please help with a couple questions

[moose5180]

I brewed a pale wheat on monday, did my usual procedure and i have not seen any activity yet. I brought it upstairs thinking it may be temp related but still nothing. No krausen, bubbling or airlock activity. I live in BFE so no local home brew store to get more yeast. I would have to order online. Any suggestions?

Second i brewed an ipa and have bottled a month now, no carbonation yet. It too is actually covered up in the living room to get some heat to it, tried one today and nothing. I have heard of uncapping and adding sugar. I have 4 bottled beers i am sending to some friends for christmas and really wanted to add this one. Any thoughts on adding more sugar? If so priming sugar and how much? Thanks for your help.

 

[Kent88]

When did you bring it upstairs? How warm do you keep your house? If you give it a gentle swirl does any foam appear? What kind of yeast did you use? Do you remember seeing a date it needed to be used by?

You might have to order some yeast and put a rush on it.

You can add some sugar to the bottles, but any carbonation in there will degas when you add the sugar, so make sure you are working somewhere that can get a little messy. As for how much, that is a darn good question that ultimately you will have to figure out based on how flat it is. Better to undercarb it so there aren't any explosions.

In the future, I recommend you make yeast starters so that you know you'll have active yeast to inoculate with.

 

[moose5180]

brought upstairs last night, bedroom is 65ish. i gave it a shake yesterday and no foam. bry97 from brewers best kit. date was 1/2018

 

[Rob2010SS]

For your wheat, considering its been over 3 days, i think you need new yeast. Even with no aerating and no rehydration, id think you would have seen activity. Id get new yeast ordered right away and rush it. Can you provide more info of what temp you pitched at, did you rehydrate, if so how, was this the bry97?

As far as your bottles that aren't carbonating, how much priming sugar did you mix up for that batch? Can you please go through all the steps of how you primed and bottled that one? Sounds like you need to add more sugar but how much you will have to use a calculator for. Use the priming calculator on brewers friend. Its pretty user friendly.

 

[FatDragon]

Sounds like your main problem is temperature. The first thing to do is try to warm up both beers - the fermenting one and the one in bottles. Space heaters, electric blankets, even putting a desk lamp with an incandescent bulb next to them could help.

BRY-97 is a notoriously slow starter. Being on the colder side for an ale yeast probably hasn't helped. If you're not willing to wait another day or two for it to start (it could happen) or use bread yeast as a sub-par backup, you might pop a couple good beers, pour into your favorite glass, and swirl up the last inch of dregs and pour them in - that would be a massive underpitch (assuming the BRY-97 is indeed dead), but still probably better than leaving it for an infection to take hold.

I'd be wary of re-priming those IPAs. Unless you didn't prime them in the first place or the caps somehow all leaked badly, you're setting yourself up for bottle bombs. Try warming them up and giving each bottle a gentle swirl, then give it another week or two.

 

[n3lson1]

Get Carb Drops! I have never had success with the tablets, but the carb drops are amazing! Just drop one in, fill with beer, cap it and done. Now depending on how long the beer was i the fermentor, 3+ months, you might need to add some yeast. Over that time there maynot be enough healthy yeast to eat the sugars to carbonate the beer.

As for the beer that hasn't begun fermenting, I would make ssurethe airlock/bung is sure and give it a few more days. Also, always try to have some dry yeast on hand, incase you do need to repitch; I usually have s05and a dry belgian yeast in my fridge.

 

[moose5180]

thanks fellas, the fermenting beer i set covered in the living room overnight, we have a wood stove in there and the room itself is warm about 75 ish . I noticed a little bit of foam starting to form on the top. I have it out of the way and not by the stove of course. Might be on to something. I think i will try the same with the bottled beers. Thanks for the suggestions

 

[moose5180]

For your wheat, considering its been over 3 days, i think you need new yeast. Even with no aerating and no rehydration, id think you would have seen activity. Id get new yeast ordered right away and rush it. Can you provide more info of what temp you pitched at, did you rehydrate, if so how, was this the bry97?

As far as your bottles that aren't carbonating, how much priming sugar did you mix up for that batch? Can you please go through all the steps of how you primed and bottled that one? Sounds like you need to add more sugar but how much you will have to use a calculator for. Use the priming calculator on brewers friend. Its pretty user friendly.

I used the 4oz priming sugar that came w the kit. I used the same procedure i always use by the directions, boil the water mix in let cool. dump in bottling bucket first then transfer beer. Made about 8-10 batches this way and never had this problem

 

[RM-MN]

I used the 4oz priming sugar that came w the kit. I used the same procedure i always use by the directions, boil the water mix in let cool. dump in bottling bucket first then transfer beer. Made about 8-10 batches this way and never had this problem

I think your problem with this batch is winter. The days are colder and you aren't keeping the bottled beer warm enough for the yeast to do their magic. That also may be the problem with the new batch. Temperature control is pretty important when making beer. Most of the time the problem is off flavors from fermenting too warm but too cold shuts down the yeast activity of slows it dramatically. You may need to put the fermenter in a tub of water with an aquarium heater to keep the temperature within the yeast's preferred range.

