Screwed up bottling after 1.5 year primary

Yeah, I had an Irish Red in primary for 1.5 years and finally bottled it a little over two weeks ago.

It's been sitting in my basement at 60 Fahrenheit.

I cooled a bottle on Friday and cracked it open... no fizz, nothing. No carbonation whatsoever. Tasted it and BLECH. It was sweet as hell from the unfermented priming sugar and had no carbonation.

What should I do? What I'm thinking is:

Boil up about 1/4 cup of water, let cool to room temperature.

Add in a sprinkle of dry Nottingham yeast(because I have a packet sitting around... how much? I don't know. How can I save the rest of the yeast in a sanitary environment after opening the package?)

Use a pipette to put a drop or two of the yeast+water solution in each bottle(again, how much will I need?) and recap.

Any better ideas?

1.5 years in the primary??!! Wow, does the beer taste/smell like dirt? Any hints of Autolysis? I'd probably just sprinkle a couple of grains in to each bottle if I were to re-yeast. BUT, before doing that I'd give it a few more weeks to see if the yeast wake up, maybe warm up a few of the bottles and see if you get any dust collecting on the bottom of the bottles.

wyzazz said:

1.5 years in the primary??!! Wow, does the beer taste/smell like dirt? Any hints of Autolysis? I'd probably just sprinkle a couple of grains in to each bottle if I were to re-yeast. BUT, before doing that I'd give it a few more weeks to see if the yeast wake up, maybe warm up a few of the bottles and see if you get any dust collecting on the bottom of the bottles.

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Nope, tasted fine before I added the priming sugar otherwise I wouldn't have bothered

I'll bring the bottles out of the cellar and upstairs to where it's about 70 degrees, hopefully they wake up.

If it tasted fine before you bottled, I doubt the very small amount of priming sugar you added would make it taste "sweet as hell." I would give it more time (remember, those yeasties have been sleeping for a LONG time) at a higher temperature to see if they carb up (check again in three weeks). If there is still no carbonation, we will resort to other measures.

I'm really sensitive to sweet things, if I take a sample from the bottling bucket I always think it tastes sweet. But, everyone has a different palette. I'd hope that after a few weeks at 70 or above you get something, just remember that a lot of yeast has dropped out of solution and probably died after that amount of time.

bknifefight said:

If it tasted fine before you bottled, I doubt the very small amount of priming sugar you added would make it taste "sweet as hell." I would give it more time (remember, those yeasties have been sleeping for a LONG time) at a higher temperature to see if they carb up (check again in three weeks). If there is still no carbonation, we will resort to other measures.

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Maybe the priming sugar didn't get mixed and I got a bottle with a heavy concentration of it. I just racked from the primary into my bottling bucket on top of a simple syrup solution made from 4.5 oz of dextrose and like 2 cups of water; didn't stir or anything but I figured it'd be mixed by the racking. My hydrometer sample tasted fine and the beer I cracked open the other day was really absurdly sweet.

I never mix my priming sugar in with my beer. Just the process of siphoning the beer onto the sugar has never done me wrong with uneven carbonation. Either way, give it three more weeks in a warm area and see how it is then.

Thanks, I moved them up to my 70 degree upstairs, we'll see what that does. I tilted one of the bottles and it does have some sediment at the bottom, not sure if it's just dead yeast falling out of solution or if the yeast is actually getting active.

after 1.5 years, all the yeast would've fallen out of solution. now some coulda been sucked up when racking to the bottling bucket.

I think the yeast is all dead though, and that putting a couple grains of yeast into each bottle and re-capping and leaving for a month at 70F is probably the end-solution, but it sure won't hurt leaving them 3 weeks for now to see what happens. It might be a real testiment to yeast viability.

In the name of Zymurgy, you must let them sit for a few weeks.

If they aren't carbed in 2-3 weeks at 70F, then adding yeast is your best bet. You can store the open packet, but only for a few weeks, as the yeast is hygroscopic and will absorb moisture from the air, then die.

david_42 said:

If they aren't carbed in 2-3 weeks at 70F, then adding yeast is your best bet. You can store the open packet, but only for a few weeks, as the yeast is hygroscopic and will absorb moisture from the air, then die.

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Do I have to worry about sanitation or can I just put the packet in a ziploc in the fridge?

ashyg said:

Do I have to worry about sanitation or can I just put the packet in a ziploc in the fridge?

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Cut the corner off the sachet with sanitized scissors and just tap it on the neck of the bottle to get a grain or two of yeast in there. When you're done, fold that corner over a couple of times, then put the sachet in to a zip-lock freezer bag.