb up eventually. A lot of new brewers think they have to "troubleshoot" a bottling issue, when there really is none, the beer knows how to carb itself. In fact if you run beersmiths carbing calculator, some lower grav beers don't even require additional sugar to reach their minimum level of carbonation. Just time.

Ok that makes me feel better then...this one had an OG of 1.114 and it came in at 11%, so it's pretty big.

Rousing has helped me before. Pretend you are tending bottles of champagne in your cave, and rouse them once a week or so. You probably are going to need more time.

Ok, thanks! I've been trying to rouse them about once a week, so I'll continue to do so.