Evan!
Well-Known Member
Seriously. Why me?
I brewed two wheat beers, a hefe and wit, back on March 30th. They both fermented out clean, and spent 3 weeks in primary before bottling. With both of them, I made sure to rack some trub to ensure carbonation and give me that wheat beer styyyyyul. Since I had been unimpressed with the texture of the bubbles on my prior few batches that I primed with dextrose, I decided to prime with DME. Laaglander DME.
Bad decision.
After 2 weeks, no carbonation. After 3, 4, 5 weeks, no carbonation. So, finally I just stopped opening sample bottles and decided that I needed to order some carb tabs (I came to the conclusion that it had to be the DME, since the same thing was happening with two different batches, and the only changed variable that they both had in common was the DME), which I did. Last night I finally got around to trying to open some bottles and drop in the tabs, then recapping. Now, as I said, I hadn't opened a sample bottle in about 3 weeks. So I popped the first Wit. Slight hiss. Then after a few seconds, a bunch of bubbles start screaming to the top of the bottle from the yeast cake. It starts to slowly gush over.
I recapped it without the carb tab and put it in the freezer to chill so I could drink it. I then tried another. Same deal. Then I tried a Hefe. Not a gusher, but plenty of carbonation.
So now I really am stumped. Did the laaglander just take a really, really long time? It's been 2 months. The worst part is that wheat beers are typically best when drank young. But why would some be gushing now, when they had zero carbonation through the first 5 or 6 weeks of conditioning? And what's worse, the ones that gush didn't end up very carbonated once I poured them into the glass. So, is it possible for carbonation to concentrate in the yeast cake? Is that a stupid guess?
Overall, very, very weird. I put a couple of "virgin" bottles in the fridge, which I'll try tonight. I think the lesson here is: don't use laaglander. Period.