Carbonation takes forever!

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rockdemon

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My beers have very little carbonation, i use 7 grams of tablesugar per liter and i now also use som safale bottlefermentation yeast but still... even though i have the bottles in a warm room (around 25c this summer) theres still hardly any carbonation after a month, Ive noticed that my beers seem to be carbed after 3-4 months... So its not that the caps are leaking but it just takes forever. with the belgian brews its ok to wait but i dont like it with my hoppy beers...
Anyone got any idea of why it takes so long?
 
That is strange! I did the english unit conversion and it comes out to 4.66 oz of table sugar to 5 gallons of beer. If I added that much table sugar, I'd have highly carbonated beer.

My Bender clone was bottled and was fully carbed after 10 days or so, though it improved by waiting hte full 3 weeks.

Not sure what is going on. What is the alcohol content? If its 8+%, I can see them taking a little longer, though generally not that long. If they are the standard 4-7%, something does appear to be wrong. How long from brew date to bottling date typically? You shouldn't even have to add bottling yeast unless it has been sitting in secondary for quite some time.
 
That is strange! I did the english unit conversion and it comes out to 4.66 oz of table sugar to 5 gallons of beer. If I added that much table sugar, I'd have highly carbonated beer.

My Bender clone was bottled and was fully carbed after 10 days or so, though it improved by waiting hte full 3 weeks.

Not sure what is going on. What is the alcohol content? If its 8+%, I can see them taking a little longer, though generally not that long. If they are the standard 4-7%, something does appear to be wrong. How long from brew date to bottling date typically? You shouldn't even have to add bottling yeast unless it has been sitting in secondary for quite some time.

My pale ales are 6-7% and my belgians between 7-9%. some beers have only been fermenting for 2 weeks and the longest one was 6 weeks...
I havent found a single helpful thread about this issue, hate to be the only one with this problem. At first i thought that they wouldnt be carbonated at all but I discovered that the beer i bottled in februari had perfect carbonation in june.
I bought a better capper, the agata super i thinks its called. but that didnt help so i dont think its the capping. If it was the capping the beer wouldnt get carbonated with time right?

I always try 1 bottle after 2 weeks but its alway the same, hardly any carbonation and no head whatsoever
 
I think table sugar will take longer than corn sugar, no? Also corn sugar will ferment out more completely. Stop me if I'm wrong.
 
Hmm, yeah if it was your capper/caps/bottles it should not carb at all. You must have the right size caps with the right size bottles. Would not be able to cap if they did not match.

Between 2-6 weeks, the primary pitched yeast should still be pretty viable to bottle condition. The 6-9% would not surprise me to take 3-5 weeks to carbonate, but not 3-4 months. Do you cold crash these really cold (0 C or below), or cold crash for a long time (1 week +)? Or filter?

Maybe try using yeast nutrient added to your wort. I use Wyeast stuff (1/4-1/2 tsp per batch). Otherwise I am grasping for ideas here. Wierd issue for sure.
 
Do you cold crash your beers before bottling? I'm just wondering if maybe you are knocking so much of the yeast out that you have so little left that they are taking much longer to carb up.
 
I think table sugar will take longer than corn sugar, no? Also corn sugar will ferment out more completely. Stop me if I'm wrong.

Could be, but I've been lazy in my last 2 batches and used table sugar in absense of any corn sugar in our house. I used slightly less table sugar than corn sugar and got pretty much identical results. They carbed just as fast or faster than corn sugar too.
 
Do you cold crash your beers before bottling? I'm just wondering if maybe you are knocking so much of the yeast out that you have so little left that they are taking much longer to carb up.

I dont cold crash at all... I siphon the beer to an empty bucket and stir the sugarwater into it along with the very small amount of extra yeast.

I use yeast nutrition both in my yeast starters and in the last 15 minutes of boiling. Should i add some before bottling aswell?
 
Shouldn't have to add nutrient beyond what you are already doing.

Hrrrmmmpphhh. I'm slowly coming back to the capping as it seems everything else seems good. When you said the carbonation in June was "good", was it light/medium carbonation? If so you might have some slow leaks, as I would guess 4.7 oz of table sugar would give at least a medium/high to high level of carbonation.
 
I think table sugar will take longer than corn sugar, no? Also corn sugar will ferment out more completely. Stop me if I'm wrong.

I think you are wrong on this one. I've not seen any difference. You should use less table sugar...consult one of the easy to find calculators.
 
Shouldn't have to add nutrient beyond what you are already doing.

Hrrrmmmpphhh. I'm slowly coming back to the capping as it seems everything else seems good. When you said the carbonation in June was "good", was it light/medium carbonation? If so you might have some slow leaks, as I would guess 4.7 oz of table sugar would give at least a medium/high to high level of carbonation.

Im gonna try to see if im doing something wrong with the capping. im pressing, turning the bottle a little and press again on every bottle. The caps arent completely "folded" around the top of the bottle as the caps are on commercial beers. The carbonation 3+months were as good as bought beer, I needed to tilt the glass to keep it from foaming over...

Maybe the bottles are leaking just a tiny bit and thats why carbing takes such a long time. If this is the case my bottles would probably be extremely carbed when capped correctly
 
How long do you leave them in the fridge before you open the bottle?

