Under carbonated Zombie Dust Clone any Insight?

[BrewMoreHomebrew]

I brewed skeezers Zombie Dust clone (fermented 65 degrees) and everything went as planned until I bottle my beer. I followed the recipe and cold crashed it, so when bottling I followed a calculator which led me down the road to adding less sugar to prime my beer (bottled beer at 45 degrees). I ended up priming 5 gallons with 2.5 ounces of corn sugar. I tried a beer at 2.5 weeks and it had the slightest noise and did not produce any head whatsoever and was completely flat. Its now 3.5 weeks after bottling and I'm debating what to do.

I was thinking about re-priming each bottle with some more concentrated corn sugar mixed with measured amount of boiled water. Of coarse I will have to get the level of water correct and calculate how much solution to put in each bottle before recapping my bottles. My problem is if I re-prime do I calculate the amount of sugar that I left out of the batch (about 2 more ounces of sugar) or will I have to redo the total amount of sugar for the whole batch because of releasing carbonation when opening bottles (4.4 ounces of corn sugar)?

One other thing to consider is the beer was carbonating in my basement on the floor at about 58 degrees. I have since brought it upstairs and let it sit in the mid sixties.

Anyone with experience doing something like this, and if so how did it turn out?

 

[knyland]

I would let it ride in a warmer 70 degree room for a few weeks before I took the time to uncap and add sugar to each bottle.

 

[Yooper]

The mistake is using a priming calculator. I HATE them, and even though others recommend them I will never recommend for anyone to use them.

They have you carb "to style" and use a temperature to guestimate the residual amount of co2 in the beer.

The problem is that it's not clear that you must use the highest temperature the beer reached during or after fermentation. So, you should have used 68 (or whatever temperature the beer reached) and not the current temperature.

As a result, you added about half of the priming sugar you should have.

Generally, for an IPA, you will want to use 1 ounce of priming sugar (by weight) per finished gallon of beer- generally about 4.5 ounces for a batch that started at 5 gallons.

My guess is you didn't use nearly that much.

Repriming now can be problematic, as when you add a sugar solution you may get a ton of foam. You could try carbonation tabs/drops, and open the bottle, drop one in and recap super quick to avoid the massive foaming that will occur (called "nucleation points").

 

[thatjonguy]

I used Prime Dose caps from Northern Brewer to fix an undercarb issue recently. Worked as advertised but they are spendy.

 

[BrewMoreHomebrew]

I will wait another week or so before I decide to mess with recarbing all beers and see what happens since I brought them up in temperature. If nothing happens, then I may try to make a sugar solution. Still unsure of how much sugar to use if I end up re-carbonating the whole batch.

Anyways I definitely learned my lesson on carbonating, especially since this one is not a cheap beer to make.

 

[moreb33rplz]

I'm in a similar boat with a batch not carbonating, but I'm giving it 6 weeks before I take drastic measures.

 

[jaydog2314]

The mistake is using a priming calculator. I HATE them, and even though others recommend them I will never recommend for anyone to use them.

They have you carb "to style" and use a temperature to guestimate the residual amount of co2 in the beer.

The problem is that it's not clear that you must use the highest temperature the beer reached during or after fermentation. So, you should have used 68 (or whatever temperature the beer reached) and not the current temperature.

As a result, you added about half of the priming sugar you should have.

Generally, for an IPA, you will want to use 1 ounce of priming sugar (by weight) per finished gallon of beer- generally about 4.5 ounces for a batch that started at 5 gallons.

My guess is you didn't use nearly that much.

Repriming now can be problematic, as when you add a sugar solution you may get a ton of foam. You could try carbonation tabs/drops, and open the bottle, drop one in and recap super quick to avoid the massive foaming that will occur (called "nucleation points").

^this. learned the hard way too with one of my first cold crashed beers. I carbed based on bottling temp and never really got carbed sufficiently. Like Yooper said, carb based on the highest temp it reached and you'll be fine in the future.

 

[BrewMoreHomebrew]

Just for anyone who is interested in an update. I ended up bringing my beers up to warmer temps and turned them end over end a few times over a couple of weeks and the beer ended up carbbing up to an acceptable level. The beer is still not carbonated fully but it is definitely better and the most important part drinkable. Thanks for all the help and replies to everyone.