Carbonation

[Triggs1980]

Hi All

So after secondary I used the Northern Brewer priming sugar calculator and bottled my beer, using a plastic bottle as a visual guide for carbonation. After 1 week nothing had happened. My yeast was Kveik and my fermentation temperature was 90F. My bottling temperature was closer to 60F. It was recommended that I get the bottles up to 70F to get the yeast going so I wrapped everything up in an electric blanket, crossed my fingers and hoped. The plastic bottle expanded after a couple of days and I thought all was good. A week later I removed the plastic bottle and put it back in stores at 60F. Almost immediately the bottle shrank and deformed back into it's original state. I tried it last night and there is no carbonation.

Could it be that all my yeast that were in secondary fell to the bottom and haven't made it into the bottles? If so, does anyone have any advice? I'm thinking at this point I might need to put the whole batch back in a bucket and add some bottling yeast.

 

[VikeMan]

It's very unlikely (impossible, really) that all of the yeast came out of suspension in your secondary vessel.

I would give it more time. And if I eventually decided to add yeast, I'd add it to the bottles individually. Pouring bottles back into a bottling bucket would make an oxidized mess.

 

[hotbeer]

Screw top plastic bottles? If you wanted to experiment and you can measure your sugar precisely, then just unscrew a couple caps and add the sugar.

I'd keep the bottles up in the 72 - 74°F temps for a couple weeks before putting in the fridge or cooler place for storage.

If you have a lot of headspace in the bottles, then contraction of the gas in the headspace will be more of an issue with bottles being cooled or chilled to drinking temps. But if your carbonation is good, that shouldn't really be an issue.

I've sort of relegated my recent batch of under-carbed beers as just an outlier event. Likely I just messed up measuring the syrup amount needed. But hey, maybe the recent solar flare or some cosmic event sent some juju rays through them!

Are you sure your lids don't leak? If you ever do get them to have pressure, then stick them underwater and see if there are any steady bubbling coming from around the cap.

 

[rburrelli]

Hi All

So after secondary I used the Northern Brewer priming sugar calculator and bottled my beer, using a plastic bottle as a visual guide for carbonation. After 1 week nothing had happened. My yeast was Kveik and my fermentation temperature was 90F. My bottling temperature was closer to 60F. It was recommended that I get the bottles up to 70F to get the yeast going so I wrapped everything up in an electric blanket, crossed my fingers and hoped. The plastic bottle expanded after a couple of days and I thought all was good. A week later I removed the plastic bottle and put it back in stores at 60F. Almost immediately the bottle shrank and deformed back into it's original state. I tried it last night and there is no carbonation.

Could it be that all my yeast that were in secondary fell to the bottom and haven't made it into the bottles? If so, does anyone have any advice? I'm thinking at this point I might need to put the whole batch back in a bucket and add some bottling yeast.

When using that priming sugar calculator you should prime based upon the highest temperature reached during or post fermentation. So you should have primed based upon your 90 degree temperature.
Did you prime based upon 60 degrees?

 

[Triggs1980]

When using that priming sugar calculator you should prime based upon the highest temperature reached during or post fermentation. So you should have primed based upon your 90 degree temperature.
Did you prime based upon 60 degrees?

I asked Northern brewer that exact question and they said that their calculator is based upon room temperature. their video says "the current temperature of the beer" on a couple of occasions. I have seen other sites that say the highest temperature that the beer fermented at. I primed mine at 60F but am now wondering if I should have gone with 90F in the calculator. Still no carbonation

 

[Triggs1980]

Screw top plastic bottles? If you wanted to experiment and you can measure your sugar precisely, then just unscrew a couple caps and add the sugar.

I'd keep the bottles up in the 72 - 74°F temps for a couple weeks before putting in the fridge or cooler place for storage.

If you have a lot of headspace in the bottles, then contraction of the gas in the headspace will be more of an issue with bottles being cooled or chilled to drinking temps. But if your carbonation is good, that shouldn't really be an issue.

