How to Speed Up Carbonation

My Bottles or English Bitter have been sitting for 10 days now, and there is only a little carbonation. The cap makes the good sound when I open, but there is minimal to no head on my beer. It tastes fine, but it's hard to gauge a beer that is flat. I did some searching on the forum and found that some beers can take up to 3 weeks to fully carbonate. The bottles are in my basement at 70%. Is there any way to make them carbonate quicker? I know I"m told to be patient, but I want to be able to drink these with friends this weekend. My last batch got great head retention and carbonation at 10 days, so it just has me worried.

Also, if by 2 or 3 weeks there is the same amount of carbonation, should I suspect infection? Thanks for the help.

Roll the bottles every day to re-suspend the yeast. Of course, this makes for yeasty beer unless you let them settle for a week.

Post-bottling infections almost always involve explosive carbonation.

You could try gently agitating the bottles to resuspend flocculated yeast. If the temperature is cool, you could try bringing the temperature up to 70 degrees or so (or by 70% did you mean 70 degrees?).

From my basic understanding of infection, it would overcarbonate, not undercarbonate. Some more common reasons for undercarbonating are impatience, cool temperatures, yeast falling out of suspension, and variable mixing of the priming sugar.

TIFWIW, I have made a grand total of 3 batches. You may want to wait for a more experienced brewer to answer.

EDIT: someone already beat me to it.

You can't speed up mother nature...bottle carbing with live yeast and sugar is a naturally occuring process and can't be rushed....3 weeks @ 70 degrees is a rule of thumb for most moderate strength beers, higher gravs take longer. But even a few degrees under 70 can make it take longer...

I've had beers take up to 8 weeks before they are ready...

Read this...and brew some more beer...

http://blogs.homebrewtalk.com/Revvy/Of_Patience_and_Bottle_Conditioning/

It's only in the beginning that this is an issue, when you build up a pipeline you'll have plenty of beer at various levels, and the three or so weeks for carbonation/conditioning won't seem so long.

I know you're excited, but do yourself, your friends AND your beer a favor...and pick up some commercial micro's this weekend...And reschedule your homebrew party tile the beer's actually done..remember carbonation is only the tip of the iceberg...conditioning is also important to.

Man, I can't wait until I have a pipeline going.

If it tastes fine, it's not infected. 10 days isn't really long enough. Wait at least another week, probably more. If 2 or 3 weeks down the road there's no carbonation you did a few things. More than likely it just wasn't enough priming sugar. There's a smaller possibility of yeast issues. What were your OG/FG?

OG of 1.040 and FG of 1.010, just at the recipe described. The airiating of yeast makes sense, because this past weekend I had some American Ales to give to friends. Someone decided to put them on side in the fridge. The next day when we tried them, they were overcarbonated. Had 54 beers, only those 6 had over-carbonation. And yes, the 70 was the degrees of the beer.

Morkin said:

M...I did some searching on the forum and found that some beers can take up to 3 weeks to fully carbonate. ...

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Replace "up to" with "minimum of" and you've got it right.

If your gravities are matching up with the recipe, and it didn't kill you when you tasted it, you just need to age it longer, like everybody's been saying.

Wait a little longer, it'll be worth it!

The only way to get a pipeline going is to brew the next batch at about the same time you bottle the previous. That would be a decent stagger of 2 or 3 weeks unless you're still at the "bottle after 4 days" stage. What I'm getting at is if you start your next batches after you've started drinking the previous, you'll always rush it.

I've sometimes used a little more priming sugar at bottling than the regular recommended amount and it usually made the carbonation level occur faster, the fastest i have seen is using a Belgian yeast (WLP570) which had a decent (drinkable) level of carbonation only after 3 days after bottling.

This could have been because FG was not fully reached? maybe.

Of course, the beer got way better with time flavor wise, but still was drinkable since i was in a hurry and not wanting to go for BMC in the meanwhile.

As for having a pipeline going, i find it hard to achieve, maybe i drink too much...

I always end up finishing the last batch about when it's time to bottle the next... scary thought.

Thanks for all the help, I'll just let it sit for more weeks. I'm going to start my 4th batch right after my 3 batch, so that one will be in the primary when the other goes to the secondary, that way I can always have beer in the house. Thanks guys.

reim0027 said:

Man, I can't wait until I have a pipeline going.

Click to expand...

You'll have a pipeline before you know it. Take the advice the folks here gave me almost 2 months ago - go get the next brew started.

Bring your beer upstairs to carbonate... it is probably a few degrees warmer than the basement which will speed up yeast activity.

I don't want to start a new thread for this, but do Lagers need to be stored at cold temperatures in bottles, or do they need the warmer temperatures as well? My first lager batch is coming up, just wanted to check. I was going to store at cold temps, but if I need to will store in the basement.