Edit: I should add that the reason why I ask is that you really should let them sit in the fridge for 2-5 days so as to give the CO2 a chance to dissolve into the beer when they have been bottled for about a month or 2, but I have noticed that on some of my beers I've had for 3-4 months that I can leave them in the fridge just long enough for them to get cold and they'll be perfectly carbed.
 
The caps arent completely "folded" around the top of the bottle as the caps are on commercial beers.

Not sure which type of capper you are using, but my Red Baron type (pictured below) completely "folds over" the cap over the ridge on the bottle. I would think this needs to be done to get a good seal. Maybe a spot to start with anyway.

RUBz0.jpg
 
Is it possible you are using a 29 mm bell on your capper for 26 mm caps/bottles? I could see that causing capping issues.

I have one of each. The 26 mm for beer and 29 mm for capping US champagne bottles.
 
I've used screw top (never again) and flip top bottles. Although I only opened bottles of two batches, my carbonation is very low as well. On the first batch, I added the sugar pills directly to the bottles. On the second batch, I used a bottling bucket and added the sugar to the bucket. I'm wondering If I'm leaving too much of an air gap in the bottles. It seems to me that for the same amount of generated CO2, a smaller air gap would mean higher pressure and more gas forced into the liquid. (But then, I'm a beginner)
 
Is it possible you are using a 29 mm bell on your capper for 26 mm caps/bottles? I could see that causing capping issues.

I have one of each. The 26 mm for beer and 29 mm for capping US champagne bottles.



yeah I also have both, havent used the big one yet though, except tried it on an empty bottle, it seemed to work better than the 26mm im using for small bottles. Could be height adjustments but on the other hand i use all kinds of .33 and .50 liter bottles and theyre all the same
 
I'm wondering If I'm leaving too much of an air gap in the bottles. It seems to me that for the same amount of generated CO2, a smaller air gap would mean higher pressure and more gas forced into the liquid. (But then, I'm a beginner)

Thats exactly what I thought in the past too. But it seems to be the opposite. Bigger air gap seems to carb quicker and possibly to higher levels for many people.
 
I've used screw top (never again) and flip top bottles. Although I only opened bottles of two batches, my carbonation is very low as well. On the first batch, I added the sugar pills directly to the bottles. On the second batch, I used a bottling bucket and added the sugar to the bucket. I'm wondering If I'm leaving too much of an air gap in the bottles. It seems to me that for the same amount of generated CO2, a smaller air gap would mean higher pressure and more gas forced into the liquid. (But then, I'm a beginner)

I use the special little tool/rod to fill bottles, and with it i fill until its just about to flood and then when i pull the tool out of the bottle it gives me that little airgap similar to bought beers, like the size of a fingertip.
 
I tried yesterday to press the caps harder on my bottled beers at home, i think theyre on tighter now, its hard to know how hard to press though. Im afraid that the bottles will break...
 
Hopefully that helps, and yeah it does take a little getting used to on just how much pressure to use.

Also how long are you keeping your beers in the fridge before you drink them? I've always noticed that beers that are around a month old usually takes a 2-4 days in the fridge before they are carbed up nicely, but those that are a few months old only need a few hour to be carbed up.
 
Sure sounds like a cap issue to me, although I haven't used a bench top capper before I would still think the caps would come out looking like store beer, they do with the hand type capper.
Maybe you need more pressue on that thing. after you re-did them with more pressure are the caps more like store beer caps? crimped all the way down?
 
Hopefully that helps, and yeah it does take a little getting used to on just how much pressure to use.

Also how long are you keeping your beers in the fridge before you drink them? I've always noticed that beers that are around a month old usually takes a 2-4 days in the fridge before they are carbed up nicely, but those that are a few months old only need a few hour to be carbed up.

I hardly ever have them in the fridge for days, theres no room for the beers in there...

Commecrial beers are carbed even when they are warm, how come home made beer needs some kind of cold crash for a period of time?
 
I hardly ever have them in the fridge for days, theres no room for the beers in there...

Commecrial beers are carbed even when they are warm, how come home made beer needs some kind of cold crash for a period of time?

They don't. The CO2 is not ever "all in the headspace" and needing to be dissolved into the beer. The CO2 is already in solution because the whole system is closed and under pressure. The only thing that chilling for a week or so before you open one will do is settle out particulates that could act as nucleation sites for the CO2 and cause it to come out of solution faster. I think that's why Trox has noticed that longer aged beers don't need as much time in the fridge.

The solubility of gas in a liquid is dependent on temperature and pressure. Lower temperatures allow more CO2 to be dissolved, but higher pressures also allow more CO2 to be dissolved (this is why you can carbonate a keg at room temperature by simply increasing the pressure). When the yeast consume the priming sugar, all of the CO2 that is going to be in the beer is in the closed system of the bottle. This puts the beer at a high pressure, allowing it to have 2.5 volumes (or so) of CO2 dissolved in it at room temperature. When you chill it down, the decrease in temperature makes the beer want to absorb CO2. But as soon as it would absorb CO2 from the headspace, the pressure in the system would decrease causing the beer to not be able to hold more CO2. It's at equilibrium. So the beer contains about the same amount of dissolved CO2 no matter what temperature it's at.
 
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