Bottled beer not carbonated

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Milan

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Need some expert advice here on my latest homebrew. Its a double IPA, about 8% ABV but since I racked the beer in a secondary prior to bottling with corn sugar, I suspect there was not enough yeast left in the secondary to get the bottles carbonated. Its been about 10 days not and the beer is sweet and flat. I used WLP 001 ale yeast originally so was thinking about opening the bottles and adding a few drops of yeast in each bottle. Is this a bad idea? Am I going to create bottle bombs? I am sure some of you must have had some experience with this. Thanks in advance!
 
10 days isn't very long, especially for a 10% abv beer. I would wait a couple more weeks and then consider adding yeast.
 
Leave it ALONE, at ~70F for a month or three and then check on it. 10 days, for an 8% ABV brew is not even close to enough time to carbonate/condition. You're probably looking at a minimum of 4-6 weeks before it's either starting to carbonate or (if you're really lucky) be carbonated.

Revvy has a great graphic on how higher ABV brews take longer to carbonate.

There are a couple of ways you could have helped it along BEFORE you bottled it. Now that it's bottled, your best bet is to leave it the hell alone.
 
carlisle_bob said:
Hi

While waiting, read up on kegging and force carbonating ...

Bob
Click to expand...

That's not always viable for people.

It took me over a year of brewing before I dove into kegging. I'm glad I did since it's far easier to deal with over, or under carbonation. You can still have frustrating issues, such as gas (or beer) leaks. Gas leaks are not as bad as losing all your keg due to a leak.

Still, there's very little as enjoyable as being able to pull a pint (or any amount really) of a tasty brew off of tap. I'm seriously thinking about adding a nitro/stout tap to my setup before the end of the year (after I move in a month or two).
 
Milan said:
Its been about 10 days not and the beer is sweet and flat. \
Click to expand...

That's ALL we needed to know. he 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.

And just because a beer is carbed doesn't mean it still doesn't taste like a$$ and need more time for the off flavors to condition out.

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

Even after secondary there is still million and millions of yeast cells in solution, plenty to do the job, when the time is right.
 
Hey Revvy, post up the chart you have showing OG to carbonating time relationship. :D :mug::fro:

BTW, my brew buddy has a batch that took about six months to bottle carbonate, but it eventually did... Time is your best ally in these cases. :D
 
I'm in a similar situation as the OP. Brewed an AG IIPA (~8.7%), used WLP007, cold crashed before bottling, and did add the usual priming sugar. It has been in bottles at room temp (~75F) for 4 weeks now. It tastes good, but it is flat. I kegged and force-carb'd a portion of this same batch, and it turned out amazing.

I'm considering 2 options:

1 - Take all of the bottles, open them, siphon them into a keg (cleaned and sanitized of course) quietly (so as to limit the exposure to oxygen), add some leaf hops in a hop bag in the keg (thinking it would guard against potential infections), purge the keg's headspace with CO2, and then get the force-carb in motion.

2 - Slightly agitate the bottles to get the yeasty sediment back in suspension, and let sit at room temp for a few more weeks.

It seems the consensus is to take the route of option #2, which is what I'll try. If it doesn't work, I can go with option #1. Any thoughts on doing #1?

Thanks in advance for any insight.
Save the beer! :rockin:
 
Silentnoiz said:
I'm in a similar situation as the OP. Brewed an AG IIPA (~8.7%), used WLP007, cold crashed before bottling, and did add the usual priming sugar. It has been in bottles at room temp (~75F) for 4 weeks now. It tastes good, but it is flat. I kegged and force-carb'd a portion of this same batch, and it turned out amazing.

I'm considering 2 options:

1 - Take all of the bottles, open them, siphon them into a keg (cleaned and sanitized of course) quietly (so as to limit the exposure to oxygen), add some leaf hops in a hop bag in the keg (thinking it would guard against potential infections), purge the keg's headspace with CO2, and then get the force-carb in motion.

2 - Slightly agitate the bottles to get the yeasty sediment back in suspension, and let sit at room temp for a few more weeks.

It seems the consensus is to take the route of option #2, which is what I'll try. If it doesn't work, I can go with option #1. Any thoughts on doing #1?

Thanks in advance for any insight.
Save the beer! :rockin:
Click to expand...

People will tell you not to do it and that you will ruin your beer. I had a DIPA that was flat as beer can be after 8 -10 weeks in the bottle. All I can think is that I forgot to prime, although I can swear I remember doing so. Anyway, I was unwilling to wait any longer for a beer that I think is best fresh so I emptied all that I had left (we had gone through a few taste tests between weeks three and ten) into a sanitized keg, force carbonated it and we drank it. I do not doubt that it is possible to oxidize beer and have it taste like cardboard, but this beer tasted great and the keg was gone in less than 10 days. I would do it again with that style beer.
 
Bump. Dirty, how did you get the beer into the keg? Siphon each bottle or shoot some CO2 in and pour? I've got some bottled APA that's flat as a board after 3+ weeks. You can sense a little carbonation if you're really looking for it, but that's it. I can't imagine it making much improvement with age.
 
I've noticed beer that I don't rack (from primary to bottling) carbonate in 7-10 days. Beers that I rack take at LEAST two weeks, sometime more. I would assume this is due to more yeast being around in the non-racked beer.
 

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