How long does beer take to carbonate?

[badforyabrewing]

Being a newb myself and having a couple of drinks while wonderfully d the same question, is the ballon method a decent gauge to when carbonation is finished?

 

[z-bob]

What is this balloon method of which you speak?

Whenever I bottle beer, I always put up at least one 1 liter plastic pop bottle. When the pop bottle is hard (heh, heh, he said "hard") I open one of the 12 ounce bottles to see how I did. I don't open the 1L bottle yet because that's a lot of beer that I know isn't ready yet. The beer will be a lot better in another week or two; that's when I start drinking it for real.

 

[day_trippr]

^that^ is a great method and is what I did when I was bottling, except I used a 12 ounce plastic bottle so the carbonation would closely track the long necks...

Cheers!

 

[kloppofthekop]

One of the reasons most people think home brew taste like crap is because it not left for long enough in bottles. Leave you home brew for at least one month. you will see a much better head retention it have and the bear will taste much better, but do not take my word for this next time you make beer open on after one week another after 2 weeks so on and so on you will see it get better with age. I am making some lager now and I am going to leave it for 6 months. the think is home brew is about making beer better than what you can buy not just making some crap to say I have made my own beer...

Sound advice and very true, the closer I can get my beer to pub quality the better , even if I have to put the cost up a bit I don't care. Better to have a quality pint at £1 than one that is flat and green at 40p a pint

 

[Murrayatuptown]

Lots of good answers here but I still have a question...after all the background info...

1) Big Baltic Porter kit that was supposed to be 9.5-10.8% ABV.

2) Used 5.4% more LME by mistake and added 14 oz. corn sugar alcohol boost kit. OG 1.120

2) Aerated & pitched two yeast packets + NB Fast Pitch.

4) Left in carboy 4.5 weeks for various reasons. FG 1.026 3 days in a row. Yikes...not on the Baltic Porter chart anymore, but probably fermented...

5) Boiled 5 oz. bag of priming sugar in 16 oz water, cooled, mixed into the beer & bottled. 64 F when bottled (was on floor in a tote on cement floor). Air temp a couple feet above floor in cellar 66 F.

6) Waited 4 weeks before opening. Smells sweet, tastes sweet & barely a 'pffft' upon opening & barely 3 mm / 1/8" 'head'.

7) 4 non-beer-judge tasters liked it but no one analyzed taste. Wished it had more carbonation.

8) Put bottles in 6-pack carriers in an opaque Rubbermaid style tote planning to move upstairs...it's rarely above 69 F & where it is would be in a hallway that won't work. Tote was still 66 F inside last night.

9) I am thinking about blowing some warm air from a space heater via a fan and cardboard with heater on low and thermostat set barely above where it sees the cellar temp being...would check air temp & aim for low 70's F for a couple more weeks.

?)
I'm hoping a little warmer conditioning and more time are what it needs. What produces the condition of not being able to carbonate further? Totally exhausted yeast? Is that common? (Used S-189 between 63 and 66 F).

Thank you

 

[Murrayatuptown]

Lots of good answers here but I still have a question...after all the background info...

1) Big Baltic Porter kit that was supposed to be 9.5-10.8% ABV.

2) Used 5.4% more LME by mistake and added 14 oz. corn sugar alcohol boost kit. OG 1.120

2) Aerated & pitched two yeast packets + NB Fast Pitch.

4) Left in carboy 4.5 weeks for various reasons. FG 1.026 3 days in a row. Yikes...not on the Baltic Porter chart anymore, but probably fermented...

5) Boiled 5 oz. bag of priming sugar in 16 oz water, cooled, mixed into the beer & bottled. 64 F when bottled (was on floor in a tote on cement floor). Air temp a couple feet above floor in cellar 66 F.

6) Waited 4 weeks before opening. Smells sweet, tastes sweet & barely a 'pffft' upon opening & barely 3 mm / 1/8" 'head'.

7) 4 non-beer-judge tasters liked it but no one analyzed taste. Wished it had more carbonation.

8) Put bottles in 6-pack carriers in an opaque Rubbermaid style tote planning to move upstairs...it's rarely above 69 F & where it is would be in a hallway that won't work. Tote was still 66 F inside last night.

9) I am thinking about blowing some warm air from a space heater via a fan and cardboard with heater on low and thermostat set barely above where it sees the cellar temp being...would check air temp & aim for low 70's F for a couple more weeks.

?)
I'm hoping a little warmer conditioning and more time are what it needs. What produces the condition of not being able to carbonate further? Totally exhausted yeast? Is that common? (Used S-189 between 63 and 66 F).

Thank you

 

[Murrayatuptown]

Using space heater thermostat, I'm creeping the air temp up slowly. Was about 63.5 F today. I let the space heater sit for a couple hours before I try to bump it up...

 

[RM-MN]

At this point the beer doesn't care how fast you warm it up (as long as it doesn't get too warm in the process). The yeast does care. It wants it warm now.