I've sort of relegated my recent batch of under-carbed beers as just an outlier event. Likely I just messed up measuring the syrup amount needed. But hey, maybe the recent solar flare or some cosmic event sent some juju rays through them!

Are you sure your lids don't leak? If you ever do get them to have pressure, then stick them underwater and see if there are any steady bubbling coming from around the cap.

Only using screw cap for a couple so i can have a visual view of the carbonation. I'm using glass swing tops for the batch. I just left the neck space free of fluid.

 

[VikeMan]

I asked Northern brewer that exact question and they said that their calculator is based upon room temperature. their video says "the current temperature of the beer" on a couple of occasions. I have seen other sites that say the highest temperature that the beer fermented at. I primed mine at 60F but am now wondering if I should have gone with 90F in the calculator. Still no carbonation

While it's important to get the temperature right (so the calculators can estimate the residual CO2), using 60F in a calculator when it should have been 90F would not account for no carbonation.

 

[doug293cz]

I asked Northern brewer that exact question and they said that their calculator is based upon room temperature. their video says "the current temperature of the beer" on a couple of occasions. I have seen other sites that say the highest temperature that the beer fermented at. I primed mine at 60F but am now wondering if I should have gone with 90F in the calculator. Still no carbonation

What they should have answered is: "Our calculator is based on the beer finishing fermentation at room temp, and not being exposed to higher temps after fermentation finished." The video is wrong.

Priming calculators have to estimate how much residual CO2 is in the beer at bottling time, so they can figure out how much sugar needs to be added to reach the total desired. For example if the beer at bottling starts out with 0.8 volumes of CO2 (a typical value), and you want 2.5 volumes of carbonation, then the calculator figures out how much sugar to add to create 1.7 volumes of additional CO2.

The assumption calculators make for residual CO2 at bottling time is that the fermentation was unpressurized, the headspace at end of fermentation was 100% CO2, and that the CO2 in the beer is in equilibrium with the headspace CO2. Given these assumptions, the residual CO2 is simply a function of the highest temp the beer reached after CO2 production ended.

Since you fermented at 90°F, your residual CO2 was ~0.61 volumes. When you told the calculator that you fermented at 60°F, it calculated your residual CO2 as ~0.96 volumes. Thus for 2.5 volumes it told you to add 2.5 - 0.96 = 1.54 volumes worth of sugar. What you actually needed was 2.5 - 0.61 = 1.89 volumes worth of sugar. Thus your carbonation would come up 1.89 - 1.54 = 0.35 volumes short, or 2.15 volumes instead of the desired 2.5 volumes.

There may be other factors involved in your low carb issue as well, such as not enough time to fully carbonate because of the low conditioning temperature, or leaking bottle seals.

Brew on

 

[Triggs1980]

What they should have answered is: "Our calculator is based on the beer finishing fermentation at room temp, and not being exposed to higher temps after fermentation finished." The video is wrong.

Priming calculators have to estimate how much residual CO2 is in the beer at bottling time, so they can figure out how much sugar needs to be added to reach the total desired. For example if the beer at bottling starts out with 0.8 volumes of CO2 (a typical value), and you want 2.5 volumes of carbonation, then the calculator figures out how much sugar to add to create 1.7 volumes of additional CO2.

The assumption calculators make for residual CO2 at bottling time is that the fermentation was unpressurized, the headspace at end of fermentation was 100% CO2, and that the CO2 in the beer is in equilibrium with the headspace CO2. Given these assumptions, the residual CO2 is simply a function of the highest temp the beer reached after CO2 production ended.

Since you fermented at 90°F, your residual CO2 was ~0.61 volumes. When you told the calculator that you fermented at 60°F, it calculated your residual CO2 as ~0.96 volumes. Thus for 2.5 volumes it told you to add 2.5 - 0.96 = 1.54 volumes worth of sugar. What you actually needed was 2.5 - 0.61 = 1.89 volumes worth of sugar. Thus your carbonation would come up 1.89 - 1.54 = 0.35 volumes short, or 2.15 volumes instead of the desired 2.5 volumes.

