Bottling my vanilla porter

[RedGuitar]

I brewed a porter three weeks ago, let it sit in the primary fermenter for about a week, then racked over to a glass carboy on top of three vanilla beans. It's been sitting in the carboy for 2 weeks now, at room temperature (~65F), and I'm getting ready to bottle. My batch before this was an amber ale and I followed the same basic process (without the vanilla) and after three weeks it still has not carbonated much. Any ideas for making sure that my porter carbonates the way I want in time for Christmas? I want to open the first bottle Christmas Eve (in 4 weeks) and have it be perfect...

 

[lostboysbrew]

Little more information on your bottling process please............batch size?? priming amount?? break down you're whole process and we'll figure this out!

 

[RedGuitar]

The porter is 5 gallons. I follow the plan given by John Palmer in his book (this will be my third batch)- 2/3 cup of corn sugar, dissolved in boiling water then cooled to room temp, poured into bottom of bottling bucket, then beer racked on top. Bottles filled from there, and capped as they were filled on the flat Amber Ale. My previous batch, a pale ale, I let the caps sit on top without capping for about 5-10 minutes after filling- not sure if that makes a difference.

On the amber ale that's flat, I used 1 pound of crystal malt and mostly amber extract, so I'm wondering if that's too much sugar for one pack of yeast. The porter uses light extract, then several different grains, and one pack of London Ale yeast. Sorry I can't be more detailed, don't have my recipes in front of me.

Is this a possible side effect of over-oxygenation from racking over to a secondary fermentor?

 

[lostboysbrew]

no it shouldnt be.......sounds like you did everything right. perhaps the yeast went bad in the amber ale.

you didnt filter or anything did you???

 

[RedGuitar]

No filter.

I'm wondering if the amber ale has just been too cold, so I've relocated it to a warmer part of the house and am keeping better tabs on the temperature. I'll give it a couple more weeks and then see how it is then.

Any better ideas for bottling the porter, or is that the best strategy for me?

 

[lostboysbrew]

your strategy seems fine......no flaws that i can tell........just make sure that the priming sugar is mixed well in the beer.........make sure your bottles are clean and SANITIZED..........if they arent, the yeast will die off.......and room temp is fine.....anywhere from 65-70 wont affect it......the colder it is, the longer itll take though.......

 

[Scallywag]

It sounds like you didn't mix the sugar into the beer well enough. After you rack the beer onto the sugar, gently stir with a sanitized spoon to ensure the sugar gets into every part of the beer.

 

[RedGuitar]

Okay, I boiled 3/4 cup corn sugar in 2 cups spring water for ten minutes, then let cool to room temp. Poured half the sugar mixture into bottom of bottling bucket and started siphoning the porter into the bucket. Halfway through, I added the rest of the sugar mixture. After the beer was all transferred, I stirred using the racking cane, then bottled. I now have 48 bottles of vanilla porter waiting for Christmas eve, and had a champagne glass left over for sampling purposes. Can't wait to see how this turns out.