Continuously under-carbonated beers...

[der_Missionar]

I've made about 25 batches of homebrew over the years. The last 4 or so batches, however, have been under-carbonated. I rarely get a head on these beers anymore.

I blame Covid. It all started after Covid. But that's a cop-out.

I've made 4 batches, and none of them will form a head when I'm pouring. They feel under carb-ed. I have both swing-top and capped bottles, from each batch. Both suffer the same issue, so it is not the swing-tops.

I've tried adding slightly more sugar than the recipe calls for, and that doesn't seem to change it significantly either.

I'm wondering, could this be temperature related? I've had a hard time keeping my beers cool enough. This past year, my basement has averaged several degrees warmer than in previous years. Could the beers be fermenting too quickly? Is there a way to re-ignite the fermentation process? Shake the bottle? change temp?

Any ideas?

 

[Dgallo]

I've made about 25 batches of homebrew over the years. The last 4 or so batches, however, have been under-carbonated. I rarely get a head on these beers anymore.

I blame Covid. It all started after Covid. But that's a cop-out.

I've made 4 batches, and none of them will form a head when I'm pouring. They feel under carb-ed. I have both swing-top and capped bottles, from each batch. Both suffer the same issue, so it is not the swing-tops.

I've tried adding slightly more sugar than the recipe calls for, and that doesn't seem to change it significantly either.

I'm wondering, could this be temperature related? I've had a hard time keeping my beers cool enough. This past year, my basement has averaged several degrees warmer than in previous years. Could the beers be fermenting too quickly? Is there a way to re-ignite the fermentation process? Shake the bottle? change temp?

Any ideas?

So with warmer temps you should get quicker refermentation in the bottles and get to the full level of carb possible from the amount of sugar you added quicker.

How long are you waiting prior to bottling from pitch day?

Also how long are you allowing your bottles to condition prior to putting them in the fridge?

Head retention has many variables that attribute or negatively impact it. Carb level is certainly one but it could be Because of numerous Things.

If you post the recipe and process of one of those four recipes, someone will be able to help you a little better

 

[RM-MN]

Check your cleaning regimen. I had that same result by using too much soap/detergent in the water I washed my bottles in, then only did a single rinse. The tiny bit of soap residue killed the heading in every bottle from 2 batches before I figured out what I had done. I now wash, rinse, then rinse again and eliminated the problem. Soap residue on your serving glassware will do that too. Often an anti-spotting agent is added to the dishwasher. This is a detergent and will kill heading.

 

[Deadalus]

Check your cleaning regimen. I had that same result by using too much soap/detergent in the water I washed my bottles in, then only did a single rinse. The tiny bit of soap residue killed the heading in every bottle from 2 batches before I figured out what I had done. I now wash, rinse, then rinse again and eliminated the problem. Soap residue on your serving glassware will do that too. Often an anti-spotting agent is added to the dishwasher. This is a detergent and will kill heading.

Along this line of thought, are you using a bottle washer? Have you changed your soap brand recently? Some dish soaps have hand conditioners in them.

I rinse three times myself with the bottle washer, four bottles at a time two in each hand to speed things up.

 

[Elric]

Add my vote to a likely culprit being something in your bottle cleaning regimen.

 

[kh54s10]

I wash my glasses in the dishwasher. First beer = very little head, each successive beer has a bigger head. The bottles don't get hit with any soap or detergent.

 

[der_Missionar]

So with warmer temps you should get quicker refermentation in the bottles and get to the full level of carb possible from the amount of sugar you added quicker.

How long are you waiting prior to bottling from pitch day?

2.5 to 3 weeks on average.

Also how long are you allowing your bottles to condition prior to putting them in the fridge?

Some are going on 2 months at this point.

Head retention has many variables that attribute or negatively impact it. Carb level is certainly one but it could be Because of numerous Things.

If you post the recipe and process of one of those four recipes, someone will be able to help you a little better

I'm mostly doing kits from Brewer's Best. Kits that did me well in the past. Kolsch, Octoberfest, Cream Ale.

One that's 1 year, that was NOT carb'd well is now exhibiting great carbonation. That's a long time to wait, though

I wash my glasses in the dishwasher. First beer = very little head, each successive beer has a bigger head. The bottles don't get hit with any soap or detergent.

