5 months later, and still not carbed

[PDevlin75]

Morning, all!

So hey - I bottled a Honey Tripel about 5 months back, and I've checked in periodically on sample bottles to see how carbonation is going. I opened a bottle this past weekend, and I swear I've heard bottles of water hiss more than my beer did! It's completely flat, burns of alcohol and is heavy on the honey... I know the latter of the two will mellow out over time, but the lack of carbonation concerns me.

I posted about this particular batch before I bottled it, asking if people thought adding yeast to the bottling would help, and pretty much everyone who replied said I didn't need to add more. At the time, I thought my batch was about 9% ABV, but it turns out that it could very well be as high as 11+

They've been stored in a room that has been kept around 68-70. Over a month ago, I took each bottle and gave them a bit of a gentle swirl.

What's the suggested course of action here? Open them and add dry yeast? fizz tabs? Both? Wait until it's been a year?

EDIT: BTW, this was brewed with WLP550 Belgian Ale, and with a starter. Primary fermentation was bubbling for a month

Thanks,
-Pete

 

[Hello]

Well, one thing that would be useful is if you knew what the abv really was. If you thought it was 9% and now you think it is upwards of 11%, was the starter made for a beer that you thought would be 9% or 11%? If the OG was much higher than anticipated and your starter was built around the lower gravity, then the yeast could have been stressed.

In theory, if your numbers were more accurate then adding more yeast at bottling wouldn't have been the suggestion that many would have made. However, if you thought this would be a 9% beer and the OG was higher than anticipated, I would have suggested the use of additional yeast.

Since it has been 5 months, I would say that you may need to add some yeast or carb drops. I am not sure there is any other alternative other than drink the beer flat. Before you do this, take a single bottle and put it some place where the temp is slightly higher, like 74F ish. 70 is a little cool, but shouldn't result in totally uncarbonated beer in my opinion.

 

[PDevlin75]

Yeah, things got a little hazy with the ABV from the start... I measured my OG based on the grain bill, but then I added honey later on after primary fermentation slowed down. So in order to check to see if my numbers were correct on brew day, I omitted the addition of honey, but then later had to recalculate based on if it was added from the start.

 

[MagicMatt]

How did you prime your bottles?

 

[PDevlin75]

Racked onto priming sugar solution

 

[Beernik]

9% will usually carb slowly without repitching as long as it hasn't been sitting and aging for a long time.

11% is the upper limit for alcohol toxicity for a lot of beer yeasts. You'll have flat beer unless you pitch a high gravity yeast to finish it. However, I wouldn't. The yeast may have petered out before all the fermentables were consumed. If that is the case, you'd go from flat beer to bottle bombs.

 

[Paps]

M
What's the suggested course of action here?

Thanks,
-Pete

Buy a keg and start force carbing.

 

[slym2none]

And there it is.

 

[PDevlin75]

Buy a keg and start force carbing.

Which doesn't exactly help me now, but duly noted...

I guess this batch is F'ed then.

 

[benzesp]

Had some BW do this to me. ABV went into the 12.5 range and the WLP001 gave up. 6 months no carb. Kegged and force carbed it, was great on tap. Just keep it bottled, get a keg later on, certainly don't pour it.

 

[hucklb]

You can do a pilot study by finding a a yeast that will tolerate your higher ABV, put a bottle or two into an appropriately sized plastic soda bottle so you can monitor firmness (i.e. carbonation), add yeast and see what happens. If it works you can expand the effort.

 

[Paps]

Which doesn't exactly help me now, but duly noted...

I guess this batch is F'ed then.

The batch is fine, relax.
Leave it in bottles until you can get a keg and force carb it once you have one. Most age their BW`s for a year as is so you should be fine.

 

[PDevlin75]

So for future reference, should I happen to go this route, are there any tips for going from bottles into a keg? Wouldn't there be some level of oxidation during the transfer? Or is that not necessarily a concern?

 

[Paps]

Try not to splash the beer at all.
Somewhat oxidised beer is better than no beer.
Purge the air from keg asap.
It probably wont be that bad pour kinda slowly and perhaps tilt the keg a little akin to people pouring a beer to get little/no head.

 

[PDevlin75]

Somewhat oxidised beer is better than no beer.

Truth! Thanks!

 

[max384]

So for future reference, should I happen to go this route, are there any tips for going from bottles into a keg? Wouldn't there be some level of oxidation during the transfer? Or is that not necessarily a concern?

Purge all of the oxygen from the keg so there is a blanket if CO2. Then pour the bottles without splashing as much as possible. You may need to purge the oxygen a few times throughout the process. There will probably be a slight bit of oxidation, but that will be better than still beer IMO.