bottling clarifing questions

ok, i'm a rookie.

I brewed a batch of Full Sail Amber ale clone, it's been in the bottle for 2 1/2 weeks now. No carb, no head. I live in western WA state so I keep the beer in the same room as the pellet stove. That room is usually around 70 degrees.

1. I bottled my first batch of Full Sail Amber Ale clone with 1 1/4 cup DME with 2 cups of water. I brought it to a boil, waited for the head to break then cooled and bottled. Should I have cooled right when it started to boil again after added the DME?

2. My first batch of amber ale is really clear coming out of the bottle, hardly no sediment on the bottom of the bottle. Should I have sturred up the secondary before bottling to ensure the yeast was "suspended" in the wort for bottling?

3. Like I said above, I bottled this batch almost 3 weeks ago. When I open a brew it has a hist like it's carb'd up but there is no head or bubbles to see once in a glass. I tried the "no head" pour, then I tried pouring from like 6" above the glass and still nothing. It has good flavor just no carb. Did I do something wrong?

4. We were in the 20's and teens over the last several weeks but I would think that since the beer was conditioning in the same room as the heater that it would have been warm enough to carb up am I wrong in that asumption?

I just bottled a smoked sctoch ale with dark brown sugar and put it in the room with a space heater set at 75 degrees hoping this will help.

I need some guidenance from the beer gods please.

Pete

If you use corn sugar it takes about 3 weeks at 70°. Unfortunately, it takes a week or two longer when you use malt. I'm afraid you are going to have to be a bit more patient with this batch.

Yeah that what I have figures out from reading on here. But should I have stirred up the secondary before bottling? Oh and what about the DME, should I just bring it to a boil or let it break?

pscole98 said:

Yeah that what I have figures out from reading on here. But should I have stirred up the secondary before bottling? Oh and what about the DME, should I just bring it to a boil or let it break?

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No you really don't have to do anything like stirring up the secondary, or getting a break..

The 3 weeks at 70 degrees, that that we recommend is the minimum time it takes for average gravity beers to carbonate and condition. Higher grav beers take longer.

Stouts and porters have taken me between 6 and 8 weeks to carb up..I have a 1.090 Belgian strong that took three months to carb up.

Give them some more time at 70.....they will carb up eventually.

Dme tends to teven take a bit longer than priming sugar anyway...but relax and gove them more time, and you will be fine. 99.9% of the time folks who start threads like this come back in 2-3 weeks to report everything was fine.

Everything you need to know about carbing and conditioning, can be found here Of Patience and Bottle Conditioning. With emphasis on the word, "patience."

Thanks guys....

Have to agree with Revvy--my beers inevitably carb approximately one week after I've concluded that there's something terribly wrong and they're not going to. Four weeks seems to be the magic number for me.

lol i didn't recognize Revvy without his RDWHAHB image on.

TipsyDragon said:

lol i didn't recognize Revvy without his RDWHAHB image on.

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Yeah I just figured for the week to go with druken santa.

Well, I had one of the amber ales last night. You guys were right, it's starting to carb, finally. There was about a 1/4 of head, it didn't last long but it's a start. I'll give it a few more days until I have another.

Thanks Pete

pscole98 said:

There was about a 1/4 of head, it didn't last long but it's a start.

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that could be because of the glass. there is such a thing as "beer clean" glassware. there is a salt test you can do to see just how clean your glass is. i know there are plenty of threads on that on here.