Carbonation issues?

I know.. i know.. wait 3 weeks. I didnt. I opened one at a week and a half, warm, and tried it. It was FLAT.

We carbonated a week and a half ago with carb tabs.

Rinsed the bottles with star san (new bottles), then put the beer in and the lids on.

Now, it wasnt cold, and it wasnt 3 weeks. Am i stuck with flat, but tasty beer?

Was it cold? Had you waited 3 weeks?
















Just messing with you, I'm sure it'll be fine, patience is the key young padawan

no. was warm at 1.5 weeks. so all is not lost?

Khyber said:

so all is not lost?

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No. I've never used them, but I've heard that carb tabs can take a bit longer than corn sugar. Either way, your looking at another week and a half minimum here. Just make sure the temp is 70+ and give it time.

And when you're going to try one, put it in the fridge and wait at least 24 hours. Popping one open at room temp won't tell you much about how it really is other than that there's enough CO2 to make it go *pssst*.

When you chill the beer, it absorbs the CO2 from the headspace. When it's warm, you just let that out when you open the bottle so it's not a good representation of how the beer is going to be.

Unless you usually drink them at room temp...

the process of carbonation requires the little yeasties to ferment the sugar you added at the time of bottling. 1.5 weeks is not enough. Wait until the yeast have had the chance to do their job then try again.

Did you have any kind of "pop" or "psshhht" when you opened the cap?

yes, there was a slight "psst".

Khyber said:

yes, there was a slight "psst".

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Then you should be fine. Give it a few more weeks and chill one overnight to see how it's coming along. Carbonation time can vary quite a bit depending on gravity, yeast viability, temperature, etc.

Carbonation has frustrated me as well, 3 1/2 weeks and only a slight pssst! i have rolled the bottles placed them in a warmer spot, put them in the fridge for 48 hours prior to opening...etc. little frustrating i'm not a big flat beer drinker.

Beer is a basic Irish red, og 1.040 fg 1.010 bottled using pre packaged bottling suger that came with the Midwest Kit????

Followup - three + weeks later, beer is still very flat.

Bottling process - both a)new and b)cleaned in diswasher bottles (used both types, including some Land Shark Lager and Corona bottles) - rinsed with starsan and left to drain right before bottling, then 4 carb tabs/bottle - then racked into bottles with wand, then capped with clean caps soaked in starsan for 5 mins before capping.

help?

I am in a similar boat as you, but I used priming suger...three weeks later no carbonation, none whatsoever..

I am going to try different bottles tonight that were bottled first to see if that makes a difference...we shall see

Guys, guys, guys...

When we say 3 weeks at 70 degrees, we say that that's usually the average minimum time it's going to take.

If if bottles aren't ready by then, then you just gotta wait some more.

I've had beers that have taken 6-8 weeks before they were all carbed up. My Belgian strong took 3 months.

It really is not a matter of need to do anything but wait. You don't have to stir the priming sugar, the solution will integrate itself quite fine as you rack on top of it.......You just have to have patience.

ALL beers will reach their level of carbonation eventually. In fact, it's possible (and proven by running the numbers in beersmith) to NOT add priming sugar and get minimal carbonation/style of a few volumes in time (in old brewing british brewing books they didn't add sugar to some ordinary bitters, and milds and relied on time and temp to do the work naturally.)

More info can be found here....Revvy's Blog, Of Patience and Bottle Conditioning.

But it all usually really boils down to the fact that, if not all bottles are carbed, then the batch isn't really ready yet....and will be...

ok.. revvy.. you're the man.. i know.. patience.. virtues.. etc.

working on putting my next brew together.. and i'll drink it flat while i rdwhahb.

revvy is totally right, but did you have any issues with getting caps on properly to corona bottles? i thought maybe they had that skinny lip on them that can make seating caps difficult... but that was just from looking at them, i've not actually used them.

The corona bottles seemed to cap up just fine. We still don't have much carbonation in our bottles, but next time we'll use an extra carb tab and see how it goes. The next beer is an Oatmeal Stout.

The beer was great.. even flat it was really really good.

We will bottle the Stout this week, and we just made a BM's Centennial Blonde (that i steeped a little honey wheat in) for a party that I plan to Keg.