There may be other factors involved in your low carb issue as well, such as not enough time to fully carbonate because of the low conditioning temperature, or leaking bottle seals.

Brew on

This is really great feedback, thank you. I just wish I'd received the same from the website. Any suggestions how I resolve? I imagine it's not as simple as working out my sugar difference, dispersing it against each bottle and then adding a bottle conditioning yeast starter to each bottle?

 

[doug293cz]

This is really great feedback, thank you. I just wish I'd received the same from the website. Any suggestions how I resolve? I imagine it's not as simple as working out my sugar difference, dispersing it against each bottle and then adding a bottle conditioning yeast starter to each bottle?

I don't have any experience attempting to adjust carb levels in bottles, so don't have any tried and true methods. But, before you do anything, I'd get the bottles up to at least 70°F, and hold them there for two weeks, since much of your issue may be due to too low a conditioning temperature (especially for a yeast that likes it hot.)

Brew on

 

[bwible]

2.5 volumes is fairly high carbonation, usually whats recommended for American lagers, etc. 2.15 is less than that but would not exactly be flat. I’ve been deliberately underpriming my bottle beers and usually aiming around 2.0 because I’ve found bottling to be an inexact science. You can take 12 gravity readings and get the same number in range for 7 days and then measure priming sugar with a jeweler scale accurate to a tenth of a gram and still get over carbonated beer.

I batch prime 3 gallons and am only filling about 30 bottles. I have my bottles ready to go before I add priming sugar. I stir in the sugar and stir again at least 3 times during the bottle filling process to keep it distributed.

I try to err on the side of slight under carbonation rather than over carbonate. 2.5 is too risky for me, I won’t do what the calculators say for that volume. I end with gushers when I do. 2.0 volumes is still plenty of carbonation.

 

[balrog]

Warm them up for a couple of weeks. **IF YOUR SEALS ARE GOOD** then everything should work out. You'd have to bring the batch up to 180F or so for 10 minutes in order to really kill the yeast, and I'm presuming you did not do that during fermentation/secondary (unless adding fruit or something, most say skip secondary by the way).

 

[RM-MN]

So after secondary I used the Northern Brewer priming sugar calculator and bottled my beer, using a plastic bottle as a visual guide for carbonation.

Plastic bottle lids are prone to leakage unless very tight.

 

[ncbrewer]

Maybe I missed it, but what was your target CO2 volumes?

 

[hotbeer]

You mentioned most of your batch was swing top bottles. I've never used them, but there was another thread a while back where the OP had carbonation issues, and I think the thread left off with the the suggestion that swing top bottles sometimes need their seals replaced after so many uses.

Though I'm also thinking your swing tops might be new. So just FWIW and FYI.

 

[balrog]

I bought some fancy, shiny, new, 750ml, swing tops of I think Chinese origin. Their hard plastic gaskets did not seal well for pressure. At all. Replaced with rubber, springy, softer gaskets and all was good.

Except that 750ml bottles fit no known box, carrier, holder, conveyor or receptacle known to man. Not that I tried putting one in the car's cup holder. I just, um, heard someone who did.

 

[Triggs1980]

Update: So I finally gave up waiting last weekend so created a small yeast starter using some malt extract and bottling yeast. I also calculated the priming sugar difference between room temperature and fermentation temperature and mixed that in as well. I then syringed around 10ml into each bottle. It's been a week now and I have a decent carbonation in my plastic test bottle. Gonna leave it another week and see if the yeast have not only worked through he priming delta and malt extract, but also the original priming sugar that didn't kick off at first bottling. Hopefully I've avoided too much Oxidization and I don't have bottle bombs.

 

[Homebrew Harry]

I bought some fancy, shiny, new, 750ml, swing tops of I think Chinese origin. Their hard plastic gaskets did not seal well for pressure. At all. Replaced with rubber, springy, softer gaskets and all was good.

Except that 750ml bottles fit no known box, carrier, holder, conveyor or receptacle known to man. Not that I tried putting one in the car's cup holder. I just, um, heard someone who did.

Haha. Did you hear if that "someone" tried weathertech ?