Second chance

I have a question I think I know the answer to, but have to ask. I brewed a batch of an Oberon clone. Being fairly new I did not realize that wheat DME does not have a lot of fermentable sugar. Still ended up at 3.85%. The problem is that I forgot to add bottling sugar when I bottled it. 4 weeks later it's still flat.

The question is, can I still add sugar? Does anyone have some good suggestions for how I could manage this? Or am I just screwed?

I'd thought about very carefully uncapping the bottles and gently pouring the beer into the bottling bucket, then add the sugar.

I say: open prime recap.

recomendations:
avoid pouring the beer on the bucket, oxidation is my concern for not doing that.
Be carefull with sanitation: whipe every bottle with a cloth with sanitizer solution. recap ASAP.
use a measuring spoon that gives you the correct amount OR use concentrated sugar syrup (know concentration of course) and use a steryl syringe to put the volume in each bottle.

good luck!

Pick up some carbtabs at your LHBS

Mr_Turtlehead said:

Pick up some carbtabs at your LHBS

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Yeah . . . get some of those . . . open the bottle, drop it in, and recap. Wait a few weeks, and hope your yeasties are still alive in the bottle - they should be.

Something like this . . . from here.

yeah i say go with the carb drop thingies...i feel for you though that really sucks!

in dave miller's 'guide to homebrew' book under the chapter on identifying problems he gives possible solutions, and under 'flat beer' one listed cause is forgetting to prime, and his solution is 'get some sleep'...i always thought that was funny...good luck...im sure it will be fine, eventually...the good thing is that after you go through the pain-in-the-butt procedure of re-priming each individual beer , im sure youll never forget to prime again, and/or youll buy a keg system.
cheers...

just drink it....can't be that bad

If you don't have carb drops, boil your priming sugar in 1 cup of water and let cool. Uncap a bottle, add one teaspoonful, re-cap. Do them one at a time to reduce the chances of contamination. Anything with much wheat in it needs the bubbles.

david_42 said:

Anything with much wheat in it needs the bubbles.

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yeah, i agree with that.... forgot it was a wheat by the time i posted to just drink it....

make sure you keep the beer out of the fridge when added the sugar or tabs. otherwise the yeast will be dormant.

Don't have the beer in the fridge yet, so no worries there.

Thanks everone. I'll give it a try.