Help! My beer is flat!

[Labradork]

Heya,

I bottled a bock almost a month ago, stored it at about 78 degrees, chilled a couple down, and opened them for the first time last night. The flavor was good, but they had very little carbonation. I had primed with a mixture of dme and brown sugar, as the recipe had called for, prior to bottling in 22 oz bottles.

Would it be a bad idea to pop the tops off the bottles, drop in some carbonation drops (sized to carbonate 12 oz bottles), re-cap and put back in the closet?

 

[kaconga]

Yes. That would be a bad idea. How long did you lager this bock?

 

[mahe]

Deleted!

I read that wrong. Dont re-carbonate!!! Wait it out.

 

[Johnnyhitch1]

Both brown sugar and DME are not 100% fermentable and for that reason are very bad as priming agents.

What was the final volume of beer you bottled and how much sugar/dme did you add?

 

[Labradork]

Here are the details.

I used Munich yeast, started with OG 1.058, finished at 1.019. It was lagered at about 45 degrees for 9 weeks. I was mistaken earlier, I primed with 2/3 cup of dark DME in 1.5 cups of boiling water in a carboy with about 5 1/2 gallons of beer racked onto it. No other sugar was used. It has been held at about 78 degrees now for about 30 days. It has almost no head and very little carbonation.

What should I do?

 

[pdietert]

Wait it out. Largers can take longer to bottle condition especially if you did not add bottling yeast. They will eventually carbonate.

If you are really impatient, You could try rousing the yeast in a couple of bottles. Swirl them gently and store for another week. After a week refridgerate one of these and see if it helped.

 

[pdietert]

You can also try Prell concentrate:

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljK-sTACjwo[/ame]

Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

 

[Yooper]

Here are the details.

I used Munich yeast, started with OG 1.058, finished at 1.019. It was lagered at about 45 degrees for 9 weeks. I was mistaken earlier, I primed with 2/3 cup of dark DME in 1.5 cups of boiling water in a carboy with about 5 1/2 gallons of beer racked onto it. No other sugar was used. It has been held at about 78 degrees now for about 30 days. It has almost no head and very little carbonation.

What should I do?

2/3 cup of DME seems a bit low for priming a 5.5 gallon batch- I'd have used far more I think. I normally use more like 1.5 cups of DME (and not dark, as it's less fermentable). Since you used about half of the priming sugar(s) required, you could probably add some carb tabs at this point.

I'm not sure how much carbonation you'd lose when you open the bottle and recap, though. You could try it, if you absolutely can't stand the beer the way it is, but remember that dropping in a carb tab into warm beer will create tons of nucleation points (especially in warm beer) so you may want to chill the bottles to maintain the carb level you have, uncap, drop in the carb tab for about 1/2 the "dosage" and recap quickly and then store at room temperature. I'm not sure, as I've never done it- but it seems reasonable to me.