Newbie Bottle Conditioning Observations

[auburntsts]

So I've now brewed 7 batches and have some unscientific observations about bottle conditioning and yeast strains. With an identical bottling and storage process, SAFALE US-05, WLP004, and Munton's all carbonated in 2 weeks. Nottngham and SAFALE US-04 took over twice as long to reach full carbonation.

This sample is statically irrelevant but my point is apparently the various strains potentially take differing amounts of time to carb up (all things being equal), something I wasn't expecting. So if you open a bottle and it's flat, don't give up on the batch. It might just need more time.

 

[thehaze]

Out of the last 29 batches, I never had beers not being carbonated after 10 days, not even at over 9% ABV and also with Nottingham and S-04, which are very flocculant and hardy yeast. It could be something in your process.

I have enough and pleasent carbonation in all my beers 5-6 days after I bottled. At day 10 they are fully carbonated and reached their peak. 5-6 days at 68-72F will help carbonate any beer, up until 8-9 %. If it does not happen, something went wrong along the way.

 

[auburntsts]

I never had beers not being carbonated after 10 days, not even at over 9% ABV and also with Nottingham and S-04, which are very flocculant and hardy yeast. It could be something in your process.

I have enough and pleasent carbonation in all my beers 5 days after I bottled. At day 10 they are fully carbonated and reached their peak. 5 days at 68-72F will help carbonate any beer, up until 8-9 %. If it does not happen, something went wrong along the way.

Yep, I understand that hence my caveats. The point I was trying to make was more about not giving up on the batch than trying to figure out why the different strains carbed differently using the exact same process (cold crashing, racking, priming sugar, sanitation, equipment, storage temps (~70deg), etc) based upon limited anecdotal observations.

 

[kh54s10]

I haven't found any correlation to type of yeast. I have found that strong and dark beers take longer. I have only had the big beers not have carbonation at 2 weeks. But I would say that ALL of my bottled beers tasted better at 3 weeks or longer. Some just a little, others improved dramatically.

 

[BobBailey]

Two of the most important factors in natural carbonation are the amount of viable yeast present at bottling time and the storage temperature once the beer has been bottled.

The amount of yeast present depends on several factors including how flocculent the yeast strain is, how long the beer sat in the fermenter, and at what temperature, after active fermentation was complete, whether the beer had been transferred off of the yeast cake into another vessel and if so, how clean that transfer and the transfer to the bottling bucket were and whether the beer was fined post fermentation.

The temperature at which the beer is stored is probably the biggest factor provided a reasonable amount of healthy yeast is present at the time of bottling. Warmer temperatures, within reason promote faster carbonating in most cases. Also, some yeast strains are more active at lower temperatures.

Some yeast strains aren't as alcohol tolerant as others so the alcohol level of the beer may have either reached or almost reached the level of that tolerance. This can cause a very slow, incomplete, or a lack of re-fermentation in the bottle, resulting in little or no carbonation regardless of the amount present and temperature.

Combinations of these and other lesser factors can make it almost impossible to figure out why one batch carbonated faster than another batch. It's one of those, your mileage may vary, things.