1st brew questions

I have an Brewers Best IPA that I bottled a little over a week ago. I tried one the other day and it had very little carbonation and sweet. Also I noticed a bitter aftertaste. I tried a second bottle today this one had no carbonation, tasted like ipa and the same bitter after taste as the first. (almost like a soapy taste). The one thing I did mess up on is the priming sugar. I didnt add it to boiling water. I just dumped the package in the bottling bucket and stirred. I was wondering if its contaminated or do i need to move the bottles to a warmer area (basement is right around 64-65 degrees)? I do know that they need to age another 2-3 weeks but just worried that the testers are a bad sign.

Thanks in advance for the help

Nope. All good. 3 weeks until it's well carbed. I just throw sugar in as well. Bitterness will meld into the beer with age.

RDWHAHB! Congrats on a beer just the way it's supposed to be!

Three weeks at 70* is recomended.

You might end up with some bottle bombs by not boiling the priming sugar. It needs to be in a light syrup form to disolve and disperse into the beer.

Clann said:

You might end up with some bottle bombs by not boiling the priming sugar.

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Uhhhhh...no. Bottle bombs are the result of using too much priming sugar or, more likely, the fermentation not being complete when you go to the bottles.

All boiling it does is make sure it is sanitized and there are no wild yeast strains in there. Corn sugar desolves in water whether it's boiled or not.

What Kayos said. Disregard the comment about bottle bombs.

Just wait another week or two. Then, refrigerate a couple bottles for at least 3 days and THEN taste one and pass judgment on your first brew. You need to let co2 be absorbed into your beer. BTW, grats on your first brew. RDWHAHB.

I believe the bottle bombs comment was made because without dissolving the sugar it can clump and some bottles will get a lot of sugar in them and some bottles not much at all. You cannot evenly distribute the sugar by just dumping it in.

earwig said:

I believe the bottle bombs comment was made because without dissolving the sugar it can clump and some bottles will get a lot of sugar in them and some bottles not much at all. You cannot evenly distribute the sugar by just dumping it in.

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this was my line of thought but if you guys say its all good then brew on

Im still going to boil my priming sugar

I gotta agree, it could cause bottle bombs, but I wouldn't worry much about it, the chances seem pretty low if you stirred it well.

Bottle conditioning is the process I think has the largest noticeable change on the beer. You might be tasting your brew right now trying to convince yourself that you didn't screw it up, you are trying to convince yourself that it's near being final product and it's great! The truth is it probably closer to alright or okay as opposed to great, but give it a couple of weeks and it will get there.