Bottles have no carbonation after being in bottles for 6 weeks..

Well, i bottled this brew about 6 weeks ago and i have no carbonation.. Any advice or what to do to make this brew stay out of the john crappa?
Thanks for your time..
Dave

Hmmm. That's strange. I assume you're keeping them at at least 70 degrees?

what did you use to prime? how much?

@yooper.. yes to be exact they are staying around 68 - 70 degrees no changes from what i know.....

@Chem.. We used a kit seeing it was our 2nd time brewing.. The priming sugar we used was LD carlson from what i can recall..

The beer tastes like poo right now.. lol

Put the bottles on their sides in a nice warm room with no sunlight, and give them a sharp twist 2 - 4 times a day. Sometimes bigger beers take a while to prime, what was the OG?

The OG was 1.060.. Is it possible that the yeast kick the can!.. lol

sorry chem i did not answer your Q fully... the directions instructed us to boil the priming sugar in 1 cup of water.. to dissolve it i would assume.. it instructed us to use 5oz.. sigh!

It sounds like you did everything correctly. Five ounces is pretty standard for a lot of the kits.

Is there even a little "pssst" when you open the bottle?

I can try another one but the one i opened tonight had no "psst" at all.... we let it sit in the primary fermenter for 6 weeks prior to bottling.. now like i have said it has been in a bottle for about 6 weeks also.. so now 12weeks in the making.. lol.. i do apologize if my typing is horrible tonight i have had a home brew plus some Stone 13 anniversary.. lol.. i have checked another one and a very little "psst"...

You mixed up your priming sugar very well right before bottling, right? What kind of bottles/caps are you using (smooth lip or twist off bottles)? Maybe there are some other bottles that got the majority of the priming sugars , and they're all hyped up?

well we used the same process that we have used in the past. boil water add sugar put in half of the sugar into bottling bucket. Add half of the beer and about half way add the second half of priming sugar. when i tested the bottles lastnight i grabbed on from the front and the back the one from the front gave me the slight hiss but i needed to have my ear next to it to hear it. The bottles that we are using are the smooth top bottles (pry off caps)..

Do you have a dusting of yeast sediment on the bottom?

How did you cap? I wonder if the caps are leaking.

Could you describe the flavor a little better than 'poo'? Some infections eat sugar and don't produce carbonation.

Also, (and I know this is counter intuitive) take a couple of bottles that've been in the fridge for at least 24 hours and shake them like crazy. Put one back in the fridge and open the other. If you get nothing from the first, wait an hour and open the second. If you get nothing again, and you have the sediment at the bottom of the bottles that Yoop asked about, try getting some carbonation tablets and give them a try.

@yooper.. The caps are hand crimped with a buterfly capper.. i believe that is what it is called.. There is sediment on the bottom. not sure if it is yeast or not.

@beer.. The flavor is like a wine type taste it is sweet and bitter at the same time.. The beer recipe was suppose to be a nut brown ale. hard to explain. I will put some in the Fridge and take your advice. I feel at a loss with this beer i am really not sure that anything will cure it.. but i am willing to do anything to try to save it.. ;]

I called the LHBS they said that the yeast most likely died out because of it being in the Primary for 6 weeks.. and thus there would be no yeast left to produce carbonation. I was thinking that since the FG reading was still high at 1.020 that there was still sugars left for the yeast to eat.. but i am new and most likely wrong.. So you do not leave the wort in the primary for more than 2 weeks.. sigh!.. lol

D00msD4v3 said:

I called the LHBS they said that the yeast most likely died out because of it being in the Primary for 6 weeks.. and thus there would be no yeast left to produce carbonation. I was thinking that since the FG reading was still high at 1.020 that there was still sugars left for the yeast to eat.. but i am new and most likely wrong.. So you do not leave the wort in the primary for more than 2 weeks.. sigh!.. lol

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that is not true, most people leave their beers in primary for at least a month

That is what i have read on here.. so i believe it has to be something else. just frustrating.. he said we could keg it and force carbonation or drink it flat.. i feel i am at a loss so far.. (((

I bottled up a batch recently that sat in primary for a month and then got forgotten in secondary for another month. Carbed up just fine.

Take a few bottles and gently turn them end over end once to get the sediment up in suspension, then put them in the warmest room of the house 80-85 degrees would be great. See what they do in a week.

If they're in a 68 degree room, but are sitting on the floor they could be cooler than you think they are.

If you have sediment you have had yeast production, I would resuspend the yeast by rolling the bottles and make sure they are ABOVE 70 degrees....The higher above 70 you can find, the better right now, they have gone dormant (not dead) and may need to be warmer than their current ambient.

It may not seem like much but to the yeasts 68 degrees is further from 70 degrees than it is to us big humans.

