One month in bottle and no carbonation

[bootney]

Here is the story:

Brewed a DIPA and I made some mistakes. First mistake was I was way over on starting gravity as it was 1.120(reason for high gravity was due to only having about 4 gallons instead of 5). It fully fermented down to 1.023 after one month in primary. The second mistake was having only about half the yeast that was needed for this batch. I transferred into secondary for another month. I also used 1TSP of gelatin(3days before bottling) as a fining agent, and used 1/2 cup of sugar for priming.

Now the bottles have been conditioned for a month and I have zero carbonation. I'm wondering if this is due to stressed out yeast from having to work so hard initially or did all the yeast settle out and when I racked it there wasn't enough yeast floating around to carbonate the beer?

This was my third batch, and my first two batches carbonated well. I did change a few steps this go around that consisted of increased primary time, transfer to secondary, and the use of gelatin. Any ideas out there as to what may have caused this?

I have some concerns in going forward with trying to leave as much of the trub behind when racking if it causes not enough suspended yeast to carbonate.

Thanks

 

[FreeM80s]

it will take at least 8 weeks before you are going to see carbonation. I have an IIPA that I bottled a little of to age and my testers are dead flat and its been 6 weeks

 

[FreeM80s]

also, what is the temp you are letting the bottles sit at?

 

[bootney]

Temps between 78-82 degrees. Thanks for the reply

 

[509inc]

Is this 8 week time frame just for IPAs? My beer carbs in 2 weeks.

 

[Chuck_Swillery]

You brewed a 10.6% ABV beer! Nice. I'd hazard a guess with that amount of alcohol in the brew the yeast are being severly limited. The highest I've brewed in the past was about a 9.5% ABV and it seems to me it had good carbonation at about 6 weeks (its been 10+ years ago...). It took a long time for it to really mellow out also. As far as a solution to your problem I'm not sure. First and foremost don't do anything for at least another month. You may be pleasently suprised.

My last IPA was carbonated enough to drink in 2 weeks and peaked at about a month...

 

[Got Trub?]

Is this 8 week time frame just for IPAs? My beer carbs in 2 weeks.

Its because it is such a big beer OG was 1.120. It will carbonate but will take a lot longer than a 1.050 beer. Not a bad thing as it needs time to age anyways.

GT

 

[bootney]

This was my first high gravity beer and I made a few rookie mistakes in that I thought 2 1056 wyeast smack packs would be enough but after reading and using the pitch rate calculator I was about 2 packs short. Either or I learned to use a yeast starter from here on out to cut down on yeast cost as well as make sure I have enough yeast to do the job.

I'll have no problem letting this sit another month, and we'll see how it turns out. The taste is alright for it being young I'll just check back in a month and hopefully enjoy some bubbles.

 

[Idlehanz]

This thread makes me wonder a bit. I made an IIPA with an estimated ABV of 8.5% I used one Wyeast 1272 pack. Wondering if I should have used two now, according to some of what I'm reading? I did have 3 days of good bubbling. Thoughts?

 

[Pommy]

If in a month you still dont have any carbonation try to think back to whether or not you added your priming sugar. I made that mistake on a batch a couple months back (I hope) and added some carb drops just the other day. The give away is that there is less sediment then there should be and the beer is flat but not fizzy, would be impossible to tell on a 1.023 FG batch though I would have thought.

 

[Revvy]

There's nothing wrong. You are dealing with a big beer here. Big beer needs more time. Not weeks, months.

The 3 weeks at 70 degrees, that that we recommend is the minimum time it takes for average gravity beers to carbonate and condition. Higher grav beers take longer.

Stouts and porters have taken me between 6 and 8 weeks to carb up..I have a 1.090 Belgian strong that took three months to carb up.

Temp and gravity are the two factors that contribute to the time it takes to carb beer. But if a beer's not ready yet, or seems low carbed, and you added the right amount of sugar to it, then it's not stalled, it's just not time yet.

Everything you need to know about carbing and conditioning, can be found here Of Patience and Bottle Conditioning. With emphasis on the word, "patience."

If a beer isn't carbed by "x number of weeks" you just have to give them ore time. If you added your sugar, then the beer will carb up eventually, it's really a foolroof process. All beers will carb up eventually. A lot of new brewers think they have to "troubleshoot" a bottling issue, when there really is none, the beer knows how to carb itself. In fact if you run beersmiths carbing calculator, some lower grav beers don't even require additional sugar to reach their minimum level of carbonation. Just time.

Lazy Llama came up with a handy dandy chart to determine how long something takes in brewing, whether it's fermentation, carbonation, bottle conditioning....

So forget about this beer for awhile. It will be fine.