r0gershrubber
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So we've been brewing for about 8 years, but life was getting in the way, and I went about a year or so without a making a homebrew. I've done about 25 5-gallon batches without any problems. In November, we got back in the game with a Brewer's Best Belgian Tripel kit*. It's been in bottles for 3.5 months and there's no sign of carbonation. I'm not sure what went wrong.
Our only deviations from the kit were to use Wyeast 3787 (Trappist high gravity) and to add 1 oz of sweet orange peel with 15 minutes left in the boil. We ended up with about 4.5 gallons at an OG of 1.086.
We didn't have great temperature control because it's our first brew in this house, but we stayed within 70-76F for early fermentation, and it dropped to 68F once it slowed down. We did 3 weeks in primary and 5 weeks in secondary. Our final gravity was 1.013, which was a bit lower than the target, but I assumed that was due to the 3787.
We bottled on Jan 14. We used 4 oz of priming sugar, although I think it may have boiled well over 5 minutes in retrospect. We didn't add any yeast at this point; we normally don't. Nothing else unusual jumps out. It's been bottle conditioning at 64F or so.
We've opened a few bottles over the last two months to check the progression, and there's only the faintest hint of carbonation. The beer still has the cloying taste of priming sugar. I know that tripels take a long time to finish, but I'd expect some carbonation by now. Is this to be expected, or is this indicative of a problem? If so, what's the recourse?
Thanks!
*I doubt it's relevant, but our version of the kit came with 0.5 oz of UK Golding rather than the Tettnang.
Our only deviations from the kit were to use Wyeast 3787 (Trappist high gravity) and to add 1 oz of sweet orange peel with 15 minutes left in the boil. We ended up with about 4.5 gallons at an OG of 1.086.
We didn't have great temperature control because it's our first brew in this house, but we stayed within 70-76F for early fermentation, and it dropped to 68F once it slowed down. We did 3 weeks in primary and 5 weeks in secondary. Our final gravity was 1.013, which was a bit lower than the target, but I assumed that was due to the 3787.
We bottled on Jan 14. We used 4 oz of priming sugar, although I think it may have boiled well over 5 minutes in retrospect. We didn't add any yeast at this point; we normally don't. Nothing else unusual jumps out. It's been bottle conditioning at 64F or so.
We've opened a few bottles over the last two months to check the progression, and there's only the faintest hint of carbonation. The beer still has the cloying taste of priming sugar. I know that tripels take a long time to finish, but I'd expect some carbonation by now. Is this to be expected, or is this indicative of a problem? If so, what's the recourse?
Thanks!
*I doubt it's relevant, but our version of the kit came with 0.5 oz of UK Golding rather than the Tettnang.
