over attenuated beer . . . carbonation

[bluetravlr]

I have a very high O.G. beer that is now at 1 on the dot. It has been in bottles for a month and will not carbonate. Any advice? Clearly over attenuated, but is there any way to save this super expensive trial? I used honey and boiled beets . . . obviously lots of sugar . . . let the belgian yeast go at it for too long . . . . HELP!

 

[zachattack]

What's the abv? What was the OG? You might be at the limit of your yeast, but on the other hand high ABV beers can take months to carbonate. What temperature have you been keeping the bottles at? I'd get them above 70 degrees if you can and wait a few more months.

 

[Ply318ci]

I agree with raising the temp. I heard Belgian brewers will bottle condition at 80 degrees. My house is about that temp so I bottle conditioned my 11.2% ABV Belgian strong ale and it carbed up (granted not fully carbed but getting there) in about a week. I used S-33 and didn't add any yeast at bottling time. So try raising the temp to 80 degrees or of you can do that move the bottles somewhere warmer. But sometimes if the yeast is stretched to the limit it
can take a while. Hope that helps.

 

[sweetcell]

start by raising temps, give it a month or two.

if it's still not carbonated, you might need to add fresh yeast. i would recommend champagne yeast - make a slurry, wait 20 mins and then start slowly adding some of the beer to the slurry to acclimatize the yeast to the high-alcohol environment, then uncap a bottle, add a few drops via an eyedropper, and re-cap with a new cap. is the beer not carbonating enough, or is it completely flat? if it's perfectly flat, then you should still have enough initial priming sugar left in there. if it's started to carb a little, then you might consider adding a very small amount of sugar to the slurry to replace the already-consumed sugar.

BTW, you didn't "let the belgian yeast go at it for too long". the yeast was going to do whatever it was going to do. you can't stop it, short of killing it (then how would you carbonate?). it's better for the yeast to have munched down in the bucket/carboy as opposed to in the bottle. had you bottled before the yeast finished attenuating, you could have had bottle bombs.