Carbonation Question

Okay, so today I tasted the fruits of my labor, my first all grain batch. It's an Abby Dubbel, brewed 6 weeks ago. It spent 2 weeks in the primary, 2 weeks in the secondary and 2 weeks in the bottle. It was a 1 gallon batch and it was bottled with 24 grams of corn sugar which I had boiled in a small amount of water for 2 minutes and cooled to room temp before adding to the beer before bottling.

It tasted okay but there is very little carbonation after 2 weeks. Should I worry or will it continue to carbonate with time?

Set them in a warmer place. +70F give it more time.

Tam004 said:

It tasted okay but there is very little carbonation after 2 weeks. Should I worry or will it continue to carbonate with time?

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This makes sense to me why they're not carbed yet.

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."

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 foolproof 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.

ANd since your in a 65 degree place, you have to figure another extra week. So I wouldn't bother touching them for 2 more weeks.

Additionally I had a strong ale that took 6 months to carb. It's not too much of a surprise. The higher the grav the longer it takes, and your dubbel is a BIIIIG beer.

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

As a new brewer, it seems like I have not yet learned about patience. So I will try to sit tight and try another in 3 or 4 weeks. Is this a good plan or should I wait even longer?

Try in in 3-4 weeks. But again, don't stress if it's not ready.

In the future consider adding fresh yeast at bottling time, for big beers or beers that bulk aged for a long time, it's almost a necessity.

You'll have some carbonation by then, but it may get even better with age. I have a Tripel that took 3-4 months to strongly carbonate. Taste continues to get more refined and additional flavors are developing (I'm at 6 months now).

My advice is to try one or two as you move on, but save the bulk of the batch for consumption at 3-9 months. To tide you over, get another batch started that takes minimal time for peak flavor (like a wheat or mild/cream ale).

Those of us who started out wine making find it easier to have patience for beer brewing but even then, I find it hard not to want to get into a batch of beer early even knowing it will be better if I can just wait. LOL

I have 15 gallons of beer in kegs that I brewed in April/May that I know are ready but I don't have a kegerator set up yet. Thinking of just setting the keg in my Igloo cooler and dumping in ice and hooking up the thumb tap and CO2.

Gosh yes, grab a bag of ice, hook up a picnic tap, and invite all your friends!

[QUOTE="

In the future consider adding fresh yeast at bottling time, for big beers or beers that bulk aged for a long time, it's almost a necessity.[/QUOTE]

How much yeast would I need to add for a one gallon batch?

I'm experiencing this same phenomena as a second time beginning brewer.

I thought the techniques I used to make 5% beers in the eighties would surely make 9% beers in the oughties.

Primary for a month, bottle for four weeks, and drink....Not.

So I guess that I'm going to have to make some 5% beers to drink while I wait for next year so I can drink the beers I already made.

I'm going to go against the grain here, but I don't agree that all you need is more time.

You used 24 grams in one gallon of beer? That's less than an ounce. For a one gallon tripel, I'd use 1.25 ounces, perhaps a bit more, as I would use 5 ounces or a bit more for a 5 gallon batch. Why so little priming sugar?

Yooper said:

I'm going to go against the grain here, but I don't agree that all you need is more time.

You used 24 grams in one gallon of beer? That's less than an ounce. For a one gallon tripel, I'd use 1.25 ounces, perhaps a bit more, as I would use 5 ounces or a bit more for a 5 gallon batch. Why so little priming sugar?

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I used 24 grams because that's what Beersmith said to use after I scaled the recipe down from 5 to 1 gallon.

Tam004 said:

I used 24 grams because that's what Beersmith said to use after I scaled the recipe down from 5 to 1 gallon.

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Did you have the "temperature" set too low? It just seems like an exceedingly small amount of carbonation, particularly for a tripel. What volume of co2 does Beersmith show for 24 grams in the recipe?

Yooper said:

Did you have the "temperature" set too low? It just seems like an exceedingly small amount of carbonation, particularly for a tripel. What volume of co2 does Beersmith show for 24 grams in the recipe?

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BeerSmith shows volume of co2 as 2.3

Tam004 said:

BeerSmith shows volume of co2 as 2.3

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Ok, well it'll be a bit lower carbed than I would have done it. But some time will definitely help it, so I guess the only thing to do is wait it out after all!