ANOTHER No Carbonation Thread

[jsvarney5]

Hi all,

I bring this thread to you having read a decent amount of others regarding bottle conditioning after cold crashing. I've read about the debate of using the fermentation temp vs the temp at time of bottling to calculate the amount of priming sugar, etc. I wanted to run this scenario by you to see what might have went wrong here.

I brewed a double IPA (9%). It came out perfect. But its been 4 weeks in bottles and no carbonation. Very disappointing because taste, color, and aroma all came out to where I wanted them to be. Ill give you the run down of what I did and maybe you can help diagnose.

The brew fermented around 73 degrees, which is the temp i used to calculate the amount of priming sugar. Since I had about 4.3 gallons going into bottles, that called for approx 4.2 oz of priming sugar to get to about 2.4 volumes of co2 in the beer. I fermented in primary, racked to a secondary where I dry hopped, racked a 3rd time (trying to clarify it) where I cold crashed and then racked to the bottling bucket on top of the priming sugar to bottle. I let the bottles sit in about 74-75 degree temps for 2 weeks and then in the fridge for 2 weeks. I tested one a week ago and no carbonation. I flipped all the bottles upside down for a couple days and then back over (all while in the fridge) to try and get some yeast back in suspension and still nothing.

I have some suspicions, but what do you think went wrong here? Were the volumes of co2 too low for a 9% beer? Did I rack it too many times and remove too much yeast to mix with the priming sugar? Especially with cold crashing? Did I just not leave it conditioning at warmer temps for long enough? I havent really done much bottle conditioning since I started cold crashing.

Anyway, I appreciate the feedback. Hope I can avoid this in the future.

 

[Yooper]

I think that 2 weeks at room temperature isn't long enough for a 9% beer to carb up. It could be that 9% is at the maximum alcohol tolerance for your chosen yeast strain, as well. Which ale yeast strain did you use?

One ounce of corn sugar per gallon of finished beer is about perfect for most beers for carbonation. Even with cold crashing, you'd still have hundreds of billions of yeast in suspension in a very clear beer, so that wouldn't be an issue- but the 9% could be.

 

[jsvarney5]

I think that 2 weeks at room temperature isn't long enough for a 9% beer to carb up. It could be that 9% is at the maximum alcohol tolerance for your chosen yeast strain, as well. Which ale yeast strain did you use?

One ounce of corn sugar per gallon of finished beer is about perfect for most beers for carbonation. Even with cold crashing, you'd still have hundreds of billions of yeast in suspension in a very clear beer, so that wouldn't be an issue- but the 9% could be.

Thanks for the quick response Yooper. What do you mean by 9% being the max alcohol tolerance for my chosen yeast strain? I used California Ale WLP001 and made a stepped up starter with it.

 

[peterj]

I think that 2 weeks at room temperature isn't long enough for a 9% beer to carb up.

+1. Take them back out of the fridge and mix the yeast back in once they get back into the 70s. Putting them in the fridge stops almost all of the yeast activity so they're not going to carb up any more as long as they are at fridge temps. Warm them up for another week or two then put one in the fridge overnight (or just long enough to get it cold) to see if the yeast has finished up the priming sugar. If so, then you can chill them all down. I would try to keep them in the mid to high 70s to carbonate.

Also, fermenting at 73 degrees is probably too warm for most ale yeast strains. You might get some off flavors and possibly some hot fusel alcohols. I try to keep it in the mid to high 60s F and maybe a bit lower for bigger beers like this.

Another thing, and this is more subjective advice, but I don't think you need to do all (or any) of those transfers. The benefits of secondary vs no secondary are debatable (and they are highly debated around here), but the way I see it the yeast is going to fall out of suspension just as fast in the primary as it is in the secondary. So I don't see any benefit to transferring (especially twice). I would have just left it in the primary the whole time. In fact I recently did exactly that with a 9.2% DIPA. Dry hopped in primary, cold crashed in primary, then bottled. I also didn't have carbonation after about 3 weeks in the bottle in the low to mid 70s F. I just swirled them around every other day or so and tried to warm them up a bit, and after about another week they were good to go.

 

[fartinmartin]

Both above answers say it all.
However, I don't go along with shaking the bottles. The yeast is in suspension, so what looks like yeast is sitting at the bottom of the bottle, is probably finished ! There is still loads in suspension. We seem to take so much care not to oxidise, then some say, shake the bottles ? I don't.

 

[pointcity-homebrew]

I was given the advice to shake the bottles after I had a brew that did not carb after 6 weeks conditioning in ideal temps. It did work for me I was able to carb the whole batch by just shaking them everyday for a week.

It worked for me, use this method at your discretion.

 

[peterj]

Both above answers say it all.
However, I don't go along with shaking the bottles. The yeast is in suspension, so what looks like yeast is sitting at the bottom of the bottle, is probably finished ! There is still loads in suspension. We seem to take so much care not to oxidise, then some say, shake the bottles ? I don't.

