Strong scotch ale carbonation failure (need advice)

[moviebrain]

A fellow homebrewer and I made a very strong scotch ale, SG 1.140 and finished at 1.026.

Now, We'd targeted a 6 gallon batch but due to a very vigorous 90m boil only 5 gallons made it into the fermentor after which beer smith calculated the abv to be around 11.8%. Using the Wyeast 1728 strain I should have known that when it stopped at 1.026 it wasn't because the beer fully attenuated, but probably alcohol toxicity, that the yeast stopped working.

Not really thinking it through we'd attempted to bottle condition using corn sugar, and after 2 weeks the bottle presented at the wedding was flat and sweet (but due to style not super out of bounds for a flat scotch ale).

Now the decision is between adding a small amount of champagne yeast to each bottle or empty the bottles into a corny and force carb before re-bottling in a week or two.

Anyone else taken either of the routes and what did or did not work? I'm concerned about champagne yeast working too well with the amount of sugar left, but I know of several people that use it for barley wines to bottle condition and don't lose that malty backbone. On the other hand taking the bottles back into a keg risks oxidizing the beer and perhaps a higher infection risk with the transfers to and from the keg (plus the extra corn sugar sweetness that wasn't intentional but not excessive).

HELP!

 

[Revvy]

I wouldn't expect a NORMAL grav beer to be carbed at only 2 weeks in the bottle, let alone a strong scotch ale.

The 3 weeks at 70 degrees, 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."

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

If a beer isn't carbed by "x number of weeks" you just have to give them more 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.

I wouldn't even begin concerneing myself with any issues, or trying to fix anything for at least another month.

 

[TrainSafe]

I would probably opt for the begging and force carb option if it were me. You can take precautions for the infection risk and eliminate that as a likely side effect. You can also reduce the oxidation risk by careful pours and a CO2 purge.

It seems that the champaign yeast is going to change your flavor profile (unavoidable ) and risk bottle bombs.

Edit: Revvy is correct, of course. I didn't see his post and should have made that connection myself.

 

[TriggerFingers]

First,

RDWHAHB.

I was under the impression that with any big beer you need to add additional yeast at bottling.

I think both of your ideas would work (you could probably use whatever yeast you had available, but I have not made a beer that big so im not sure), but if you have a keg setup why re-bottle? I can understand conditioning, but if you are in a mode where you want to "save your beer," bottling seems like an unnecessary step to salvage and enjoy your brew.

If I were in your situation, what I would do is....

a) dump them into the corny, carb and drink from the corny (if the beer is fine, don't worry it will age a little in there and can only help)
or
b) dump them into the corny, bottle a portion (like 1/3 of it) with yeast and keep the rest in the keg to drink (if your conditioning doesn't work as expected, well now you know).
or
c) keep 6 or so as is and see if they carb down the line as suggested, in addition to suggestion b

TF

 

[Revvy]

I think it's plain idiotic to dump beer out into another vessel unless you want liquid cardboard. WHat the hell do you think the beer's going to be falling through when you are pouring it out into your vessel whether you purge it or not?

If you feel you need to do anything, which I equally feel is jumping the gun when you haven't even passed the MINIMUM time that it takes for NORMAL beers to carb up, then why do you simply re-yeast in the bottles and re-cap them?

Just get a graduated eyedropper like for children's cough syrup, get a packet of us-05, make a slurry with water, add a few mls, and re-cap.

That way you won't be oxydizing your bottles. But really many of us have not added yeast to big beers and they've carbed up.

 

[KingBrianI]

Well, I'm calculating your ABV as 14.93%, which is very high ((1.140-1.026)*131=14.934) and I don't think any amount of waiting is going to let those bottles carb up. I would also be very hesitant to start dumping the beers into a corny, I think that is just asking for infection/oxidation/off flavors. If it were me, I would probably try to introduce, like you said, some champagne yeast, or some other high ABV tolerant yeast into each bottle. Or just live with the flat beer.

 

[TriggerFingers]

or what Revvy said

 

[moviebrain]

Thank you all for the great advice. I think for now we will follow the RDWHAHB rule. Revvy, you are of course right. I've never bottle conditioned such a large beer and didn't think through the conditions.

We will ask the groom to hang onto his beers a few months before cracking into them. His new wife's pumpkin ale is good to go so those two cases will have to get them through the honeymoon!

Thanks again all!

 

[smokinghole]

Go buy a tube of WLP099 make a starter late in the evening. The next day when you get out of work/school draw directly from the actively fermenting starter and dose each bottle and recap. I've done this a couple times with real high alcohol beers because I bottle condition everything. I've reyeasted before but the damn yeast died or something (usually toss in a packet or two of champagne yeast for insurance). Sometimes it just doesn't work for me and I have to perform a remediation step.

 

[moviebrain]

(And just to explain myself a bit)

Normally, if the beers had been for me, I'd just leave them in the closet and give them as much time as needed to get better, and if after 6 months they still didn't do what I'd wanted they'd become chili starters or the base for a marinade. However, they were gifts for a wedding and the intended use as refreshment on a honeymoon had a timetable.

