Signs of carbonation?

[codefox]

This question comes from ignorance. I bottled my first batch last Wednesday night and I took a look at them last night. They look pretty much like they did when I bottled them. Should I expect any signs of carbonation? What would those signs even look like?

 

[Pappers_]

There might be a light dusting of yeast settled on the bottom of the bottle. Other than that, you'll need to chill one and open it to see if its carbonated - or at least that's what I do!

 

[BansheeRider]

This question comes from ignorance. I bottled my first batch last Wednesday night and I took a look at them last night. They look pretty much like they did when I bottled them. Should I expect any signs of carbonation? What would those signs even look like?

You will not see signs of carbonation. However, if you over carbed them you might see signs

 

[codefox]

There might be a light dusting of yeast settled on the bottom of the bottle. Other than that, you'll need to chill one and open it to see if its carbonated - or at least that's what I do!

I need to wait a few weeks for that though I assume?

You will not see signs of carbonation. However, if you over carbed them you might see signs

lol, I hope I don't see that! But they are conditioning in a bath tub all the same.

 

[unionrdr]

Give'em 3-4 weeks at room temp,then 1 week fridge time. That usually does it.

 

[codefox]

I'll give it a few weeks then before I check. What do people do in the situation that carbonation fails? Is there anything? I know my friend did a beer a couple months ago and he was pretty unhappy with the carbonation.

 

[freisste]

Assuming a "normal" beer with healthy yeast with an appropriate amount of priming sugar added, carbonation does not fail. Yeast are pretty good at what they do.

If you don't get carbonation because you forgot to add priming sugar, I've heard of people prying off the caps to add carbonation drops and recapping.

Unhealthy yeast is somewhat improbable because they already fermented a beer (if they were healthy enough for that, they are healthy enough to carbonate).

By "normal" I mean average ABV, etc. I had a stout that had 11-12% ABV to which I added bourbon. This was too high of an ABV to bottle carb, so I force carbed in a keg and used a bottle filler.

As Revvy always says, there are no problems with carbonation - only problems with patience. If you happened to not add enough priming sugar, I'm not sure what to do. It would be tough to say how much extra to use or how to add it.

 

[homebrewdad]

Three weeks @ 70 degrees F is the baseline for normal gravity beers to carb. Higher gravity or lower temps can take longer.

If you mixed priming sugar properly (i.e. you boiled it and added the solution, you didn't just dump in dry sugar) and you used the proper amount, the beer WILL carb up. Just give it time.

You'll seldom see any visible signs. Leave the beer alone and go do something else.