Bottle comditioning high gravity beers

[pietro1022]

Bottled a GLBC xmas ale clone 4 weeks ago. After a week, it had a slight hiss at opening, and zero visible signs....also not really any in the tasting either. Hit a higher og than expected due to some extract additions (1.094)....approximately 73%aa later, secondary for 10 days, bottled with fear soft priming calculator to 2 volumes. Still no carbonation, but if I shake them, there are some big bubbles. Shook them up this week, but wondering if I should consider carbonation tabs. Why do big beers take longer to carb?

 

[Pappers_]

I suspect that the higher alcohol environment makes the yeast sluggish. Be patient, they will probably carb up in time.

 

[unionrdr]

I found that to be true a couple of times. Either if dark colored,&/or high gravity. I suspect that it's the darker,long chain sugars that are the culprit. My whiskely ale was 1.050OG,but took 9 weeks & 6 days to condition. My Buckeye Burton ale Took 6 weeks to get decent,2 weeks in fridge to carb & condition pretty well. I put some in the fridge last Saturday that now are some 8 or 9 weeks in the bottle. We'll see how that goes tomorrow. Wana do another brewvision vid too,with a review of both beers.

 

[Revvy]

The 3 weeks at 70 degrees, that we recommend is the minimum time it takes for average gravity beers to carbonate and condition. Higher grav beers take longer.

Stouts and porters have taken me between 6 and 8 weeks to carb up..I have a 1.090 Belgian strong that took three months to carb up.


Temp and gravity are the two factors that contribute to the time it takes to carb beer. But if a beer's not ready yet, or seems low carbed, and you added the right amount of sugar to it, then it's not stalled, it's just not time yet.

Everything you need to know about carbing and conditioning, can be found here Of Patience and Bottle Conditioning. With emphasis on the word, "patience."

Lazy Llama came up with a handy dandy chart to determine how long something takes in brewing, whether it's fermentation, carbonation, bottle conditioning....

If a beer isn't carbed by "x number of weeks" you just have to give them more time. If you added your sugar, then the beer will carb up eventually, it's really a foolroof process. All beers will carb up eventually. A lot of new brewers think they have to "troubleshoot" a bottling issue, when there really is none, the beer knows how to carb itself. In fact if you run beersmiths carbing calculator, some lower grav beers don't even require additional sugar to reach their minimum level of carbonation. Just time.

 

[Darkness]

Ya man just put the beer in a warmer spot in the house. I had a Belgian Tripel that finnished at about 11% I freaked when it wasn't carbonating but the high % is pushing the limits of the yeast. Check your yeast and see what the highest % it can ferment to if your beer is with in a few % of it die point it will take longer but still put it in the warmest part of the house in a case box that way you protect from light and the box will help keep an even temp

Keg 5 full
Primary 4-5gal batches
Sec 2-5gal batches
Bottled 275 of 7 diff brew's

 

[Turfmanbrad]

Revvy is a genius! What software did you use to come up with that chart? I'll have to file that in my "Advanced Brewing Techniques" folder. Thanks for the advice!