Well this is strange?

[theo1069]

Tried to search, but honestly have no idea what to search for on this one.....

I generally keg my beers and fill bottles with the BMBF (when I bottle), but for this wit I decided to bottle condition to keep it cloudy and yeasty. I used Beersmith to carb to style (2.4 if I remember correctly) with dextrose and let the bottles sit for a month. To test the carbonation after a month I took one beer and chilled it in the fridge for about 2 hours, cracked it open and poured. It was perfectly carbed. I went ahead and added about 12 of the wits to the fridge (this was maybe a week ago). My wife grabbed one last night and it poured almost flat. No head and very little carbonation. Thinking it was maybe just that bottle I opened another with the same results.

Am I missing something here? The caps seem to have a good seal, and if they did have a leak I would think that it wouldn’t have carbed properly in the first place. Can anyone shed some light on this? I don't want to trash 3 cases worth of perfectly good wit.

 

[Germelli1]

It sounds like your priming sugar may not have mixed completely through the wort. How did you actually add the priming sugar to the beer at bottling?

 

[theo1069]

I heated the priming sugar with some water then added that to the bottle bucket and racked on top of the mixture. Then I gave it a few light stirs with a sanitized spoon.

 

[Germelli1]

That is exactly what I do...Anyone have any more ideas?

 

[TopherM]

Did you carb at about 70 degrees for that month they were sitting?

 

[Revvy]

You may have just caught the beers as they were individually starting to pop, and happened to have grabbed the first ones that actually did carb, and assumed the rest already did, when they hadn't yet.

Inconsistant carbonation, usually simply means that they are not ready yet. If you had opened them a week later, or even two, you never would have noticed. Each one is it's own little microcosm, and although generally the should come up at the same time, it's not an automatic switch, and they all pop on.

A tiny difference in temps between bottles in storage can affect the yeasties, speed them up or slow them down. Like if you store them in a closet against a warm wall, the beers closest to the heat source may be a tad warmer than those further way, so thy may carb/condition at slightly different rates. I usually store a batch in 2 seperate locations in my loft 1 case in my bedroom which is a little warmer, and the other in the closet in the lving room, which being in a larger space is a tad cooler, at least according to the thermostat next to that closet. It can be 5-10 degrees warmer in my bedroom. So I usually start with that case at three weeks. Giving the other half a little more time.

Bottom line, it's not that the sugar's not mixed, it's just that they all haven't come up to full carb yet....Three weeks is not the magic number for finality, it's the minimum time it takes....

Pull them out of the fridge, give them a little shake to kick the yeast up, and make sure they're above 70 for a couple more weeks.

 

[theo1069]

Thanks everyone for taking the time to answer. I am going to try another bottle that wasn't refrigerated tonight. It will be about 6 weeks in the bottle, so we shall see.