2nd batch of beer, it's been 3 weeks and

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rival178

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This is my second batch of beer Alaskan Amber from Austinhomebrew and it's been in the bottles for 3 weeks today and no carbonation or sediment. I have had my bottles at about 71 degrees for 3 weeks with nothing. This was an extract brew and I did add the priming sugar just as the directions instructed. I know I need to wait longer but shouldn't I be seeing some carbonation or sediment in the bottles by now?

Edit - Just noticed that the sediment and priming sugar is STUCK to the bottom of the bottle. Any reason this should happen? I have had to give each bottle a little shake to remove the stuck sediment, now hopefully it will disolve.

Matt
 
I recall a very small hiss when I opened the first bottle, can't remember one during the second bottle I tested.

Matt
 
You may have posted before I edited my post and added more questions, so if you could answer the others I'd appreciate it.

Also, what was your fermentation schedule? How long was it in primary and how long was it in secondary, if you did a secondary?
 
mojotele said:
Any hiss when opening the bottle? How many bottles have you opened? What was your OG and FG?
Click to expand...


It was in the primary for 3 weeks and never transfered into a seconday. The OG was 1.051 and the FG was 1.014 both right where they should be according to the directions. I have opened 2 bottles one last sunday and one today.
 
Well, that's not a very high gravity beer, so I'd expect you to have some carbonation by now. Can you post your recipe? Make sure to include what kind of yeast you used and let us know if you made a starter and, if you did, the size of the starter.

EDIT: Just remembered it was a kit. If the kit tells you the exact malts and such, please post them. If not, at least post what yeast you used and the starter info (if you did one).
 
mojotele said:
Well, that's not a very high gravity beer, so I'd expect you to have some carbonation by now. Can you post your recipe? Make sure to include what kind of yeast you used and let us know if you made a starter and, if you did, the size of the starter.

EDIT: Just remembered it was a kit. If the kit tells you the exact malts and such, please post them. If not, at least post what yeast you used and the starter info (if you did one).
Click to expand...

Extract: 7.5 lb Liquid Malt Extract, 1 lb Specialty Grains.
Liquid Extract
White Labs German ale/Klosch WLP029 ( I did used a started with DME)

Here is the exact kit from austin home brew

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/produ...=1086&osCsid=be617d75230ec0e02803fce052d29a7c
 
Hmmm...well your attenuation is in line with the expected attenuation of the yeast. Seems like these are the two most likely scenarios:

1. Most of your yeast flocculated out and didn't make it into the bottles. I find that unlikely after only three weeks on a medium flocculation yeast unless it spent most of that time under cold conditions, but you never know.

2. Your priming sugar was very unevenly distributed in the bottling bucket.

Try another random bottle. Preferably one you didn't store next to the other two. Store it in the fridge for 48 hours first. Listen for a hiss when you open it. If you hear nothing, open each bottle one by one and add a couple grains of dry yeast (Nottingham) to each one then recap and wait another 3 weeks. I haven't tried that personally, but I hear it works pretty well.
 
mojotele said:
Hmmm...well your attenuation is in line with the expected attenuation of the yeast. Seems like these are the two most likely scenarios:

1. Most of your yeast flocculated out and didn't make it into the bottles. I find that unlikely after only three weeks on a medium flocculation yeast unless it spent most of that time under cold conditions, but you never know.

2. Your priming sugar was very unevenly distributed in the bottling bucket.

Try another random bottle. Preferably one you didn't store next to the other two. Store it in the fridge for 48 hours first. Listen for a hiss when you open it. If you hear nothing, open each bottle one by one and add a couple grains of dry yeast (Nottingham) to each one then recap and wait another 3 weeks. I haven't tried that personally, but I hear it works pretty well.
Click to expand...

With you talking about cold conditions, seems like I had to move the bottles to a warmer area of the house. I believe the first 2 or 3 days of the bottle aging was about 60ish.... (i think)
 
Eh, I'd expect you to still have an obvious hiss when opening the bottle even with 60* temps in the bottle for a couple days then 71* thereafter. I was talking about keeping the fermenter at 40* for a couple weeks. That would make A LOT of the yeast fall out meaning they wouldn't make it in to the bottles. Even then, many people have said they have plenty of yeast in suspension for carbonation.
 
With that yeast wlp029 having a lager type finish a read a lot of people fermented the beer on the cold side for an ale. My fermentation temp sometime dipped into mid 50's. Is that when I could have lost the yeast?
 
rival178 said:
With that yeast wlp029 having a lager type finish a read a lot of people fermented the beer on the cold side for an ale. My fermentation temp sometime dipped into mid 50's. Is that when I could have lost the yeast?
Click to expand...

No, not really. I've made lagers, in the 30s, and still had plenty of yeast to carbonate.

I would take all of the bottles, and turn them end over end, and keep them above 70 degrees for a couple of weeks and see if that fixes the problem.
 
YooperBrew said:
No, not really. I've made lagers, in the 30s, and still had plenty of yeast to carbonate.

I would take all of the bottles, and turn them end over end, and keep them above 70 degrees for a couple of weeks and see if that fixes the problem.
Click to expand...

This is an ale yeast (i'm sure you know that), but some try and lager it after a few weeks in the fermenter. I did not lager it just tryed to ferment on the colder side.
 
After looking at the first 16 bottles, it appears that the priming sugar and setement is STUCK to the bottom of the bottle. I have to give a little shake to get the sugars to unstick from the bottom and get into the beer. I wonder why that happened.
 
I assume the instructions had you prepare the priming sugar by boiling it in some water. How much water did you use? How long did you boil? Perhaps you inadvertently made rock candy :)
 
mojotele said:
I assume the instructions had you prepare the priming sugar by boiling it in some water. How much water did you use? How long did you boil? Perhaps you inadvertently made rock candy :)
Click to expand...

as per instructions I used 2 cups of water and disolved the priming sugar (used entire small package) as instructed.

I have gotten all the stuck sugars off the bottom of the bottles, I just hope they disolve and give me some carbonation.
 
Well, I don't know. Perhaps you accidentally carmelized some of the sugar. Enough analysis. Like you said, just give it another few weeks and see what happens!
 

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