 

[Murrayatuptown]

At this point the beer doesn't care how fast you warm it up (as long as it doesn't get too warm in the process). The yeast does care. It wants it warm now.

Thank you.

The gradual part is my effort to be sure I know how the space heater behaves...haven't used it before.

 

[Velnerj]

I made a barley wine that was near 11%abv and it took around 6 months for the carbonation to be where I wanted it. Sometimes it just takes that long... I kept a bottle to taste a year later (so 18 months old) and it was crazy good. So different than the ones I had earlier. Unfortunately you got to be patient with big beers but your patience will be rewarded.

My advice is to forget about it, brew another simpler beer and return back to this beer in a few months time.

 

[BrewZer]

I recently started using StarSan solution to sanitize my bottle caps... that is, I put the caps in a small dish full of properly diluted StarSan and let them soak while the bottles are being filled, then pull them out one at a time and shake them off before fitting and capping them on.

And it's more than a coincidence to me that my last two batches have not carbonated as much or as quickly as previous batches... I wonder if residual StarSan on the bottle cap might be stunting the yeast...

 

[DuncB]

I suppose next time you bottle do half with starsan and half with your old method.
Also recheck your sugar priming additions using one of the calculators brewersfriend etc and be patient. Perhaps a little undercarbed is better than a gusher!
I counter pressure fill my bottles so no conditioning in bottle, but have changed from Starsan to good old Sodium Metabisulphate as a final rinse for the bottle and the caps. Apparently it helps to scavenge any oxygen that gets in. Shouldn't be much with my method but I'm taking no chances.

 

[NGD]

@Murrayatuptown Few things may get you a better response next time.

1. Start your own thread. Some people see a necro’ed thread and skip it.

2. The upper ABV of s-189 is 11%. Throwing your numbers into Brewers Friend says your at ~12.3%. If heat doesn't help with carbonation then you may need to add yeast with a higher alcohol tolerance.

 

[Trox]

@Murrayatuptown if NGD's numbers are correct (which I have no doubt they are); you are going to want to be careful when you do add the yeast with higher alcohol tolerance, since it sounds like you have a decent amount of residual sugar that may not have been fully converted (hence the really sweet taste). So adding the new yeast may give you a much higher carbonation value, and possible bottle bombs (depending on how much sugar is left for the yeast to eat through). So would definitely keep them in the tote while they are carbing and keep an eye on them.

 

[Murrayatuptown]

I am checking twice a day with a digital thermometer with space heater under a table beer is stored on. It's been between 71& 75 F.

Not bold enough to add yeast to individual 11.3-12 oz. bottles & there's no way to defornicate that. I'll take what I get.

Opened one tonight after simulating 'room temperature' for a week.

Louder 'pffft', has some 'steam' and tastes more complex than earlier bottle two weeks ago.

Thanks for advice.

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

I recently started using StarSan to sanitize my bottle caps... that is, I put the caps in a small dish full of StarSan and let them soak while the bottles are being filled, then pull them out one at a time and shake them off before fitting and capping them on.

And it's more than a coincidence to me that my last two batches have not carbonated as much or as quickly as previous batches... I wonder if residual StarSan on the bottle cap might be stunting the yeast...

I do it that way, and I've never had a problem, it's such miniscule amounts of sanitizer we're talking about so I don't think there are any measurable difference.

 

[hout17]

I do it that way, and I've never had a problem, it's such miniscule amounts of sanitizer we're talking about so I don't think there are any measurable difference.

Ditto, I've never had a problem carbonating by putting my caps in starsan during bottling.

 

[A1sportsdad]

I recently started using StarSan to sanitize my bottle caps... that is, I put the caps in a small dish full of StarSan and let them soak while the bottles are being filled, then pull them out one at a time and shake them off before fitting and capping them on.

And it's more than a coincidence to me that my last two batches have not carbonated as much or as quickly as previous batches... I wonder if residual StarSan on the bottle cap might be stunting the yeast...

I do this every time and it has no affect that I’ve noticed on carbonation levels.

 

[Birrofilo]

I recently started using StarSan to sanitize my bottle caps... that is, I put the caps in a small dish full of StarSan and let them soak while the bottles are being filled, then pull them out one at a time and shake them off before fitting and capping them on.

And it's more than a coincidence to me that my last two batches have not carbonated as much or as quickly as previous batches... I wonder if residual StarSan on the bottle cap might be stunting the yeast...

Do you really mean StarSan, or a StarSan solution, i.e. a properly diluted StarSan?
If you use undiluted StarSan, I think that's a mistake.

 

[BrewZer]

Do you really mean StarSan, or a StarSan solution, i.e. a properly diluted StarSan?
If you use undiluted StarSan, I think that's a mistake.

Solution... from the spray bottle... I wouldn't have any fingerprints left if I was using it straight! I added clarification to my earlier post.