I have had beers take 8 weeks to carb...and my HUGE 1.090 Belgian took a full three months, but carbed up beautifully

read the blog that I usually link to: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/1030387-post8.html

Your issue is like 99% of them is more likely a matter of needing more time.

I have had stouts and porters take 6-8 weeks to carb, and had a 1.090 belgian strong not carbonate for 3 months.

This chart really sums it up...



Read my blog and do what I suggested. Honestly 6 weeks in primary would not have necessarily been the issue...like someone said many leave their beers near that time anyway. The yeast doesn't "die" in usually goes dormant, and re rousing them and warming them up usually kicks them back to work. If it were 6 months I would agree with the lhbs...but not 6 weeks.

When in doubt, wait it out.

D00msD4v3 said:

I called the LHBS they said that the yeast most likely died out because of it being in the Primary for 6 weeks.. and thus there would be no yeast left to produce carbonation. I was thinking that since the FG reading was still high at 1.020 that there was still sugars left for the yeast to eat.. but i am new and most likely wrong.. So you do not leave the wort in the primary for more than 2 weeks.. sigh!.. lol

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When yeasts run out of digestible sugars they don't die, they go into dormancy. How long can this dormancy last? A long time.

There are sugars, starches, and proteins in beer that will raise the specific gravity that yeast cannot eat. These compounds will contribute to the body and flavor of your beer.

As it has been stated, time is your friend. Yeast are living things that sometimes feel like dallying before they get to business.

Now I'm a newbie to. But 1,02 fg is a bit much isn't it. I've only done lagers.
Do a little experiment and empty one bottle in a clear pet bottle and put new yeast in and cap it. empty another bottle into another pet bottle and put some priming sugar in it and yeast and close it...
Thats just what I'd try :Þ

@Revvy... I am going to move the beer to a higer temp area and hopefully I will get some activity. I have seen llama'a drawing a few times and have taken that into consideration.
@Krump.. Dang that yeast really has been dormant for a while.. ;]

I will give it another few weeks and report back on the progress thanks a ton for helping me out here.. now if i can some how coax these little bastids to get something done! Thanks ev1 for all the help..

Well it has been 6 weeks since my last post. We still have a wine taste.. My buddy said it tasted like Stomach Bile..

I regulated the temp at a 71 degrees and still hardly any activity. Still not sure what im to do.. .. we are just letting it sit now..

Sorry to hear about that...

I knew Revvy was going to post the Llama's chart on this thread. After all, he and Llama spent 6 years and over $100k on the CGI work on that baby.

Personally I've come to find after 2 batches not being carb'd that my problem was not getting enough yeast in the bottles. I was stopping my racking about an inch from the yeast cake and was too efficient. both batches as pretty much ZERO sediment in the bottles. Now when I rack and i get to the bottom I stir things up quite a bit and make sure I get a nice chunk (like 1/6th or 1/8th of the yeast cake into the bottling bucket). I have awesome carbonation (But a thicker layer of trub on the bottom of my bottles).

@chshrecat.. haha he posted it about 6 weeks ago.. i see the hard work that they put into it.. )...
@h4rdluck.. We have brewed more about 6 total batches now.. this is the only one we had trouble with.. we have sediment in all of our beer.. lolz

I think it could have gotten infected some how.. really tastes like utter poop.. lol

D00msD4v3 said:

I think it could have gotten infected some how.. really tastes like utter poop.. lol

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What's an utter? I know what an otter is.....

Andri said:

Now I'm a newbie to. But 1,02 fg is a bit much isn't it. I've only done lagers.
Do a little experiment and empty one bottle in a clear pet bottle and put new yeast in and cap it. empty another bottle into another pet bottle and put some priming sugar in it and yeast and close it...
Thats just what I'd try :Þ

Click to expand...

I agree! Maybe it has off flavor because it never fully fermented in primary? 1.060 - 1.020? I think he is a few clicks above his target FG. I have a Baltic Porter that I did over the summer and it finished at 1.022 and it tastes nasty. I just opened one bottle that has been carbonated for a few weeks now. It is definitely carbonated enough but tastes bad. In my case I think my batch turned out bad (first bad batch in nearly 20) because I made several mistakes. I didnt do a starter for a hybrid lager yeast and I had temp control problems towards the end (2+ months into it) that I couldnt avoid. I think no starter caused yeast to be slow (took 5 days to start) and it never fully fermented. Bad taste is probably because of the same + because of high temp off flavors.

i just bottled up my wee heavy a couple of week ago, it sat in the secondary for 95 days and i just had a bottle today, its carbing up nicely...

but i also have a brown ale that refused to carb after only six weeks in the primary....

I did make sure that I siphoned a little yeast off of the bottom when racking the wee heavy!

Planning on opening up some of the brow ale bottles and dropping in a pinch of Safale US-05 and see if that works...