First AG brew has no carbonation!

[sideshow_ben]

I made my first all-grain brew about a month ago (recipe below) and primed it as usual, yet when I opened up my first bottles, it was almost totally flat. There is a tiny tingle on my tongue but no bubbles, foam, head, etc. The taste is spot on but I'm very confused and curious if anyone can spot any obvious mistakes. I wouldn't think that extract vs. all-grain would be a culprit.

Recipe: Newcastle Brown clone.
http://hopville.com/recipe/251591/northern-english-brown-ale-recipes/nukie-brown-clone

malt & fermentables
% LB OZ MALT OR FERMENTABLE PPG °L
53% 6 0 American Two-row Pale 37 1
18% 2 0 British Pale (Maris Otter) 37 3
9% 1 0 Flaked Corn (Maize) 40 1
4% 0 8 Crystal 20L 34 20
4% 0 8 Cara-Pils/Dextrine 33 2
3% 0 6 Crystal 80L 33 80
3% 0 6 Crystal 60L 34 60
2% 0 4 Special B Malt 30 180
2% 0 4 Chocolate Malt 34 475
total grain bill 11 lbs 4 oz

hops
USE TIME OZ VARIETY FORM AA
boil 60 mins 0.5 Target pellet 11.0
boil 15 mins 0.25 East Kent Goldings pellet 5.0
boil 1 min 0.25 Willamette leaf 5.5
Boil: 7.0 avg gallons for 60 minutes

I was supposed to use Wyeast Whitbread Ale (1099) but my store didn't have it so I picked up a London Ale yeast instead.

Original Gravity 1.046 measured
Final Gravity 1.016 measured
Mash Efficiency 67% measured
ABV about 4%

I fermented for 1 week in primary, 2 weeks in secondary then primed the beer with 1-cup DME boiled in 2 cups water before bottling. Bottles conditioned for 1 week in my basement in the 70's with all my other brews. All my other beers carbonated just fine, including an ESB that I bottled 2 days earlier using the same priming method.

-ben

 

[shecky]

First thing I would say is one week is not enough. Let it condition another two weeks and then be concerned if it's not carbonated.

 

[motobrewer]

i've never had a beer carb in one week.

 

[winvarin]

+1 for waiting. Any beer I have carbed with DME always took longer than a beer carbed with corn sugar. I will sometimes blend DME and sugar (60/40 or 70/30, with more DME than sugar). It carbs a little faster than 100% malt and gives a smoother flavor than just sugar alone IMHO.

 

[samc]

+1 not enough time. Could very well be that the London yeast dropped out faster than your other yeasts and when you transferred to secondary you left much of it behind. Give it more time. And consider skipping the secondary and leaving the beer in primary for the entire time.

 

[TheMan]

+1 to everyone else saying not enough time. If after 2-3 weeks it's not carbonated then there may be an issue.

I've had beers carbed in a week, but it's not an every brew thing.

 

[weirdboy]

Also, just because nobody else has mentioned it:

There is absolutely NO CONNECTION between brewing all-grain vs extract and your beer carbonating or not.

 

[Bastido]

No bottle carbonation?? After this happened to me once, these are the only words of wisdom I can tell you -

Two words : Force Carb.

I love having beers carbed up very nicely in less than a weeks time, with the method I adopted from many posts on here.

Good Fortune, with the bottles.

 

[sideshow_ben]

Thanks everyone. I didn't believe there would be a reason why a beer wouldn't carb because of AG vs. Extract, but thought perhaps that I didn't use enough DME, or the yeast that I used killed itself off...that sort of thing.

The idea of the yeast dropping out in the secondary intrigues me. Is this something common? I've never heard of it before. I always use secondaries since I thought it was important to get the beer off the trub once the primary fermentation slowed down a lot...didn't want the trub to start rotting and give nasty flavors.

-ben

 

[BA_from_GA]

not enough time in the bottle. 3 weeks is a minimum as far as im concerned, with some yeasts, or beers that were in the secondary for a long time, i've taken up to 6 weeks to prime properly.

take each bottle and give it a good swirl to stir up the yeast, then give them 3 more weeks.

I'd bet they'll be carbed then.

 

[Walker]

yeast drops out all the time, but there are still PLENTY of yeast still in suspension to get the carbonation job done, even if your beer is crytal clear.

I used to prime with sugar and then switched to DME before eventually kegging. The DME always took a lot longer to get the job done than the corn sugar did. I vaguely remember waiting 2 weeks for sugar and 3 weeks for DME.

 

[Revvy]

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, and needed another 6 months to condition.

Temp and gravity are the two factors that contribute to the time it takes to carb beer. But if a beer's not ready yet, or seems low carbed, and you added the right amount of sugar to it, then it's not stalled, it's just not time yet.

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

I bet you'll find what you are doing wrong right there.

If a beer isn't carbed by "x number of weeks" you just have to give them ore time. If you added your sugar, then the beer will carb up eventually, it's really a foolroof process. All beers will carb up eventually. A lot of new brewers think they have to "troubleshoot" a bottling issue, when there really is none, the beer knows how to carb itself. In fact if you run beersmiths carbing calculator, some lower grav beers don't even require additional sugar to reach their minimum level of carbonation. Just time.

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

I'm going to beat the dead horse and say DME takes forever to carb.

 

[JuanMoore]

The idea of the yeast dropping out in the secondary intrigues me. Is this something common? I've never heard of it before. I always use secondaries since I thought it was important to get the beer off the trub once the primary fermentation slowed down a lot...didn't want the trub to start rotting and give nasty flavors.

-ben

Many of us have stopped using secondaries, as it's been shown that autolysis (yeast decaying and creating off flavors) is an overblown concern. As long as you pitch a decent amount of healthy yeast, the beer can stay on the yeast cake for well over a month without issue. Many of us feel that the yeast actually do a better job of cleaning up after themselves if the beer is left in contact with the yeast cake. Here's what two very well respected homebrewers had to say about it recently-

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/secondary-not-john-palmer-jamil-zainasheff-weigh-176837/

 

[winvarin]

Thanks everyone. I didn't believe there would be a reason why a beer wouldn't carb because of AG vs. Extract, but thought perhaps that I didn't use enough DME, or the yeast that I used killed itself off...that sort of thing.

The idea of the yeast dropping out in the secondary intrigues me. Is this something common? I've never heard of it before. I always use secondaries since I thought it was important to get the beer off the trub once the primary fermentation slowed down a lot...didn't want the trub to start rotting and give nasty flavors.

-ben

On this board, you'll find a lot of people who skip the secondary altogether in favor of a long primary ferment (2 to 3 weeks seems to be the average). Conventional wisdom was that you needed to get the beer off the yeast soon after apparent signs of fermentation disappeared for fear of autolysis.

Most of today's yeasts are more robust than what was available even 5 or 6 years ago. With steady temperatures in your fermentation area and the pitching of an appropriate amount of healthy, active yeast, most homebrewers will have no problems leaving their beers in the primary for this amount of time.

Now of course, I say all of this and I just got burned on a blonde that I pulled off the yeast too soon.

At any rate. If you've kept everything clean and minimized oxygen exposure, time is your friend when carbing and conditioning your beer.