It didn't carb...can i keg it now?

Bottled a batch of "Bad Santa" ale 5 weeks ago. I tried one 2 weeks ago with not a single bottle hissing when opening. Gave it more time, and I am 0/3 today.

This is my 50th + bottle batch, and the first one that didn't carb. I did forget to put bottling sugar in when I did my transfer, but stopped 1/4 way through and put in the sugar (with some stirring) and then finished the transfer. OG was 1.085, FG 1.018. Storage temperature about 75 degrees.

It does taste pretty good flat, but won't get any fan points from the family most likely.

I did just get a new kegging set up and was thinking about doing a grand bottle opening, transferring, and then do a force carb.

Thoughts?

Do it...just purge the keg with C02 first and go for it...

Well- you risk oxidation... And contamination. You would want to sanitize the outside of all bottles... Maybe if you carefully syphon each bottle into the keg it'd be alright. Asorbic acid could help reduce the risk of oxidation.

It may be easiest/best to drop in a carb tablet and recap. Not saying you couldn't keg. Do what's easiest and how fast you'ld like some.

Thanks for the thoughts.

Ran some star san through a keg with CO2 and just "gently" dumped all 45 bottles in. There were 2 hisses out of the whole group that lasted longer than .1 second. My funnel was to big for the racking tubing.

Personally, I think it will be fine. I once had my kettle cooling in ice water, and at some point the ice melted, and the kettle sunk underneath the water. I bottled and drank it. It tasted like carbonated hop water...but it was drinkable.

If beer was ruined easily, then millenniums worth of people would not have developed such a love for it.

I will let you know how it tastes in a week.

CTR08 said:

Well- you risk oxidation... And contamination. You would want to sanitize the outside of all bottles... Maybe if you carefully syphon each bottle into the keg it'd be alright. Asorbic acid could help reduce the risk of oxidation.

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If you do what Jay said and transfer properly, you likely don't have to worry about any further oxidation.

Took my first pull tonight. Had to dump the first 12 + ounces due to trub, a little more than expected. I guess any carbonation sediment in the bottles put itself in the bottom of the keg.

I forced carbed at 30 for 48 hours and then left at 10 for 5 days. Had a little more carbonation at first than expected, but not over carbonated. I will leave it at 10 for future serving.

First pull had a smell of trub, but that cleared out. I would now say that the following pulls are just about perfectly carbonated. A tid-bit more prickly than I would like on mouth feel but no one else will notice. The vanilla and cherries come through strong with the cinnamon a little more in the back. Mouth feel has some slight carbonation, but maintains sweetness/smoothness.

Overall, I see no problems with the beer after transferring all 45+ bottles into the keg after one month of bottle conditioning with unintentional lack of carbonation. As always (especially with a OG >1.07 and multiple flavors) this beer will stand to age over the next several weeks.

The answer to my original question???? YES. Keg it. I will probably only bottle "Reserve" batches. I am officially a kegging convert.