Shaking the bottles isn't going to expose them to any more oxygen than what's in the head space, which they are already exposed to anyway. So there's no risk for oxidation from shaking the bottles. The benefits are up for debate though because as you said there should be plenty of yeast already in suspension so I'm not completely convinced that swirling them helps. But it definitely doesn't hurt (except maybe clarity at first).

 

[fartinmartin]

Surely the air in the head space has an influence only on the surface of the brew ! It cannot float down or be mixed in unless it's shaken.
It's in my bones, no bubbles at all , after fermentation.

My only memory of advice to shake the bottles is from direct priming sugar into the bottles, the reason then was to mix the sugar in. But that is a poor practise from the off.

 

[peterj]

Surely the air in the head space has an influence only on the surface of the brew ! It cannot float down or be mixed in unless it's shaken.
It's in my bones, no bubbles at all , after fermentation.

The pressure in the bottle causes whatever gas is in there to dissolve into the beer until it reaches an equilibrium. That includes any oxygen that is in the headspace. Gasses are constantly mixing and crossing from being dissolved in the liquid to the headspace and vice versa. Over time effectively all of the oxygen and other gas in the bottle will come into contact with all of the beer whether you actively shake the bottles or leave them in a dark undisturbed basement. Nothing is ever truly still on the molecular level. There's just not enough oxygen in that small amount of headspace to cause any problems, which is why bottling works. Same reason you minimize headspace when you're doing long term aging.

 

[Remmy]

I think that 2 weeks at room temperature isn't long enough for a 9% beer to carb up. It could be that 9% is at the maximum alcohol tolerance for your chosen yeast strain, as well. Which ale yeast strain did you use?

One ounce of corn sugar per gallon of finished beer is about perfect for most beers for carbonation. Even with cold crashing, you'd still have hundreds of billions of yeast in suspension in a very clear beer, so that wouldn't be an issue- but the 9% could be.

While I disagree with the above comment, I would advise the OP to let the beer sit for a bit longer. There aren't many options once you let your beer sit and open a few only to find out there isn't much carb. It's a coincidence that the DIPA I am talking about is 8.93% (practically 9%).

I recently bottled another DIPA (2 wks ago) and I'm already on my 5th or 6th bottle - all carbed. I've had some beers that have carbed in 5-7 days.

 

[fartinmartin]

I am puzzled Peterj. For chemical change to occur, it's primarily by the pressure created from the fermenting of the priming sugar, it was the absence of that pressure that started this thread. Once the fermentation of the prime is done the gas at the top is, I don't know , but it isn't air.

Secondly if the air in the headspace doesn't matter, why take special measures when long term ageing?

I bow out at this point, I am no chemist or molecular biologist.

 

[peterj]

All of the air that is in the headspace when you put the cap on the bottle is going to stay in there until you open it up again to drink it. It's not replaced by the CO2 that is produced because it has nowhere to go. The system is closed. So what's in the bottle after the priming sugar has been consumed is all of the CO2 from that fermentation + the very small amount of air that was in the headspace when you capped it. And all of these gasses are at an equilibrium between being in the headspace and being dissolved in the beer. With 2.5 volumes of CO2 that would mean you have about 30 oz of CO2 (if it were in gas form at atmospheric pressure) in a 12 oz bottle. The 0.5 oz or so of air from the headspace is pretty negligible compared to that.

The exchange of gasses across the surface of the beer that I described before is always happening, even before the yeast create more pressure by producing the CO2 from the priming sugar. It happens at atmospheric pressure at the surface of all liquids. The high pressure in the bottle just shifts the equilibrium to allow more gas to be dissolved in the beer to give us high carbonation.

I wasn't saying the air in the headspace doesn't matter, actually just the opposite. I was saying you must minimize the air in the headspace when long term aging in order to minimize the amount of oxygen the beer is exposed to. If you have a large amount of headspace then you have a larger volume of oxygen that the beer will be exposed to and vice versa.

Sorry if I'm not being clear, I'm not the best at explaining things (which is why I'm not a teacher!).

 

[fartinmartin]

Thanks Peterj , don't be sorry, this whilst very interesting has gone to a level beyond my casual home brewing hobby, thanks for the effort.
I am now to read your post for the fifth time, to have another go at understanding it.

 

[Hermit]

Thanks Peterj , don't be sorry, this whilst very interesting has gone to a level beyond my casual home brewing hobby, thanks for the effort.
I am now to read your post for the fifth time, to have another go at understanding it.

First, yeast are avid scavengers of oxygen. Chris White (White Yeast Labs) says that all the oxygen in your oxygenated wort is gone in the first hour. I doubt bottle conditioned beer has any left. The gases in the head space diffuse into the beer. The gases in the beer diffuse into the head space. (That is why you hear it 'pop' when you open it.) It is a two way street. In short any oxygen, if any, left in the bottle isn't sitting in the head space. It is equally diffused throughout.