I use a bottle brush, with Dawn, I rinse, on average, 5 times. (I'm a bit ocd with washing and rinsing).

I have, been a bit less careless about leaving StarSan residue in my bottles. I soak each bottle in Starsan for 3 minutes, before bottling. I let starsan drain, but I've been careless about doing a second draining of the StarSan before filling the bottles. There could be excess starsan in there, which would change the PH...

I doubt, however, that there's any detergent in there at all.

Perhaps I should switch to a bottle washer to sanitize?

 

[Deadalus]

I don't know about the StarSan but I use a bottle tree to hold the bottles after using it. They are drained really well by the time a start filling.

 

[Deadalus]

Are you correctly accounting for your bottling volumes? Are there any recent changes in your system? New bottling bucket, new measuring pitcher, change to a glass carboy? Any change that is perhaps consisten over the last several batches? How about the spigot on the bottling bucket or your filling tube, good sanitation there, no soap residues?

 

[Elric]

2.5 to 3 weeks on average.



Some are going on 2 months at this point.



I'm mostly doing kits from Brewer's Best. Kits that did me well in the past. Kolsch, Octoberfest, Cream Ale.

One that's 1 year, that was NOT carb'd well is now exhibiting great carbonation. That's a long time to wait, though


I use a bottle brush, with Dawn, I rinse, on average, 5 times. (I'm a bit ocd with washing and rinsing).

I have, been a bit less careless about leaving StarSan residue in my bottles. I soak each bottle in Starsan for 3 minutes, before bottling. I let starsan drain, but I've been careless about doing a second draining of the StarSan before filling the bottles. There could be excess starsan in there, which would change the PH...

I doubt, however, that there's any detergent in there at all.

Perhaps I should switch to a bottle washer to sanitize?

starsan is fine and won't kill your carbonation. You are rinsing alot, but I still get flags over the fact that you are using Dawn. Maybe get a few new bottles and only use pbw or oxyclean to wash and see if those bottles give better head than your Dawn cleaned bottles to eliminate it as a potential variable?

 

[der_Missionar]

Okay, I will try this.

Are there other factors that could contribute? I've always used Dawn, and it is not a new variable.

 

[wsmith1625]

Are you using corn sugar or table sugar to carbonate? Also, are you adding to the bottling bucket or measuring per bottle?

+1 on eliminating Dawn as @Elric suggested

 

[Tyler B]

How do you measure the volume of beer and then determine how much priming sugar is needed? If you just follow the recipe for "3.5oz of priming sugar", it might not be enough for the volume of beer that you actually made. You need to know the volume of beer, temp, type of sugar, etc.

I keg now but still use this priming sugar calculator:
https://www.northernbrewer.com/pages/priming-sugar-calculator
One other thing to consider is oils. Some ingredients contain lots of oils that kill foam. Nuts, some flavor extracts, cacao nibs, coffee, coconut, to name a few, might negatively impact your head retention.

 

[Jim R]

I appreciate this thread because I use to struggled with the same thing. The calculator is the second best suggestion. The best option for me was to finally spend a little extra money for a keg and C02 and now achieve the perfect carbonation level by turning a dial (not to minion all the other advantages).

 

[dawn_kiebawls]

I mean no offense at all and I know this is a long shot. But, are you adding the priming sugar to the bottling bucket or the fermentor?

 

[OldDogBrewing]

My bet is that as you are fermenting hotter than usual, the beer is retaining less CO2, maybe you should use a priming calculator taking into account the hottest temperature the beer has been and see if the new sugar amount does the trick

 

[MikeCo]

For me the hardest variable to determine in bottle conditioning is residual CO2 in the beer which is affected by time and temperature in the fermenter. When using the calculator, use the highest temperature the beer reached during fermentation or storage, as more CO2 will diffuse out of warmer beer. I believe the calculators assume the beers are not aged for a long period of time either. When I bottle barrel aged beers, I always enter a higher carbonation in the calculator than I really want to compensate for less residual CO2 in the beer than the calculator assumes.

Another thing to try is adding fresh yeast at bottling if the beer is carbonating appropriately but very slowly.