 

[moose5180]

I think your problem with this batch is winter. The days are colder and you aren't keeping the bottled beer warm enough for the yeast to do their magic. That also may be the problem with the new batch. Temperature control is pretty important when making beer. Most of the time the problem is off flavors from fermenting too warm but too cold shuts down the yeast activity of slows it dramatically. You may need to put the fermenter in a tub of water with an aquarium heater to keep the temperature within the yeast's preferred range.

You are exactly right! So this morning i woke up to a happy fermenter, bubbling away. I live in Wyoming where it is cold and this is my first year brewing, so this summer everything worked in the basement as it stays a nice 68. The beer i am trying to carb is now set fairly close to the wood stove but the bottles are only in the 74 degree range. Thanks for your help guys!

 

[moose5180]

once the fermenter is kicked off and going strong it will create some of its own heat correct? So i moved it to the bedroom where its just a bit cooler than the living room. I guess my next project will need to be a temp control fridge.

 

[ancientmariner52]

Hey, Moose. Are we talking fermenter temp or room temp? You are right, yeast produces heat, so at minimum you need the little stick-on thermometers that everybody sells. When you build your fermentation chamber, it is best if your temp probe is in the beer, via thermowell or such.

When you racked your beer onto the priming sugar, did you stir? Gently, so as not to waken the oxygen demons? I was getting a lot of variation from bottle to bottle til I started doing this.

 

[moose5180]

Hey, Moose. Are we talking fermenter temp or room temp? You are right, yeast produces heat, so at minimum you need the little stick-on thermometers that everybody sells. When you build your fermentation chamber, it is best if your temp probe is in the beer, via thermowell or such.

When you racked your beer onto the priming sugar, did you stir? Gently, so as not to waken the oxygen demons? I was getting a lot of variation from bottle to bottle til I started doing this.

I checked the fermenter with a raytech and its currently 70. yeah i always give it a nice slow stir

 

[ancientmariner52]

Sounds like you have it under control.

 

[GHBWNY]

Yep, sounds like it'll be OK; just needed a little temp control. From a scan of the threads here on use of BRY-97, general consensus is that it has a slow take off/lag rate. Remember: happy temp = happy yeast. Let us know how it turns out.

 

[moose5180]

So took FG on the brew last week and was 1.019, should be 1.009-1.012. I took it again this morning and still 1.019. Is it done and good to go? In a week i did not drop any but still pretty far off. Stalled? ive never had this happen before so really not sure what to do. Thanks for your help

And the IPA still flat AF!

 

[FatDragon]

What was the OG on the wheat? All-grain or extract? You might just have to take it as it is. It's possible that moving the fermenter to a cooler room was enough to cause it to stall, since the late stages of fermentation are slower and thus not as exothermic (heat-producing) as the early stages, but it's also possible that something about the beer or the yeast or both just wasn't going to ferment down as low as you expected.

As for the bottles, do you have a way to heat them up significantly for a while, like to 80-90 degrees? A water bath with an aquarium heater comes to mind. It's possible that the yeast are going to need an extra boost of heat to wake up after their long nap. Sure, spending a while in the mid-sixties should have been enough to rouse them, but it doesn't seem to have worked that way. Personally, I'm always wary to recommend re-priming bottles that didn't carbonate. If the bottles were capped properly and you primed them at bottling (you did prime them, right? You didn't maybe forget the priming sugar?), then there is adequate priming sugar in the bottles, so adding more is just begging for gushers and bottle bombs. If you do choose to open the bottles, I would suggest just adding champagne or bottle conditioning yeast (CBC-1 I think) and letting it chew on the priming sugar you already added. If you aren't sure if you primed them in the first place then you could add a small amount of sugar to each bottle - maybe a gram or so. Also, while some people will tell you that you can open and reseal bottles with the same caps, my one experience trying to do so was not so effective. You might need to use new caps if you choose to open them and add yeast or re-prime the bottles, or at least use an opener that doesn't dent the top of the cap where the seal is located.

 

[moose5180]

Thanks for that write up Dragon! Og was 1.058 extract kit on the wheat beer.
I uncapped one bottle and added some table sugar, i have it stored away for a test. Im sure i added the priming sugar but ya never know I guess. I think my next addition to the brewery might have to be some temp control, i live in Wyoming where its cold for half the year.

 

[moose5180]

Sorry double post