Belgium Tripple - low carbonation

[patrick66]

I brewed a Belgium Tripple extract beer. The instructions called for a two month stay in a secondary carboy which I did. I bottled it about a month ago. After two weeks I popped the first bottle: pretty flat. I popped the second one today about a month since bottling and still find very low carbonation. I don't know the OG or FG, but I can tell you there is plenty of alcohol (I drank the flat beers). Should I open every bottle and add a sugar pill? Or do I need to be patient.......

 

[Jaybird]

If you don't know the OG or FG you are kind of at loss as to how much carbonating sugar to add and how long to wait. That said #1 ALWAYS take your readings. Brewing blind makes it almost impossible to help. #2 I would personally be waiting another week or 2 THEN stick 1 in the fridge for about 48 hours THEN opening it and seeing where you are. Then make a decision past that.

Just my .02

Cheers
Jay

 

[AlexKay]

Bottle conditioning should be done at 70 F or so; were you warm enough?

I used to have problems with consistent carbonation in the bottle, especially for high-ABV Belgians. And I’ve made barleywines that were flat after six months. It’s one of the main reasons I moved to kegging.

 

[SRJHops]

If you can warm it up over 70 that may help.

Adding more sugar probably won't help at this point. What you might have needed if your beer was high ABV was more yeast at bottling, especially after sitting for two months. Take a look at CBC-1 bottling yeast for research.

But at this point I would move on from this beer and start planning your next. Store it somewhere warm and check on it in a few weeks to see if it carbonated any more...

BTW, you don't need to transfer most
beers to secondary, and a tripel does not need that much time in any case. You can bottle it three weeks after brew day. The darker Belgians get better with time, but I have not found that to be the case with the light colored ones.

 

[MikeCo]

As suggested above, add yeast at bottling in the future for higher ABV beers or anything that's aged a while.

How much priming sugar did you add, and what is the batch size? If you added the proper amount of sugar already, don't add more or you will have bottle gushers or even bombs. Warm the bottles and wait a few weeks. They may still carbonate; higher ABV beers with only residual yeast from fermentation can take a while.

 

[brew_mama]

I brewed a Tripel earlier this year and the carbonation was low at first and it just took time. After a 4-6 weeks in the bottle, it had carbed up nicely. Also yes move it to a place where the temp is low 70s.

 

[patrick66]

Thank you all for taking the time to reply. This was my first higher ABV beer. I had the bottles sitting in my basement at about 62 degrees so that might be the issue. I moved them to a warmer spot. The beer actually tastes good, just flat. I understand that the secondary isn't much done anymore, but I like to use my larger 6ga carboy for fermenting and then let it sit in a 5ga carboy until bottling. Right now I have a Quadruple for which the instructions call to let it sit for 3 months before bottling. I will have to look at adding yeast with the bottling sugar.

 

[mashpaddled]

Warming up the bottles and giving them a good swirl would be the first thing to try and then give the bottles a few more weeks.

If you still don't have carbonation it's your call on whether you want to risk tinkering with the beer and adding more sugar and/or yeast. Sometimes higher ABV beers run out the alcohol tolerance of yeast but that is usually not the case with Belgian strains. I currently have a 12% beer with two Belgian strains that is bone dry. Sometimes aging a beer, especially if it is kept on the warmer side, can lose enough CO2 in solution to turn out flat in bottles, but I also would be surprised to see a beer remain totally flat after just two months. I've bottled beers one to two years old with a normal amount of priming sugar and still put a little carbonation on them. Your recipe probably called for a fairly high carbonation which should have given you at least some noticeable carbonation. I think you'll be ok warming and agitating the bottles.

 

[Dancy]

I use Lallemand CBC-1 at bottling time for my Belgians. I use enough corn sugar to carbonate to 2.5 in the bottle. I end up with good carbonation and a dense head.

 

[Sergei]

I brewed a Belgium Tripple extract beer. The instructions called for a two month stay in a secondary carboy which I did. I bottled it about a month ago. After two weeks I popped the first bottle: pretty flat. I popped the second one today about a month since bottling and still find very low carbonation. I don't know the OG or FG, but I can tell you there is plenty of alcohol (I drank the flat beers). Should I open every bottle and add a sugar pill? Or do I need to be patient.......

After one month in a _secondary_ fermenter there left just few yeast cells. Instead of adding more sugar, you need 1) to add fresh yeasts (like CBC-1, as was mentioned already above) or 2) wait 2-3 month more before tasting it. I would recommend the second option (or both), drink high alcohol beer in two weeks after bottling is just wasting of the product.

 

[patrick66]

An update on my Tripple. I had inverted a couple of bottles to stir up the sediment and put them in a warmer spot for almost two weeks. Yesterday I refrigerated one and we popped it last night. It worked! Good carbonation and a nice head. It definitely is a higher alcohol beer, the flavor is still a little "sharp" but I suspect that will mellow out a bit once it ages a couple of months. Thanks for the advise.