Losing Carbonation from Bottles

[Reece Witherspoon III]

Hi guys,

I tried making a batch of beer for the first time using a recipe I got at a local brewing store. My issue is I recently bottled my beer about 2.5 weeks ago and after 1 week I could see some carbonation or bubbling in the neck of some of the bottles so I tried one and it had a decent amount of carbonation and didn't taste bad. Since then the rest of the bottles have lost any visible signs of carbonation and I tried one the other day, which was completely flat. Does anyone know what a likely cause of this would be? And if so, any possible solutions. They are sitting in a 64-70 degree room and the recipe was for an IPA.

I know most people wait longer than 2.5 weeks to drink the beer, but my concern is that the bottles look and taste like they are becoming less carbonated as they sit longer.

Any help is much appreciated, thanks.

 

[VikeMan]

I know most people wait longer than 2.5 weeks to drink the beer, but my concern is that the bottles look and taste like they are becoming less carbonated as they sit longer.

If they really are becoming noticeably less carbonated, that means the caps are not properly seated/crimped. Pretend one is a twist-off and see if it turns relatively easily.

 

[Reece Witherspoon III]

Thanks for the reply. The don't turn at all but some of them don't look great. If this is the issue would they have carbonated at all over the first week? And it just seems odd that all 40 bottles would be poorly capped. But it is the first time I tried it so you might be right.

 

[VikeMan]

If this is the issue would they have carbonated at all over the first week?

It would depend on how large the leaks are. During carbonation, it's possible that production of CO2 could outpace its escape. But at some point later, escaping CO2 would outpace new CO2 production.

All that said, are you really sure you have individual bottles that have lost carbonation?

 

[bobeer]

I don't really notice signs of carbonation other than it being hazy at first then seeing the sediment at the bottom of the bottle after a few days. After that it's all about conditioning time. Maybe the bubbles you saw was the c02 slowly escaping? Or the bubbles were the yeast eating the priming sugar making a little bit of c02 that was escaping somehow. If you drink beer right out of fermentor after primary fermentation is complete it has a decent level of carbonation. This might be what you first experienced. Then, as it does, it degassed and has gotten less and less carbonated over time.

Doesn't seem right that every single bottle would fall to the same fate, though. That is unless there was an issue with the process.... IE amount of priming sugar used, dead yeast, or a dysfunctional piece of hardware. Those are really the only areas to troubleshoot with bottling. Maybe take an empty bottle, fill it with water, cap it, then turn it upside down and see if it leaks?

What kind of capper did you use and what kind of bottles and caps? what kind of priming solution did you use and how much?

I have 3 of the exact same wing type cappers and all 3 work on different levels of quality... One really sucks at its job and I should probably just toss it. I've had random bottles that have a slightly bigger or smaller opening and don't seal well. I've also had bottles that just crack, shatter, or the the neck totally breaks off when I'm trying to cap them.

I'd put a few in the fridge for a few days then try it again. 2.5 weeks should be plenty of time to get some sort of carbonation. They might not be conditioned if they've sat below 70 degrees for long periods of time. If they're all flat then you have to assume something in the process went wrong somewhere.

 

[Nokie]

I’m also wondering what your bottling process was. What did you use to prime your beer?
how much priming sugar and how to you mix it in your beer?
if not mixed in your bottling bucket real good it may not be carbonating all your bottles at the same rate

 

[Reece Witherspoon III]

For priming sugar it was 4.5 oz of dextrose boiled into 2 cups of water added to the bottling bucket before the beer was added (for a 5 gallon brew). As for the capper it was the wing capper and there were a few I did twice because it didn't seem to sit properly at first. Let me know if you guys think I did something that was off, because I don't have a lot of confidence in the instructions given to me in the kit.

I moved some of them into a bit warmer room and put some in the fridge to see what happens. Hopefully they are all just carbonating at a different pace.

Thanks again for all the input.

 

[S-Met]

Picture is worth a thousand words.

1. Pic of bottom/inside of an unused cap.
2. Pic or a capped bottle from top and also a side shot.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm looking for, but whenever I get a flat bottle, I always look to see if anything seemed out of place.

 

[day_trippr]

A tip for bottlers: include one 12 ounce plastic soda bottle in the mix, and use that to determine how carbonation is going, rather than popping capped glass only to discover "they ain't ready yet".

When that plastic bottle becomes almost too hard to squeeze, carbonation definitely happened and the beer is ready for cold conditioning...

Cheers!

 

[RM-MN]

Check the metal "bell" part inside your capper. It needs to be screwed on tight. Sometimes they work loose and you get a poorly sealing cap from that and it could affect all bottles.

 

[yaakov]

A tip for bottlers: include one 12 ounce plastic soda bottle in the mix, and use that to determine how carbonation is going, rather than popping capped glass only to discover "they ain't ready yet".

When that plastic bottle becomes almost too hard to squeeze, carbonation definitely happened and the beer is ready for cold conditioning...

Cheers!

Great tip!