Filtered Summer Ale carb issue

Hey there! I'm a long-time lurker, first-time poster looking for thoughts/advice:

Brewed a light summer ale last month and it's been bottle conditioning for about three-four weeks now. I've checked it a few times. First after about a week and a half then at two and a half weeks...very little to no carbonation despite proper amounts of priming sugar and temps of 70+ degrees.

A little backstory: When it was fermenting there was some overly vigorous crazy yeast cottage cheese nasty action going on, and the yeast rafts didn't really settle. So I transferred to a priming bucket and filtered the beer through a tight mesh bag to try to capture any larger chunks of nasty from getting in to the priming bucket. Worked pretty well. But my concern is I perhaps didn't get enough suspended yeast in the bottle to fully carbonate the little bastards.

After 3 weeks with pretty much nothing carb-wise, I gently agitated the bottles to get the yeast back in suspension and let them sit another week or so, since that worked for a previous batch of under-carbed red ale. But it's been about a month now and still not much.

The brew itself taste good. Very drinkable. Just not remotely carbed enough to my liking for a lighter beer.

Any thoughts/suggestions would be great. This is my tenth batch, and I've managed to salvage a few others batches that wonked out (thanks to the awesome advice on this forum). Fortunately, I haven't had too many serious issues yet.

Thanks!

Before Revvy gets to this one, 3 weeks is Generally the Minimum time it takes. heavier beers take longer and he had one that took 3 months to carb. to filter yeast you need to filter through a 1 micron filter. Doubtful your mesh bag took enough out of suspension. Give it more time. It will carb. Beer is magical and will work through a lot of its own issues.

What was the OG/FG of the beer btw?

What amount and type of priming sugar for what size batch?

Xalwine said:

3 weeks is the Minimum time it takesb.

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No, but it's a good rule of thumb to keep people from freaking out.

In addition to what BrewThruYou asked, how did you mix the beer with the priming sugar?

Xalwine said:

3 weeks is Generally the Minimum time it takes.

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better? plus letting it sit longer improves the flavor and stops you from drinking something too green.

Xalwine said:

better? plus letting it sit longer improves the flavor and stops you from drinking something too green.

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better.

But add a "generally" to the next statement as well.

PVH said:

better.

But add a "generally" to the next statement as well.

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you're too much!

It usually only takes a couple of days for active yeast to totally consume a priming and produce the CO2 for a moderate FG brew, but it takes a good couple of weeks under appropriate conditions for the beer to absorb that CO2, as initially it's all sitting in the head space. After 3 weeks plus a few days of chilling doesn't result in at least a modestly carbed brew, I'd definitely be scratching my head - because that definitely wouldn't be "normal" to me.

I'd ask how much head space was provided in the bottles? If filled within just millimeters of the cap, that can cause problems with bottle carbing. A half inch is my minimum, but I usually left closer to an inch of head space. Never had a batch fail to carb...

Cheers!

Is it possible you added a lot of oxygen by running the beer through a filter? I'm not sure how that would affect carbonation, though.

Ahh... I've seen this before - very simple solution. What you are experiencing is the hobby's way of telling you, "its time to start kegging!". Get a setup, open the bottles, dump them in a keg, and in less than a week, you'll be drinking properly carb'd brew.

Seriously though, when I was bottling MANY years ago, it never took more than a week or two to get a noticeable carb. It can take longer though, so I guess just let it sit. The only time I had any issues was the first and only time using new "flippers" that the tops didn't seal well.

Slipgate said:

Ahh... I've seen this before - very simple solution. What you are experiencing is the hobby's way of telling you, "its time to start kegging!". Get a setup, open the bottles, dump them in a keg, and in less than a week, you'll be drinking properly carb'd brew.

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+1 I haven't bottled since i went all grain. much less of a hassle.

BrewThruYou said:

What amount and type of priming sugar for what size batch?

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OG was approx .035 ish? (off the top of my head). FG was around .008

Used 3/4 cup corn sugar to prime a 5 gal batch, boiled the sugar for a few minutes in 2 cups (ish) water, let cool, then poured into bottling bucket and racked onto the solution.

I usually get some decent carb after two weeks with lighter beers, so I'm surprised it's so weak after about a month. I've tried to sample bottles from different "areas" of the batch - stuff that was bottled early on vs the tail end - and everything seems to be the same carb-wise. pretty weak.

I *have* had issues with a few batches where half of the batch was more carbed than the other, but only with a few, and I don't think that's quite what's happening here.

Head space in bottles is about an inch to a inch and 1/2.

I've got other brews in drink-ready status and another that's almost bottle-ready, so I can let these sit for few more weeks to let the magic happen. Figured I'd just bring the situation up here out of curiousity to see what folks had to say.

Thanks for weighing in guys!

Slipgate said:

Ahh... I've seen this before - very simple solution. What you are experiencing is the hobby's way of telling you, "its time to start kegging!". Get a setup, open the bottles, dump them in a keg, and in less than a week, you'll be drinking properly carb'd brew.

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Heh, I've been interested in exploring kegging. May take the plunge on a small scale to start soon. Probably will let this batch sit a bit, but I'm definitely scoping out smaller setups.

Cheers!