Daffypuck
Well-Known Member
Last year I tried brewing a beer that had agave nectar as ingredient. To date, about 110-130 days conditioning, only 2 beers carbed up. I just thought it was an anomaly. So recently I tried the same recipe again to see if i could get better results. Ive brewed about 20 different batches of all kinds of styles and all of them showed very apparent signs of carbing as early as 5 days. I usually dont throw a few in the fridge until after 30 days of carbing, just to see how theyre doing. Its been 20 days now since bottling this second batch of agave beer. At least this go around it is showing minute signs of carbing, but nothing close to what it should be after 20 days conditioning. My question is this: is the agave the culprit for the long period of carbing/no carbing? Is it possibly affecting the yeast and killing it? All of my batches condition at oraround 68-71 degrees. Is that a bit too cool perhaps? I know, time and patience is the key. But for the same recipe to have the same poor results is frustrating. I even recapped several of the first batch about 90 days ago and still not a single sign of carbing up. The recipe was a pilsen extract with a couple of pounds of agave. I boiled the pilsen for about 45 minutes, then added the hops and agave for the last 15 or so. At bottling time i added 5oz of priming sugar and bottled.