NOT an "OMG my beer's ruined!!!" thread, just recarb question

Hello everyone at HBT. I've been lurking for a couple months now, absorbing all sorts of wisdom from the sages on this forum

Here's my issue. I brewed a porter, a kit from my LHBS. Boiled fine (maybe a bit low volume), aerated fine, pitched fine, very strong fermentation @ ~72F, primary for 1 week, racked okish (had to restart siphon 4 or 5 times lol), 2 weeks in secondary, looked great, FG was good (don't have the numbers in front of me), tasted what I can only guess is "green" because the word I used was "weird." Bottling went good but i'm going to tweak the process for the next time: soaked all bottles in bleach water for 20 min, then rinsed w/hot water using bottle washer, put in dishwasher to dry overnight, ran heat dry cycle. Ran it twice b/c there was still a little wator vapor in most of the bottles in the morning. 3/4 cup dextrose into 2 cups water, boiled, cooled, racked onto that from secondary. Everything else went smoothly, using the bucket-over-dishwasher-with-bottling-wand-on-spigot method that I've seen detailed and praised here (bought new bottling wand tho, the one I had leaked like an S.O.B.). Had caps in diluted bleach-water solution, shook them off one at a time for capping. Caps looked weird after I put them on, didn't think anything of it at the time. Bottled all 22oz + 2x12oz (to test carbonation, but recently read that the 22oz will carbonate more quickly?). Let them sit in the dark at room temp (70-74 F) for 2 weeks, put one 12oz in the fridge for a day to chill.

Popped the cap, barely audible pffff (def. not pfft), almost no carbonation, sour flavor. Obviously disappointed, but didn't resort to rash measures (i.e. dumping entire batch). Examined every bottle, found 3 with a light ring around the waterline in the neck, but after reading a thread mentioning that the krausening of the yeast during carbonation can produce this, I am thinking it was probably that.

Last night I was fiddling around with something and I noticed that there was actually a bottle cap stuck in my capper! (D'oh!) Took a hammer, nail, and plyers to get it out. Tested it on one already-capped bottle, had a good 1/4 length of throw left on the arms.

To me, this means that none of my bottles got properly capped, thus my carbonation issues. Every bottle has a layer of sediment, which to me means that the little yeasties upheld their end of the bargain.

So my question: Do I put 1/4 tsp dextrose in each bottle and recap? Or do I put 3-4 grains of dry yeast in each bottle and recap? I'm still undecided on the sour flavor, since I've read inconclusive posts to either side stating it's undermatured or infected, but I'd love to give this beer a chance to work through it.

Thanks guys!

Jakemo said:

Bottled all 22oz + 2x12oz (to test carbonation, but recently read that the 22oz will carbonate more quickly?). Let them sit in the dark at room temp (70-74 F) for 2 weeks, put one 12oz in the fridge for a day to chill.

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Where the heck did you hear THIS nonsense, just the opposite is the case....bigger bottles need more time.

A larger volume sized bottle usually needs more time to carb AND condition. I have some pints, 22 oz bombers and other sizes that I often use, but since I enter contests I usually also do a sixer or two of standard 12 ouncers for entering. And inevitably the 12 ouncers are done at least a week faster than the larger bottles....some times two weeks ahead of time...

Also the rule of thumb is 3 weeks at 70 degrees for a normal grav 12 ounce bottle....to carb and condition....It takes longer for the yeasties to convert the larger volume in the bigger bottles to enough co2 in the headspace to be reabsorbed back into the solution...A ration I don't know how much...

Big Kahuna gives a good explanation here...

BigKahuna said:

Simple. It's the ration of contact area just like in a keg. The c02 will need to pressurize the head space (Which takes LESS TIME) in a bigger bottle (More Yeast and sugar, roughly the same head space) but then it has to force that c02 into solution through the same contact area...thus it takes longer.

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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."

Give them at least another week....but realize it could be more.

Before you think about re-carbing make sure they won't carb on their own in the correct timeframe first.

Otherwise Bottle Bombs.

FYI, it would help us if you would hit the enter key a few times quicker than you do. You put a lot of info into huge blocks of texts, and it's hard to pull out details.

White space is a good space for us with tired eyes.

Thanks.

Thanks, Revvy. Somehow or another, I figured you'd be the first to reply.

I have a nasty habit of rambling, I'll definitely get that under control for future posts

Even though the caps were clearly not crimped all the way, you don't think it is/will be an issue? How about just running through and finishing the crimp on all the bottles?

I have to chuckle at myself, since I feel like I've tried so hard to be "patient," but am still falling victim to the anxious nature that is so characteristic of "green" homebrewers

Thanks Revvy!

If you think you need to I would run your crimper over your caps again. But I wouldn't add sugar until your yeast eats the sugar already in your bottles.

Following up... after 5 weeks in the bottle, the beer is so sour and acidic that it's undrinkable. However, it is carbonated. So on one hand, all I needed to do was wait a little longer for the carbonation, which was my original question. On the other hand, an entirely different issue took over.

I did notice at the first taste that it was sour, but I have no idea where it came from. My next batch doesn't have any off flavors at all, so whatever I did wrong, I must not have done it again. Cheers!