Flat Beer in bottles...

Ok, so about 6-8 months ago I did a recipe for a Mirror Pond porter clone and all seemed to go ok. I bottled this batch and let it age. I cracked one open about a month after bottling and it had very little carbonation. I let it sit longer. 2 months - same thing, 3 months same... It tastes like what I was shooting for, only flat. Not totally sure what caused it to be flat. So anyhow, I was using it for marinades, crab boils and such. I kinda forgot about it for a bit, but I was moving stuff around my garage the other day and BAM -I still have half of it left. Thing is, I now have a kegging system.

At this point, are there any risks if I crack these open and transfer them to a keg and force carb?

Oxidation is a risk...it may make the beer taste like wet cardboard....Unless you plan to sarefully siphon them to keep them from splashing when you put them in the keg....but if you're going to consume the beer quickly the oxydation may not take hold before you finish the batch.

My understanding is that oxydation doesn't happen instantly, but over time, so if your going to be polishing off the keg quicky, you could probably dodge the bullet.

Another option would be to pop them open, prime them with one of the carbonation tablet products like primetabs...and re cap them. (That is if you can find your old capper, you keeger you )

In theory, if you were thoroughly purge the keg (so you had CO2 all the way up to the rim) couldn't you just pop the top and tip the bottle upside down in the keg? There wouldn't be any O2 to mix, and any splashing would just be jumpstarting the forcecarb.

What does Kornkob's sig line says about theory again???

Also, have you tried another since you have forgotten them for a bit?

Germey said:

In theory, if you were thoroughly purge the keg (so you had CO2 all the way up to the rim) couldn't you just pop the top and tip the bottle upside down in the keg? There wouldn't be any O2 to mix, and any splashing would just be jumpstarting the forcecarb.

What does Kornkob's sig line says about theory again???

Also, have you tried another since you have forgotten them for a bit?

Click to expand...

Seems like a doable idea...that would minimize the contact with o2...

The thing is Rob, you're not out anything if this fails...except some crab boil beer. You had forgotten about this batch, so it's like finding 10 dollars in your couch...

If you fail then you dump it...if it works you teach us something to do if we're ever in your shoes...And you get a keg of beer you didn't know you had.

Go for it!

I did this with 2 batches earlier this year. I can't say they were the greatest beers to begin with, but dumping them in the keg and carbing it from there didn't deteriorate the quality a bit. One keg took me 2 months to drink and I found no oxidization.

Thanks for the replies. I'll just give it a shot. Like Revvy said, no loss if it turns out bad - it would be a learning experience. And honestly, the knowledge is worth more than a half batch of beer.