The secret stash has lost carbonation

About six months ago I started saving a couple of beers from each of my batches. Since I keg, I filled up my bottles with BM's technique (we need no stinkin' beer gun). This method of filling bottles works great when the beer will be consumed within a week or so, but after six months, the carbonation levels in my secret stash has dropped alot.

How do you carbonate your bottles that will be set aside for aging?

By doing what non keggers do and actually bottle prime them naturally.

I've cracked 3 year old bottles and they still had full carbonation.

You mean with corn sugar, right? Any idea how much corn sugar for 24 oz?

mummasan said:

You mean with corn sugar, right? Any idea how much corn sugar for 24 oz?

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Hello, did u ever find outwhat to do?

No, but I'm sure I can figure it out. I'll probably end up making a fraction of the standard amount of priming sugar solution and then use a dropper to get a small portion of that into my bottles.

I'd think for only a couple bottles using Cooper's carb drops or those carbonation tabs might make more sense than fiddling with bits of sugar.

Carb drops are the way to go. Much easier than messing with a solution every time you want to fill a couple bottles.

I have year old Barleywines that are still carbed fine after bottling with a beer gun.

If the carbonation in a capped bottle is changing over time, that is due to the cap not being gas tight and nothing you do other than capping more securely is going to change that.

Right, I searched a little bit harder through some previous posts and it looks like the coopers carb tabs are going to be the easiest solution to my problem. My next trip to the LHBS will include a purchase of the carb tabs.

When it is time to rack to the keg, I'll just bottle a few 12 oz bottles ever time. I kinda didn't want to bottle some of every batch because, frankly, every batch isn't worth saving.

With my secret stash, I had poor carbonation in a beer that was aged four months in a flip top (Grolsch style) bottle. I had another that was aged for three months in a standard 12 oz bottle. Both were filled with BMBG set up. I might just be a crappy capper, but then it is hard to mess up the flip top style bottles. My thoughts are that BMBG set up is good to use when the beer will be consumed within two months of bottling, but longer than that, it might be good to allow the beer to carb naturally in the bottle.

Please explain how a beer that is carbonated can lose carbonation if it's sealed in an air tight container with minimal air space? It can't.

perhaps the beer was not carbed to start with? or the bottling process excited the co2 out of solution? i over carbed my 3 kegs for 24 hrs prior to filling a 12er of each. and i still ended up with a little lower carb level but i fill with a bottling wand shoved in the cobra tap and dispense just enough psi to get it out.