No carbonation

[marshman]

Ok, so this isn't my first rodeo, but I'm not an old hand. This is a new problem for me, never happenned before.

I brewed 3 batches of beer on the same yeast, dropping new wort on top of the lees. I started with a mild red lager, then a Pilsner, then an Imperial Pilsner. Each beer fermented fine, and racked into clean buckets. Each beer lagered for 5 months, racked every 6 weeks or so, until I bottled everything up. Then, for some reason, none of them carbonated. Apparently, somwhere along the line, the yeast konked out. I lagered the beers in my garage for the winter, and I suppose the cold may have done them in.

Here's my question: Is there any reason I couldn't dump all of each beer back into a sanitized bucket with a little extra sugar, then rebottle as normal a week or so later. I don't mind "might not work" but if "definitely a bad idea" is the consensus, I'll take your word for it.

Thanks.

 

[Revvy]

Here's my question: Is there any reason I couldn't dump all of each beer back into a sanitized bucket with a little extra sugar, then rebottle as normal a week or so later. I don't mind "might not work" but if "definitely a bad idea" is the consensus, I'll take your word for it.

Thanks.

because it would be almost impossible to put the beer back into a bottling bucket and then re-bottle the beer without oxydizing the beer...Dumping fermented beer, and having it fall through the air is 5 gallons of liquid cardboard waiting to happen.

Rather than doing that, why don't you open the bottles, and carefully place a few grains of dry yeast into the bottles?

The thing to be conderned about though is whether or not the priming sugar your primed with was consumed or not...If you add more sugars you could conceivably get bottle bombs....

Does it taste sweet? Can you tell if there are any unfermentables in it?

If you do feel you need to add sugar I would get some prime tabs...again, adding the yeast and sugar to the bottles, NOT dumping the beer into a bucket.

Rememeber fermented beer + oxygen = bad....

 

[marshman]

I am pretty certain the the bottling sugar is intact in there. I actually took 2 bottles, dumped them into a seltzer bottle, primed it with Nitrous (I've a friend inclined to teenage hooliganisms) and the carbed right up. Had the classic Guiness head, but tasted pretty bad due the excess unfermented sugar.

 

[bighoss]

Well best bet would be to maybe try Revvy's suggestion, and to add a few yeast grains to the bottles. I've not done any brewing yet, and am still totally new to this all, but you could maybe just try that with a few bottles and see what happens.