Whataya do with a Flat Stout?

[beer-monger]

I have been brewing for a short time, all extracts, mostly from recipe not kits. I Thought I might make up a batch of Irish Stout for St. Paddy's day. Brew process as usual, then 5 days in Primary, 10 days in secondary. Gravity readings showed no change so Bottled on day 10 with 1 cup of Dextrose in a 5.5 gallon batch. Bottles were then stored in my pantry at 75 degrees for 10 days.
As usual I Sampled one after after 10 days to see if it was carbed up enough and ready for the fridge, and to my surprise it was completely flat. Well as I did not have any previous experience with stouts, and I have heard some beer styles take a bit longer to carb. up, I decided to not panic and give it a bit longer. Well, it has now been 3 full weeks now and although not completely flat it still pours with zero head and only the slightest hint of carbonation. I am not sure what went wrong or how to correct it.

 

[Golddiggie]

Chill them in the fridge for 4+ days and try again... Testing beer when warm isn't the same as after chilling it for several days.

BTW, you really didn't need to rack to the bright tank before bottling it... Could have just as easily left it on the yeast cake for 3-4 weeks, then bottled it...

 

[Dogphish]

same thing happened to me on my first batch. it was an extract porter. it carbed half way, then the yeast quit. after 4 weeks it was still quite flat and you could taste the cidery taste of the priming sugar.

so, after 4 weeks, i took every bottle and turned it upside down and shook it until the yeast sediment was no longer settled to the bottom, and was somewhat mixed back into the beer. after 2 more weeks, the beer was perfect.

...too bad i had drank all but 12 of the batch at that point.

 

[beer-monger]

I racked at 5 days to secondary and then transfered to bottling bucket at 15 days before bottling. Are you saying I should have added dextrose to my secondary and bottled from there?
By the way I did Fridge up the bottles for a day or so each time before I tried them each time, will they get more carbonated after 4 days? Should I just chill a few to sample or chill the whole batch? Not sure i understand the reasoning.

 

[devilishprune]

Maybe you can roll them around to rouse the yeast. I wouldn't do anything else at this point, because it seems as though they're going to carbonate, albeit very slowly.

 

[Dogphish]

if there is still bottling sugar in your beer that needs to finish carbonating, then keep the bottles at room temperature. the yeast WILL NOT work at cold temperatures. rouse the yeast like i said, and let them finish bottle conditioning.

cold solutions hold more carbonation. therefore when you open the beer, there will be less head, but the beer will be more bubbly. i think that was the reasoning on cold beer.

 

[beer-monger]

Thanks for the advice Dogphish. I will give them all a thurough shaking every few days, for another week or so to see if I can re- stimulate that yeast. What causes this slow carbonation anyhow? too little priming sugar? lazy yeast?
Every batch i have ever made in the past has carbed. up in 1- 2 weeks.

 

[JuanKenobi]

I had a similar problem about a year and a half ago. I had a bunch of batches including a stout that I had made partially to give mixed sixers as Christmas gifts. The stout had been in the bottle about 2 weeks when I started giving the sixers out, but I wasn't worried since I knew they'd carb up. I just told people to give the stout a couple weeks before they refrigerated. Well, it turned out that they just never carbed. I never figured it out. I kept trying one here and there for the next couple months and it just never carbed. At any rate I was at SWMBO's cousin's place a couple weeks ago and they still had the 2 stouts from Christmas '09 in the fridge. Her cousin's husband grabbed one and popped it. It had a nice creamy head, pretty well carbed and it was smooth, smooth, smooth. When we got home I tossed a few in the fridge. SWMBO and I have had a few since then and some are more carbed than others, but I'm sure that's just because of poor mixing of the priming sugar. Some have had some mild off-flavors, but hey, it's 18 months old!

My lessons learned: Always give it time, and never dump a batch!

 

[zepolmot]

Stouts and bigger beers in general take a while to age, I really don't think the 'thorough shaking' is at all necessary. If the sugar is in there the yeast will find it given time. Listen to Golddiggie's advice too. Let the beer sit on the yeast for 2-3 weeks and then go straight to bottling, the extra time will allow the yeast to break down any by-products of fermentation. I think its also typical to weigh out your bottling sugar as opposed to doing it by volume, not sure how much that'll matter though.