Wyeast Thames Valley 1275 Carbonation Problems

[BtotheG]

Hi all, I brewed my first all-grain beer, an ESB, with Wyeast 1275 and thought the Krausen would never drop. So after a couple of weeks, and the gravity settled at 1.008, I cold crashed it in my garage during the winter for 4 days. If i recall correctly, the temperature swung between the high 30s low 40s. I primed the beer for 1.3 volumes using the Tasty Brew calculator, but after over a month the beer has very little carbonation. The beer itself is nearly flat and definitely tastes sweet. It makes me think the yeast aren't doing their thing - there is sediment at the bottom of the bottles. The beer has been stored in my living room which hangs around 65 degrees. Do I just need to agitate the beers and move them to a location above 70 degrees? Any recommendations on how to control the temp? Electric blanket possibly? Should I do something drastic like open the bottles, sprinkle in some dry yeast, and recap?

Thanks

 

[Misplaced_Canuck]

Actually, 1.3 volumes is quite low. English ales, I carbonate to 2.0 volumes and that's still pretty low.

You may have to de-cap, add corn sugar tablets, and recap.

M_C

 

[BtotheG]

I don't know, it tastes sweeter than the gravity sample I took out of the carboy, but there is definitely some carbonation in the head space and a small amount in solution. I primed it at the high end of the range the calculator recommended (.75 - 1.3) because it seemed low at the time. Maybe I've just never had a beer that was carbed that low before. I guess I should pick up some coopers carb drops. Thanks for your recommendation. The more I think about it, it seems like the majority of the other beers I've made were primed to a much higher volume.

 

[Misplaced_Canuck]

I'm still not sure where you got the 1.3 value...:

http://www.skotrat.com/go/default/brewing-info/priming-beer/

M_C

 

[BtotheG]

Hey thanks for the link. There's a lot of good stuff in there. As for the 1.3, I just googled priming sugar calculator, and found this link:

http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html

It looks like it's based on BJCP style, but I may just be misreading it though.

Again, thanks for all your help. I guess my main problem was not really knowing what volumes of CO2 translated to in actual look and taste of the beer. It makes sense that a little more carbonation would cut down on the sweetness I'm tasting in the beer.