Beer will not carbonate in the bottle, Can I force carb?

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Rhcamp01

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I brewed a first batch recipe and went through all my normal steps and bottled. It's been about six weeks and I have almost 0 carbonation to the beer. At this point, I am wondering the easiest way to salvage the batch. I bottled because I was moving and didn't want to use my keezer. Now that I am moved, is force carbonation an option or is there something else I should try first.
 
Either uncap and use drop in tabs and re-cap, or u could slowly pour each into keg trying to minimize oxidation but it would be inevitable to some extent. I did it with a wasted overcarb'd batch in past, it did work but it was my 2nd batch ever and it tasted nasty/un drinkable despite correcting carbonation. I'm guessing u are storing around 70-75 deg's while carbing?
 
Thanks for the reply. That was my biggest fear as well.


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I know you can force carbonate in plastic bottles using a special attachment that screws onto your bottle and directly to your co2 source. Im not sure if this is possible with glass bottles though.
 
I was speaking of kegging the beer and then force carbonating. I think I am just going to use tabs


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Did you already add priming sugar?

What was the ABV of the beer and what yeast strain?

If you already added priming sugar, then this is a yeast issue, and adding more sugar either won't work, or may be a recipe for disaster (ie bottle bombs). The only way it makes sense to add more sugar is if you didn't add it initially.

If you did already add sugar, I'd definitely try one of the following first:
-try warming up the bottles, and rouse the yeast in each one, and then wait a little longer.
-if that doesn't work, try uncapping each bottle, and adding an evenly measured amount of champagne yeast (ie a small amount per each bottle)
 
Thanks, yeah I used priming sugar and a white labs California yeast. I actually harvested some of the yeast after the secondary. If the bottles didn't take, would the harvested yeast be any good to use?


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If you're going to add more yeast, I'd go with a dry champagne yeast. Easier to divide up, alcohol tolerance won't be an issue, and it should only eat the priming sugar without drying it out any more than you want. Harvested slurry is going to be a lot harder to work with. I definitely wouldn't go with priming tabs.
 
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