Insufficient carbonation

[ikvsabre]

Hi everyone,

I've had pretty decent results on most of my batches, but the one disappointing thing for me has been that my beer has often had little carbonation

I've even upped the sugar from 3/4 cup per 5 gallon to 1 cup, with little improvement.

I've only had 3 batches of about 10 have the level of carbonation I want.

I tend to leave the batches in the secondary for a long time (4+ weeks) to get a nice clear beer. Is it just a matter of too much yeast settling out?

I know that adding too much sugar is a bad thing, so I'm wondering if there is something else I can do.

[jaydub]

You're probably right about the yeast settling out. There are a couple things you can do, one more reliable than the other.
First of all, don't just keep adding sugar - that's a reasonable step to go from 3/4 to a full cup, but it shouldn't be necessary. You might want to get a sachet of dry yeast and get a cup going in warm water. Allow the yeast to proof for 20-25 minutes, then add it to the beer in your bottling bucket (with the 3/4 cup of corn sugar).
99 times out of 100, that will do, but if you use liquid yeast you can get a little starter going in dilute, boiled extract (about 2 tablespoons in 1 pint of water) the day before you plan to bottle. It should be foaming pretty well - pitch a few ounces of that into your bottling bucket and you'll have no trouble with carbonation - provided your beer has completed fermentation!
If you just had a stuck fermentation (there are still residual unfermented wort sugars in there) what I just described is a primo recipe for bottle bombs, so make sure you've got your original and finishing gravities all figured right.

Hopefully our more experienced colleagues will chime in on the topic.

[heLLbent]

Good info but I will add,
if you feel its necesary to add yeast at bottling, its best to use the same strain of yeast, a different yeast could cause bottle bombs.

If your worried a batch wont have enough yeast to carbonate an easy solution is to make sure your racking cane picks up a little yeast from the bottom of the carboy (doesnt take much) when you rack to the bottling bucket/carboy, after this yeast has consumed the priming sugar your beer will clear nicely, a week or 2 in the fridge and the chill haze (if any)will settle out as well.

Im reasonably sure if your beer has any carbonation at all, then it will continue to gain carbonation the longer it bottle conditions, sometimes I will gently shake the bottles to rouse the yeast after a week or so.

It seems like my beers clear just as well when I only secondary for a week then bottle condition for 4-6 weeks, I have also had some nice clear beers without even using a secondary.

Cheers...John

[pvignola]

I have a few questions for you. How did you package the beer? In bottles? If so were the bottles used twist offs? Sometimes using twist off bottles can cause carb problems because the caps don’t really form a good seal.
I let most of my brews age for at least 4 weeks in the secondary and I haven't had problems with carb levels. Some yeast will flocculate (settle) more than others. What yeast strain did you use?
When measuring priming sugar it is better to measure by weight than by volume. Measuring by weight will give you the correct amount every time. If you measure by volume you may not be accurate in your measurements. At what temp did you let your beer carb. About 70 is ideal for this. If the temp is too cool the yeast will not be able to do its job, and you beer will be undercarbed. Just a few thoughts to try to help

Brew On!

[Danno]

Four weeks in secondary wil not drop out enough yeast to prevent carbonation. Remember, it only tales one yeast cell to start multiplying when it sees the sugar and O2. However, that doesn't mean that it will carbonate in the typical one to two weeks.

If I leave a beer sit in secondary for a long time, I usually add some yeast from a starter or another fermenting batch to ensre a solid carbonation. Other things you might consider include: Are you putting your bottles in a warm enough place? Do you get a yeast cake at the bottom of your bottles? You can give your bottles a shake after a day or two to make sure the yeast is getting to the sugar.

[Lufah]

What temp are you keeping the bottles at? How long before you start opening them? What kind of capper are you using? Are you getting them to carb some just not enough?

A test you can do is to uncap two bottles add sugar to one and yeast to the other. Put ballons over both bottles and see which one inflates the ballon. Should tell you where your problem lies. I don't think a month long secondary could drop out to much yeast unless you had it really cold, but you never know. I suspect that you have an issue with you caps or capper. Try flipping a bottle upside down and see if you get any leak around the cap. At one cup of sugar you should be carbing pretty well. Unless your not getting a good seal on the bottle. Could be bad caps also.

Travis

[2DogAle]

On the same subject, or not... I bottled a brown ale using DME, not corn sugar, cuz that's all I had in the house, and after almost 2 weeks there isn't any carbonization happening. There is a very tiny bit of a hiss when the bottle top is popped but no head when it is poured. There is very little sedition in the bottom of the bottle but there is some. The temperature has been around 66 to 68 degrees. It is very flat and the sad part is the beer taste pretty good so I don't want to waste it.

I read it takes longer for DME to work. Any body know approximately how long? Is there anything I can do now that it's in the bottle?

Thanks,

Rob

[Lufah]

I would flip the bottles upside down and then back upright again every couple of days or so. It usually takes my beers about 3 weeks to get where I want them to carb to. So wait another week and try one again.

Travis