Bottle Condition All Grain - why would it be different?

I have done four all grain beers, and just this afternoon I tasted the fourth.

Trouble is, three of the four beers have had a terrible time bottle conditioning. The first, despite waiting as long as five months, is still completely flat (a small amount of carbonation, but barely worth mentioning). The second (a hefe) actually carbonated nicely in the bottle. The third was a stout that has mild carbonation, but is OK for the style. The last, an IPA I just opened after 2 weeks in the bottle is just as flat as the first.

So, I'm trying to figure out what's going on. I haven't changed my bottle conditioning technique since doing extract (5 oz priming sugar in about a cup of water), but I haven't gotten a single beer to be properly carbonated.

The only other thing that changed was I was using different bottle caps (the colored ones found on amazon.com). I'm starting to think it's the caps, but that doesn't explain why one beer was still well carbonated.

Ideas? Should I be doing something different in the brewing process? I have an AG tripel that's ready for bottling in a few weeks, and I'd love to not ruin it!!

what temp are you letting them condition at?

All grain is not the problem. Maybe the caps or problem with your capper. 5 ounces should give an average carbonation.

At five month you should have full carbonation unless it is an extreme beer and at 2 weeks it might not have much. On that one I would wait a little longer before saying it is ruined.

Store your bottles near 70 degrees for three weeks then refrigerate one for at least a day then try it. If it is not done wait another week etc. etc. etc.

Try some other caps also.

I would also suggest you use a priming calculator to prime to style. There is one on Northern Brewer's website. Access it at the bottom of the page though the resources link.

Thanks for the quick answers!

I haven't tried the priming calculator; I'll do that for the tripel.

I've been storing the beers between 68° - 72° (admittedly it does fluctuate). The five month old beer is what has me most concerned.

Definitely trying different caps.

Just to verify your bottling process:

Boil 1 cup of water and add sugar to dissolve, cool to 70-75F, pour into bottling bucket and then rack beer without splashing into bucket to self mix ?

If this is not how you do it, could also be your issue, otherwise caps and capper...

duboman said:

Just to verify your bottling process:

Boil 1 cup of water and add sugar to dissolve, cool to 70-75F, pour into bottling bucket and then rack beer without splashing into bucket to self mix ?

If this is not how you do it, could also be your issue, otherwise caps and capper...

Click to expand...

Correct. Exactly how I do it. I suppose it could be the capper. I think I'll swap caps first, and if that doesn't fix it, I'll have to conclude it's the capper.

Damn...