HoneyBrown has little/no Carbonation (2 weeks)

Hey all,

I'm drinking a bottle of my Honey Brown ale 2 weeks after i bottled it. At one week, there was absolutely zero carbonation. It tasted like it was right out of the bottling bucket. Now, i'm drinking another bottle at two weeks. When i lifted the bottle cap, i heard an almost inaudible pfft. But drinking it now, it's only a little bit better than a week ago. Is there something about this beer that is keeping the carbonation from coming through?

I bottled and stored the beer at ~68 degrees. The yeast is white labs california V. I primed the batch with 4 oz of corn sugar.

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.25 gal
Boil Size: 2.50 gal
Estimated OG: 1.057 SG
Estimated Color: 18.8 SRM
Estimated IBU: 10.5 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
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Amount Item Type % or IBU
4.50 lb Amber Liquid Extract (12.5 SRM) Extract 48.6 %
1.50 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 16.2 %
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 5.4 %
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 5.4 %
0.50 lb Honey Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 5.4 %
0.25 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 2.7 %
1.00 oz Mt. Hood [6.00%] (60 min) Hops 10.5 IBU
1.00 items Yeast Nutrient (Boil 15.0 min) Misc
1.50 lb Honey (1.0 SRM) Sugar 16.2 %
1 Pkgs California Ale V (White Labs #WLP051) Yeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: Temperature Mash, 1 Step, Full Body
Total Grain Weight: 3.25 lb
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temp Step Time
Saccharification Add 10.00 qt of water at 159.9 F 155.0 F 45 min


Notes:
------
Recipe called for 2-Row. Guessed Pale Malt 2-Row.
Mash grains at 155 for 45 minutes

I'd leave it another 2 weeks.
Are you sure your caps are sealing?
Maybe fit a ballon or condom over a bottle to see if it's leaking.

what the hell is brewhouse efficiency??

orfy said:

I'd leave it another 2 weeks.
Are you sure your caps are sealing?
Maybe fit a ballon or condom over a bottle to see if it's leaking.

Click to expand...

I'm definitely going to try that. With this batch, i let my dad cap the bottles and he didn't cap them as tight as i usually do, so i thought that might be the problem. I'm going to try the balloon and see what happens.

What is the corrective if all the caps were leaking CO2? Do i empty the ~45 bottles back in the bottling bucket with more corn sugar then refill and recap? The only problem with this, is what if there's some corn sugar still dissolved from 2 weeks ago? I don't want bottle rockets on my hands.

OK, saturday made 3 full weeks since i bottled this batch. There is still very little carbonation, and it should definitely have carbed by now.

The beer is almost completely flat, with a very sweet flavor. I'm wondering if that's the 1/2lb of honey malt, or the corn sugar which was supposed to have fermented out. Is it possible that there wasn't enough yeast to ferment the sugar? The other possibility is the bottle caps weren't on tight enough and the carbonation just fizzled out.

How can i fix this, i have at least 40 bottles of it?

BrokeCollegeStudent said:

what the hell is brewhouse efficiency??

Click to expand...

if you go all grain or partial mash then you will eventually build a mash tun. You're efficiency is the average % of fermentable sugars you extract from the grains in your mash

I had an IPA do this. the beer was very sweet with little to no carbonation. I ended up popping every cap off and putting a few grains of dry yeast in each bottle and re-capped them. After one week they were carbed up and did not have a sweet flavor anymore.

I think 4oz of corn sugar is to little for a 5.25 gallon batch. For my 5 gallon batches I prime with 5oz. That has always come out with good carbination. I'm no expert but that may be your cause.

Cheers,

I roll my bottles around about twice a week when carbing. By week 3 or 4, they are good to go. I had one very bad batch and popped the caps, dropped a coopers carb cap in each one and recapped. Worked like a charm ( you may not sue me if yours blows)

clindt said:

I had an IPA do this. the beer was very sweet with little to no carbonation. I ended up popping every cap off and putting a few grains of dry yeast in each bottle and re-capped them. After one week they were carbed up and did not have a sweet flavor anymore.

Click to expand...

I think that's exactly what i'll do. I don't like the sweetness in the beer. Especially without carbonation!

Is there a specific dry ale yeast i should pitch to carb the bottles, or does it not matter.

I used about 2g of dry Nottingham yeast split between the entire batch. It is pretty easy to do; I know you will be much happier with your beer about a week after doing this.

Unfortunately, both AHS and morebeer are out of nottingham dry yeast. Is there another yeast i can use? I want to dump some yeast into my caramel cream ale this weekend when i bottle. This last batch has made me paranoid... :-(

Just try to get any dry yeast that is neutral in flavor. Any of them should work for you.

OK, i went to a new LHBS to buy dry yeast. I talked to the guy for about 15-20 minutes on everything from lagering to converting a fridge (temp controller) to kegging, etc, etc... I told him my last batch didn't carbonate and his first thought was how high do you fill your bottles. I told him i follow the rule of thumb. One thumb width from the top. He said that is definitely the problem and showed me what the fill level should be.

I think at the time, i was worried about oxidizing my beer over time and tried to minimize the amount of air in the bottle. Some bottles are literally filled to the top, a dimes thickness from the cap.

Will these carb? If not, how do i fix this? The majority of them are just less than one inch from the bottle cap.

BTW, i don't know if it's normal to be this excited, but this homebrewshop is excellent! Finally i can enjoy as many of you do, the benefits of shopping and brewing in the same day.

Get a bottling wand and you can always have a perfect fill of each bottle.

I've only bottled three batches so far, but I've found that when the bottle is too full, it takes longer to carb.

I think that you also mentioned that your beer is still sweet...is it sweeter than when you bottled it? If it is, I think that indicates that there is still unfermented priming sugar in there so you might just need to add yeast and not sugar...yet!
Just my $.02.

Just to make sure, what's the temperature where the bottles are? I always move my bottles into the house for a couple weeks to carbonate. My first batch wouldn't carbonate because it was sitting on the floor of the basement.

I have a bottle wand, but isn't that more difficult to use than a bottle bucket?

The bottles are in my bedroom, in the corner. It's between 65-70 degrees, which should be OK for carbonating. The yeast is Wyeast German Ale.

You use the bottling wand WITH the bottling bucket. You connect the tubing of the bottling wand to the spigot. You open the spigot, and push the bottling wand into the bottle. Because it's spring loaded, when you push beer comes out. When you lift the wand a little, the flow stops. Then you go to the next bottle.

I line up the bottles on my dishwasher door, with the bottling bucket above. I connect the tubing to the bottling wand, and to the spigot. Then I fill the bottles one by one.

Edit: photo http://www.howtobrew.com/images/f66.jpg

I use tubing between the spigot and the bottling wand, to give me some length to do it on the dishwasher door.

Dude, you need to re-yeast your beer. Trust me.

Yooper Chick said:

I use tubing between the spigot and the bottling wand, to give me some length to do it on the dishwasher door.

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Wow. I can't believe i never thought of doing that. It's a pain in the ass to fill bottles with the spigot sometimes. You never know exactly how much beer you'll end up with. I got the bottling wand with my AHS beer equipment kit, but never used it. I'll use it when i bottle my pilsner.

As for adding yeast to my beer, i'm not discounting that. I couldn't get out to the LHBS to buy yeast until this weekend anyways, so i'll wait the week and see if there's much difference. If not, i''ll re-yeast the beer with dry yeast.