Low to no CO2

[devaspawn]

So I started brewing 1 month+ ago. brewed a 5 gallon batch every weekend since. My second was a Continental Pilsner kit for SWMBO. I wanted to get a feel for bottling so i bottled this batch instead of kegging. now it's only been bottled for 9 days and I know that's not long enough but i have almost no CO2 buildup and very little yeast bed at the bottom of the bottle. The only mixing i did was preparing the priming sugar and pouring it in the bottom of the bucket then racking from my carboy to the bottling bucket with the hose at the bottom of the bucket at all times. I was afraid to mix more because i have seen so much about aeration on this board. I had them in the basement which is 66-68 degrees consistently. I moved them upstairs tonight to get about 4 to 6 degrees higher thinking that may have been the problem. I guess my real question is if in another 2 weeks they haven't carbonated anymore can I pour them directly in to my keg and force carb so as not to lose an entire batch of decent tasting beer? Will I have to be careful to not aerate? I am going to be bleeding the O2 off when I keg which is why I ask that. I am having the same problem with my 6 pack from my first brew that I want to have spaced out over 6 months. i used primetabs in these.

 

[DeathBrewer]

9 days, dude. give them a couple more weeks.

optimum temperature is about 75F for the first few weeks, but still...i rarely even open a bottle any more before 4 weeks. 2 weeks is absolutely minimum for any brew and in my case (with similiar storage conditions as yours) they're never very good at that point.

let them sit.

EDIT: that being said, mixing is not an issue as long as there is no splashing. i'll stir mine lightly after all the beer is added to the bucket and i'll stir again about half-way through the bottling.

 

[Poindexter]

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showpost.php?p=557134&postcount=100

 

[devaspawn]

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showpost.php?p=557134&postcount=100

What's sad is that I had that post when I went through that thread about a week ago. There's just so much info out there that my head is near exploding. But I also asked because the 6 pack from my first brew was 3 weeks bottled when I opened one and had just about zippy CO2. I guess I was worried which is why I cracked open a 9 day old bottle of my pilsner. I was reading another post where someone had recommended that another brewer transfer his beer back to his bottling bucket and it made me wonder if i could do what I was asking about kegging after bottling if I run into a CO2 problem. Does anyone know if I can do it?

thanks,

 

[FlyGuy]

Yes, you can pour your beer into a keg if you are REALLY desperate, but you have to be very careful about doing it. The keg has to be purged with CO2, otherwise you risk aerating your beer which will stale it. Personally, that seems like a lot of work to me.

If you put the correct amount of priming sugar in your bottling bucket, and it got mixed reasonably well, chances are that you are going to be fine. It sometimes takes as long as 4 or 5 weeks to achieve carbonation (or longer for some big beers that have been aged a long time in the secondary). Be patient and see what happens -- most beers benefit from some aging in the bottle anyways.

 

[devaspawn]

Thanks flyguy. I know that I should be patient but it eases the burden on my mind knowing that I have another option if the worse case scenario happens.

 

[hopsalot]

+1 on all posts, chill out its easy to stress about your bres but that does nothing the best thing to do is forget about them