The advice to wait is of course the best advice. Next time I'll brew this beer 5 months in advance instead of 3 to either give it plenty of time to bottle condition or lots of aging time in a spare keg under pressure.

I honestly didn't know higher abv beers needed longer to age, but it makes total sense. Also, the beer is fairly amazing even flat, so I wouldn't dump it either. If, in 2 months time, they beer is still flat perhaps we'll open 2 or 3 and try the yeast slurry as a test but there is absolutely no reason to pooch the whole batch.

Once again, thanks all for your advice.

 

[moviebrain]

Also also, to the abv thing, I mis-typed, my sg was 1.114, not 1.140

 

[moviebrain]

Bottles failed to carb after 2 months conditioning. Since they're still good flat we are going to titrate some fresh yeast slurry into a handful of bottles as an experiment and recap them. Thanks all for your help

 

[moviebrain]

OK, yeast addition failed. We rehydrated a dry pack of US05 and used a sanitized "flavor injector" w/o the syringe to add it to the bottles. We popped the cap, squirted in some slurry, and quickly recapped.

After 4 weeks of sitting on the new yeast none of the bottles have carbed up. We're just going to set these bottles aside and either use them to slow cook a few pork roasts, or rediscover them in a few more months and possibly be happily surprised. Thanks again for all the help on this over the last few months.

After a little more than 2 years of brewing it's the first brew to fail to be both delicious AND carbonated well. The crazy part is that it's still one of the best scotch ales I've ever had flat. The disappointment is that it was a wedding present. The upside being that it's caused me to pay a lot more attention to my yeast health and pitch rates, and it's given me an excuse to brew up another batch of "wee heavy" 1.114 OG scotch ale!

 

[Wig]

Are your bottles of the screw-on-cap variety? No offense intended, just want to cover all the bases.
Have you brewed another beer in the meantime that has had/not had this problem?

 

[piteko]

I had the same problem with a triple. Carbonation was low and it was over-spiced. One year after, carbonation is fine and so is the taste.

I have been lucky, carbonation and spice evolved in the same direction.

Cheers from Italy!
Piteko

 

[wyzazz]

Warm them up to around 80-85F and keep them there for a few weeks, you'll likely start to get carbonation. Big beers take a lot of time to carb, that's just the way it is if you don't take some steps to make it happen differently.

Personally for almost all of my bigger beers I add a wine or champagne yeast (1/3 of a sachet) at bottling. Since doing this I've not had any issues with my bigger beers carbing up inside of 3 weeks. The wine/champagne yeast only eats the simple sugars from the priming sugar and is alcohol tolerant so it works fairly well in the higher alcohol environment. Just my experience, YMMV.

 

[moviebrain]

They were crown caps on 22oz non-screw top bottles. They were bottled 10-15-11 or so and as of dec 15 had zero carb, no pop or hiss or any other indication of co2 buildup. They aren't just under carbonated they're zero carbonated.

Thanks all for the help. I've marked this one down as a failure in fermentation control ( temps hit well over 80 during an AC outage at the end of summer) and yeast health. When I added the S05 it was just a rehydrated slurry so it wasn't kreusened just fresh yeast. We are setting them aside as good cooking beer and will be retrying the recipe in a few months with a better yeast pitch and ferment temp control.

 

[moviebrain]

Sorry bottled 9-15-11

Yes we've brewed a few times since then with no problems. In fact a pumpkin ale was brewed and bottled day and date with the scotch and it was perfect. I really can't thank all of you enough for the advise and help.

 

[moviebrain]

Warm them up to around 80-85F and keep them there for a few weeks, you'll likely start to get carbonation. Big beers take a lot of time to carb, that's just the way it is if you don't take some steps to make it happen differently.

Personally for almost all of my bigger beers I add a wine or champagne yeast (1/3 of a sachet) at bottling. Since doing this I've not had any issues with my bigger beers carbing up inside of 3 weeks. The wine/champagne yeast only eats the simple sugars from the priming sugar and is alcohol tolerant so it works fairly well in the higher alcohol environment. Just my experience, YMMV.

Which brand/strain do you use?

 

[smokinghole]

I'd make some vinegar! Homemade malt vinegar is outstanding compared to crap made on the commercial level.

 

[Abrayton]

After reading "of patience and bottle conditioning" I'm a little confused. Do the bottles stay at room temp. (70 degrees) until they carb? I have a wee heavy that spent 3 months in secondary and has been in bottles for 2 months and has not carbed. I put the bottles into my temp controlled freezer set at 55 degrees after one month in bottles because I was concerned about too long in the warm temp.

 

[Decimotox]

Yeah, they should stay at room temp. If cold, the yeast stop working. I suggest moving the bottles back in room temp, somewhere dark, and give them a swish to wake the yeast up.