Dubbel Question

[Fuzzy-Q]

I brewed a Belgian Dubbel and had a question about carbonation? It was an extract/steeped receipe where my OG was 1.059 and FG was 1.010 (target was 1.016). Fermented 2 weeks in primary and one in secondary. Primed with 3/4 cup corn sugar in 1 cup water. It has been just over two weeks and I have tried two bottles in the last two days (wanted to make sure it was not a capping issue) and there was little to no head and the brew seemed a little flat. Do Belgians take longer to condition and carb? I thought I read that somewhere on the site. My other beers had alot of head and carb after two weeks..a Pale Ale and Dunkelweizen. Just looking for some info. Thanks.

 

[tedclev]

I am assuming here that you know how to bottle- sounds like you do- and you know to leave the bottles at room temp for at least two weeks before refrigerating. I'm thinking that if your yeast dropped your FG that low and because you used a secondary, you may not have had enough viable yeast. You left most of your yeast behind in your primary, left a bit more in the secondary, and what was left was probably fairly "exhausted." Leave them a bit longer. If your yeast is feeling tapped out then it may take it longer to finish the last leg of the journey- carbing your beer.

When I don't keg and I bottle instead, I usually make sure to siphon up at least just a little bit of yeast to make sure I have enough in my bottles. Also, I stopped using secondaries and just let the beer sit a bit longer on the yeast so that the yeasties will clean it up for me. You can leave it on there for up to a month, though I usually don't go over three weeks. Anyway, just give it another week, pop a few in the fridge for a week so that the beer will absorb the CO2 into it and see where you're at. In the meantime, don't worry about it.

 

[tedclev]

Also, 16 sounds high to me for a belgian, but I don't really know what your recipe was like.

 

[OHIOSTEVE]

1.008-1.018 is right on for a Dubble's FG. you're at about 6.5% ABV (ballpark). some beer takes longer to carbonate.. move the bottles to a warmer location and wait it out.. i've seen a triple take 4 weeks to show carbonation. and almost 2 months to carbonate fully.. wasn't mine so i don't know the brewers full process. point is they did finally carb up. higher alch content could cause the long carbonation times because some yeasts don't like that environment. which yeast did you use?

yep.. also 2 weeks is pretty quick anyway. tuen em over to get the yeast back into suspension and warm em up a little. I had a DFH 60 min that was FLAT at 3 weeks.. did this and 3 days later fully carbed... you said there was LITTLE to no head so it IS carbing and hust not DONE yet.

 

[Crustovsky]

Just give it a bit more time. I've noticed with Belgian yeast (well, wyeast Belgian Ardennes at least) a week more conditioning in bottle than normal goes a long way, both for flavour and carbonation level. No idea why that is exactly, but that's my experience at least.

Give it two more weeks and try again.

 

[bechard]

I just spoke with Fuzzy-Q tonight (fellow local brewer), and afterwards I cracked open a bottle of my Brown Ale, and its still flat too. The hell.

My ale was two weeks primary, two weeks secondary, and two days cold crash prior to bottling. I'm now concerned that cold crashing took too much yeast out. My ale has been conditioning at 70F for two weeks tomorrow, but I grabbed one yesterday morning to chill and absorb co2. I get a hiss when the bottle opens, small hiss though, not like my last brew. No bubbles in the glass or head formation.

Fuzzy mentioned shaking the bottles to re-suspend the yeast, I'll be doing the same tonight with mine.

Looks like I'll be trying it again in a week.

 

[bechard]

Alright Fuzzy, looks like we both need to give it another week or two.

Cheers.