2 Weeks: Some bottles carbonated, some not

My (first batch) Irish Stout has been in bottles for 2 weeks. Last week (at the 1 week mark) I couldn't resist and broke into two bottles. They were carbonated, maybe a little too much, but I was excited that I at least had carbonation. This week, I broke in to another two bottles, they were NOT carbonated hardly at all, as in, no head, just a slight noticeable effect on the tongue.

When I bottled, I put my priming solution (boiled & cooled sugar and water) into my bottling bucked and racked the beer on top of it. It had sort of a mini-whirlpool action going on because of how the siphon tube was on the side of the bucket, which I thought would have assisted in mixing properly.

So, did my priming solution just not mix thoroughly when I racked it? Should I have given it a gentle stir before bottling it?

Check out this link for bottling tips. I usually just rack onto my priming sugar and make sure that it has that whirlpool.

Bottling Tips Sticky

Yea, I read that before posting, but I didn't see anything that addressed the lack of carbonation in some bottles. Does anyone give it a little stir in addition to a mini "whirlpool" from racking? Maybe I should have let the beer sit with the priming solution in it awhile longer before starting to bottle? Just looking for tips specific to this symptom for my next batch.

If the young beer was thoroughly mixed with the priming sugar before bottling, random uncarbonated bottles may simply have poorly sealed caps...

Cheers!

I used to stir with my racking cane after adding sugar and racking the beer on top. Occasionally I would get uneven carb levels as you described. I just accepted it for what it was. I once had a awesome brown that was completely flat, I never figured out where the sugar went. Like it or not it is an imprecise science.

Our of curiosity, are the bottles stacked up with some on the floor and some on top? The floor can be cold and those bottles will carb slower.

If they're side by side, then some may have gotten more of the priming solution than others. Or as said, you might have a few leaky caps.

ChshreCat said:

Our of curiosity, are the bottles stacked up with some on the floor and some on top? The floor can be cold and those bottles will carb slower.

If they're side by side, then some may have gotten more of the priming solution than others. Or as said, you might have a few leaky caps.

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Interesting idea. I had 2 cases of bottles and had about 3 extra bottles. I put the 48 bottles back into their respective cases and stacked the boxes in the closet. The extra 3 bottles I left outside the boxes on the floor next to them. The two bottles that were carbonated were outside the cardboard box. The two bottles that were under carbonated were inside the box.

I wonder if I should unpack them all and let them sit another week on the floor and see what happens. The closet is one of the cooler rooms in the house, but probably only 70-72 or so.

Whenever someone says they have inconsistant carbonation it's really that you don't have a carbonation problem, you just have a patience one.

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.

And just because a beer is carbed doesn't mean it still doesn't taste like a$$ and need more time for the off flavors to condition out. You have green beer.

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."

You may have just caught the beers as they were individually starting to pop, and happened to have grabbed the first ones that actually did carb, and assumed the rest already did, when they hadn't yet.

Inconsistant carbonation, usually simply means that they are not ready yet. If you had opened them a week later, or even two, you never would have noticed. Each one is it's own little microcosm, and although generally the should come up at the same time, it's not an automatic switch, and they all pop on.

Like Chesire asked.

ChshreCat said:

Our of curiosity, are the bottles stacked up with some on the floor and some on top? The floor can be cold and those bottles will carb slower.

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A tiny difference in temps between bottles in storage can affect the yeasties, speed them up or slow them down. Like if you store them in a closet against a warm wall, the beers closest to the heat source may be a tad warmer than those further way, so thy may carb/condition at slightly different rates. I usually store a batch in 2 seperate locations in my loft 1 case in my bedroom which is a little warmer, and the other in the closet in the lving room, which being in a larger space is a tad cooler, at least according to the thermostat next to that closet. It can be 5-10 degrees warmer in my bedroom. So I usually start with that case at three weeks. Giving the other half a little more time.

Bottom line, it's not that the sugar's not mixed, it's just that they all haven't come up to full carb yet....Three weeks is not the magic number for finality, it's the minimum time it takes....

Pull them out of the fridge, give them a little shake to kick the yeast up, and make sure they're above 70 for a couple more weeks.

If you've boiled priming solution and are adding it to the bucket while racking the beer over, it really mixes itself better than most new brewers think it does. It's not like mixing oil and water, you're really mixing two very similar densities that want to go together.

We talk about this at least once a week on here, here's part of a discussion from before the holiday;

Stauffbier said:

Regarding the "stir" debate...

I did a little experiment about a year ago. You can try this too.

Take a cup of water and add your favorite color of food coloring to it. Add a lot of food coloring so that the color is nice and dark. Dump it in a bucket. Rack 5 gallons of clear water from another bucket on top of the colored water with a siphon. This imitates racking beer onto priming sugar. You'll notice that the cup of colored water mixes in with the 5 gallons of clear water very nicely. Give it a try!

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Yup. I don't know why this is so hard for people to grasp.... One of these days I'm actually going to brew an extremely light beer, like a kolsch and tint my priming sugar solution, and get the clearest bucket I can find to use as a bottling bucket, maybe one of those plastic containers from a restaurant supply store, and put 2 or three cameras on the damn thing to have three different angles, and record it mixing, and finally put this damn myth to rest.

It's one thing to be dropping dry sugar into the bucket, and another to be mingling two liquids of nearly the same density.

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Just ignore the bottles for a minimum of 3-4 weeks, let them do their thing, and more than likely you'll be perfectly fine.

Thanks a bunch for the advice fellas. I was going by Midwest's instructions that say they should be ready within 1-2 weeks after bottling. I am learning something new EVERY DAY as this is my first batch and sometimes I am learning things the hard way. I appreciate the patience everyone (well....most everyone ) on this website exhibits for us newbies. I will continue to exercise patience and just wait another few weeks before cracking into any more bottles. The problem is I am running out of store bought beer and don't want to buy any more! Gotta get my production line going!

USMCPayne said:

Thanks a bunch for the advice fellas. I was going by Midwest's instructions that say they should be ready within 1-2 weeks after bottling.

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That's why there's a ton of threads with titles like "Ignore the instructions" or "Why kit instructions suck." And it's usually because the simple set an unrealistic timeframe for most processes.

USMCPayne said:

Interesting idea. I had 2 cases of bottles and had about 3 extra bottles. I put the 48 bottles back into their respective cases and stacked the boxes in the closet. The extra 3 bottles I left outside the boxes on the floor next to them. The two bottles that were carbonated were outside the cardboard box. The two bottles that were under carbonated were inside the box.

I wonder if I should unpack them all and let them sit another week on the floor and see what happens. The closet is one of the cooler rooms in the house, but probably only 70-72 or so.

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That sounds like exactly it. If the closet is 70-72, then it's just fine for carbonating your beer in. Just leave it alone and give it time like Revvy says.

The ones that were warmer would carbonate faster, but fast isn't always best so don't go heating all of 'em up to try to rush 'em along.