Hey all,
I've wanted to brew my own beer for awhile, but never had the time/funds until a few weeks back. I went to my local homebrew store (I believe that's LHBS for short?) and purchased everything I needed, including ingredients for an american pale ale. The boil went great (incredible smells!) and it quickly fermented to around 5.5% ABV. It was recommended to me to ferment it in a primary fermenter for 7-10 days, and then transfer it to a glass carboy for another week or so before bottling. I ended up doing about 8 days primary, 7 in the secondary, and then I bottled.
My beginners book said that bottles will be ready to drink within a week for the impatient, so I figured I'd pop one open at this point to see where I was at. Unfortunately, it was barely carbonated at all. I've been reading up on possible reasons why, and here's what I found:
1) Not enough priming sugar: I added all the sugar to the wert before bottling, a total of 2/3 c corn sugar in a 4.33 gallon batch, so I don't think this was the issue.
2) Yeast is dead: I used only no-rinse sanitizer (which I'm assuming doesn't kill yeast, or else you'd have to rinse it), so I'm hoping (fingers crossed!) that it's not this either. Also, when I opened the bottle, there was a noticeable hiss (technical term?), albeit a quite small one, which unless I'm mistaken, can only result from some fermentation.
3) Temperature is not right: I'm storing the bottles in the same location as where I had my wert, which stayed pretty consistently at 64 degrees F during fermentation, though it is possible that it might be slightly colder now.
Also, I had a question: am I correct in assuming that there should be enough yeast floating around in the beer (i.e., not settled on the bottom) to prime after bottling? I tried to be super diligent about leaving every speck of gunky-stuff on the bottom of both of my fermenters, and I'm hoping that wasn't to a fault.
Anyway, thanks for any future input. This is my first every homebrew experience, so I know nothing about anything. Just want it to turn out well!
Thanks,
Nico M.
I've wanted to brew my own beer for awhile, but never had the time/funds until a few weeks back. I went to my local homebrew store (I believe that's LHBS for short?) and purchased everything I needed, including ingredients for an american pale ale. The boil went great (incredible smells!) and it quickly fermented to around 5.5% ABV. It was recommended to me to ferment it in a primary fermenter for 7-10 days, and then transfer it to a glass carboy for another week or so before bottling. I ended up doing about 8 days primary, 7 in the secondary, and then I bottled.
My beginners book said that bottles will be ready to drink within a week for the impatient, so I figured I'd pop one open at this point to see where I was at. Unfortunately, it was barely carbonated at all. I've been reading up on possible reasons why, and here's what I found:
1) Not enough priming sugar: I added all the sugar to the wert before bottling, a total of 2/3 c corn sugar in a 4.33 gallon batch, so I don't think this was the issue.
2) Yeast is dead: I used only no-rinse sanitizer (which I'm assuming doesn't kill yeast, or else you'd have to rinse it), so I'm hoping (fingers crossed!) that it's not this either. Also, when I opened the bottle, there was a noticeable hiss (technical term?), albeit a quite small one, which unless I'm mistaken, can only result from some fermentation.
3) Temperature is not right: I'm storing the bottles in the same location as where I had my wert, which stayed pretty consistently at 64 degrees F during fermentation, though it is possible that it might be slightly colder now.
Also, I had a question: am I correct in assuming that there should be enough yeast floating around in the beer (i.e., not settled on the bottom) to prime after bottling? I tried to be super diligent about leaving every speck of gunky-stuff on the bottom of both of my fermenters, and I'm hoping that wasn't to a fault.
Anyway, thanks for any future input. This is my first every homebrew experience, so I know nothing about anything. Just want it to turn out well!
Thanks,
Nico M.