Re-carb question...

[ruger988]

Sooo,I brewed what I think is my best beer to date by a LONG shot. A "Coconut Rum, Chocolate, Russian Imperial Stout." Bottled it off from the keg and did so with a bad batch of caps. Everyone one of them is flat as can be.

Not yet oxidized so wondering if its worth the shot to crack them, drop in carb drops/pills/whatever they are (never used them before, went from corn sugar riming to kegging) and re-cap, or if I'd make it ever worse and waste caps/time in the process.

The RIS isn't horrible flat, but was much better with carb, just afraid it will start to oxidize soon.

 

[JayDubWill]

I would give it a shot and see what happens. Since its a RIS meaning high ABV, I would try hydrating a few grams of cbc-1 yeast then mix it with your priming sugar, and use a medicine dropper to add a ml to each bottle before capping.

 

[ruger988]

I would give it a shot and see what happens. Since its a RIS meaning high ABV, I would try hydrating a few grams of cbc-1 yeast then mix it with your priming sugar, and use a medicine dropper to add a ml to each bottle before capping.

Think a priming sugar mixture would be a better/safer bet than the pre-measured "carb caps" or whatever they're called that I've seen sold at the LHBS?

 

[JayDubWill]

Think a priming sugar mixture would be a better/safer bet than the pre-measured "carb caps" or whatever they're called that I've seen sold at the LHBS?

not necessarily, I know the carb drops work well for a number of people, I've just never used them. One consideration is that you can't really fine tune the CO2 level with them, but I think 1 drop will carb to like 2.2 volumes of CO2 in a 12oz bottle, which is right in line for a RIS.

 

[xpops]

I've done this before! The bottles were originally bottle conditioned, so i didn't add anymore dextrose, but i used a medicine dropper to add approx 2.5ml of liquid yeast to each bottle, and recap! worked like a charm!

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=526313

this was a thread with some back and forth about taking the chance of re-carbing a batch. i'm glad i did - what do you have to lose!

cheers,

 

[JayDubWill]

Sooo,I brewed what I think is my best beer to date by a LONG shot. A "Coconut Rum, Chocolate, Russian Imperial Stout." Bottled it off from the keg and did so with a bad batch of caps. Everyone one of them is flat as can be.

Not yet oxidized so wondering if its worth the shot to crack them, drop in carb drops/pills/whatever they are (never used them before, went from corn sugar riming to kegging) and re-cap, or if I'd make it ever worse and waste caps/time in the process.

The RIS isn't horrible flat, but was much better with carb, just afraid it will start to oxidize soon.

Here is another thought, unless you know specifically that all of your caps were bad (which seems very odd), the high alcohol in the RIS might have actually killed the original strain of yeast, preventing it from carbing. I would take a gravity reading with a hydrometer (alcohol throws off refractometers) and compare it to the final gravity before bottling. Hopefully you have that written down somewhere. If you are at final gravity or lower then you will need to add priming sugar again. If you are above final gravity by 2-3 points then your priming sugar is still there and adding more may cause bottle bombs.

 

[ruger988]

Here is another thought, unless you know specifically that all of your caps were bad (which seems very odd), the high alcohol in the RIS might have actually killed the original strain of yeast, preventing it from carbing. I would take a gravity reading with a hydrometer (alcohol throws off refractometers) and compare it to the final gravity before bottling. Hopefully you have that written down somewhere. If you are at final gravity or lower then you will need to add priming sugar again. If you are above final gravity by 2-3 points then your priming sugar is still there and adding more may cause bottle bombs.

It was force carbed in a keg. It was absolutely done fermenting. I've opened 6 so far and they've all been still as water, was perfectly carbed when it went from keg to bottles.

Thanks everyone, still not sure what I'm gonna do, haha.