Bottle-carbing woes.

[pericles]

Last year I brewed a spice beer from Northern Brewer for Christmas. Ordinarily I don't get kits, but I was busy, didn't have a spice beer recipe on hand, and wanted something simple and guaranteed to be good. It sat for 15 days in the primary, and then 14 days in secondary, and then I bottled with 4oz of dextrose dissolved in boiled water.

It never carbed. I assumed that it was somehow related to the recipe, or the kit maybe, or even maybe the yeast, so I didn't inquire further.

Recently I brewed up my second batch of Pliny the Elder, (the first batch was EXCELLENT.) I left it in primary for about three weeks, and then transferred it to secondary for another two. I would have bottled sooner but things got hectic so I put it off.

It's been in the bottle for two weeks now at 90F and is, again, not carbonated. I added 4.5oz dextrose, and - just to be sure - also added a half teaspoon of US-05 to help carbonation along.

What gives? My capper creates a good lock (there's no air bleeding out when I submerge the bottles). Everyone swears up and down that a month and a half is NOT long enough to remove the yeast and, with the addition of US-05 should solve that problem even if it did crop up. Any suggestions?

 

[TheMethod]

Is 90F accurate or a typo? That is pretty high.

 

[SumnerH]

This batch I wouldn't worry about yet--2 weeks is borderline for carbing on a bigger beer. If it gets to 6 weeks without carbing, then I'd worry.

From the thread you linked about the spice beer, you said at week 3: "the carbonation is MUCH better now. It's not too heavy, but there's about a half-inch head that the glass retains for five minutes or so. I'd say it's appropriate for a spice beer."

Is that right? Or did later bottles have no carb? If the latter, maybe you're not mixing the priming sugar well--what's your process there?

 

[pericles]

TheMethod: well, maybe 80F or 85f? I keep the fermentation at a constant 64F, but warm things up for bottle conditioning; I want to make sure the yeast doesn't go into thermal shock, so I warm the bottles slowly, but after a few days I just let it float with the ambient temperature.

SumnerH: Huh, looking on to page three, I guess I did write that. . . no recollection of it though; ultimately the beer was so bad I ended up dumping the batch after testing a bottle a week for six months.

 

[maida7]

stop using the secondary fermenter. see if that makes a difference.

 

[Got Trub?]

2 weeks is way too short a period for carbonating such a beer. Give it 2 months, then worry if no detectable carbonation.

GT