Carbonation fail

[FreudianSlip172]

Hey everyone, really frustrated, need some help.

I'm a new extract brewer, maybe 10-15 batches experience so far. I have a recurring problem with beers failing to properly bottle-carbonate, which I thought I'd overcome but my most recent stout has done it again.

I brewed this particular stout six weeks ago, can't remember the SG but it was about 1.048-1.052. My liquid yeast died in transit so I used a "backup" packet of S-04 and got what looked like a normal fermentation. I gave it a week in primary, siphoned to secondary and let it condition for two weeks there, then bottled at about 1.012 FG. (Can't find the exact figures now, SWMBO erased my dry-erase board)

I use a separate bucket for bottling with a siphon & bottling wand. For this beer I boiled 2 cups water with 5 oz corn sugar, cooled it and put that in the bottling bucket, then siphoned the beer on top of that and bottled it from there. I didn't touch it for three weeks while away on a trip.

The final product isn't totally flat, but it's close - there's no head, but you can taste a small amount of very fine carbonation in the beer. It also tastes mildly sugary-sweet and cidery - presumably because there's unfermented sugar hanging out in there? - but I don't think it got infected. I've had several batches now fail in exactly the same way and they all end up picking up this cidery flavor when they don't carbonate right.

Is there a potential problem with yeast cell counts or something? I make every transfer as "quiet" as possible so all I can think is that not enough live yeast are winding up in the bottle to carbonate. I'm open to any suggestions or ideas, anyways - pretty frustrated & disappointed right now.

Thanks in advance...

 

[JBOGAN]

Give it a couple more weeks. I had the same problem with a porter and the flavor improved and carbonation improved within 6 to 8 weeks. One of the SWMBO favorite beers.

 

[FreudianSlip172]

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll give it some more time and pretty much just keep doing what I've been doing...

 

[Barley_Bob]

Give it time, but, with that said, I've had issues with my bottles not carbing evenly, particularly when I've done it the way you describe. So, I usually add in my priming sugar incrementally as the bottling bucket fills. At the end, I give it a gentle stir. That seems to have solved it.

 

[brewkinger]

The first sin of bottling impatience.

With few exceptions, most beers need 3 weeks MINIMUM at 70 degrees to carb up properly.
Then at LEAST a week in the fridge to force the gas to dissolve into the beer.

A stout will almost always need more time to carb and condition than an average beer.

The only solution that I have found to remedy the sins of bottling impatience is to brew a regular session ale at least once per month. Then once every 2 months, I have a double brew day where in addition to the haus ale, I make a seasonal beer that has a DO NOT DRINK UNTIL date on it.

My stout is brewed in June to drink during the holidays.

I brew blonde ales in April and May for summer drinking (while making the seasonals... Lol)

The key is a pipeline.... It makes the waiting less boring!


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[Pie_Man]

What temp did you condition at?

Also, make sure your capper is working correctly. If you shake a beer up and hold it upside down, nothing should leak.