I just recently opened the first bottle of a beer we last brewed and it's good but not great !! It's a hop monster IPA kit we did and it's hard to explain but it's almost like its kind of flat !! Any Idea what that could be from ? Is it in the priming (we batch primed )or the fermentation maybe(not long enough ) ?
How long has it been in the bottle? How many liters of CO2 i.e., carbonation level ... did you expect? What was the temperature of the beer when it was bottled? What was the temperature of the beer when it was conditioning? What was the beer's ABV? How long did it sit in the fermentor before it was bottled? Have previous batches been under-carbed?
It's only the fourth beer we have done so still very new to the home brew game not sure what the CO2 level we were looking for it was only in the bottle for one month . We never took a OG or FG so not 100% sure on the ABV . We are in the process of getting all of our equipment we need to dial in on all of these things but really excited to be home brewing and can't wait to get it all down !! Cheers
I've had problems before when bottle conditioning, but often have been able to salvage the batch. Assuming that you added as much priming sugar as you wanted to and there is still viable yeast in your beer, it will eventually carbonate. Assuming all these conditions are met, here are some things that might help your bottles carb up: -Put them in a warmer environment. If they are sitting in a cold place the yeast become inactive. -Agitate your bottles by turning them upside down and swirling them around to mix up the sugar/yeast in the bottle. -Wait some more. I would do these things and then try opening a bottle every week to see if you notice any changes in carbonation level.
A month at 70F should have primed this beer if your yeast was healthy and you added the right amount of sugar.
A few more questions that could help us home in on what is going on with your beer: What was the beer's temp when you pitched your yeast and what was the general temp during fermentation? Did you observe any krausen bubbles or some bubbling in your air lock? Did the beer taste sweet when you opened your first bottle? What is a brief description of your priming procedure? How much sugar? Batch size? Was sugar boiled into solution? How many bottles have you opened so far?
The only equipment you need for taking gravity readings is a hydrometer, which is like $10 with the jar. If you rushed the primary fermentation you would have bottle bombs not flat beer. How did you determine how much priming sugar to add? Did you add the sugar before you filled the bottling bucket with beer or after? Did you stir at all? What temp was the beer when you carbed it? Yes, it was at 70 when you added the sugar but then what did you do with the bottles? A few important notes Take Gravity Readings! It's the only way to tell what type of beer you're making and when it's done. Don't just guess when the beer is done, take a reading and know for sure, otherwise next time bottles could be exploding as opposed to being flat. Fermentation only has an impact on carbonation if the beer didn't finish and it's still fermenting once you bottle it. In that case you get beer that is over carbonated and risk the possibility of bottles exploding. Rushing it won't cause the beer to be flat.
To mother goose03 the temp when we pitched our yeast was 75 and general temp for fermentation was 68 our air lock did bubble but not long we did not do a yeast starter , the 1st 2 bottles were sweet only 2 opened so far , we did a 5 gallon batch our journal is not with me I don't know the exact priming measurements but it was the recommended amount in the kit for batch priming and it was boiled . Thank you for all and any advise I truly appreciate it !!!
Can you suggest any reasons why the yeast would not have carbonated? You did not take gravity readings, which makes me wonder whether the yeast really were healthy enough to complete the primary fermentation. You may not have had enough healthy cells to carb on timely basis.
All else equal ... should be about two weeks. Were you aiming for low carb such as ~2.2 or something higher like 2.7? More sugar is needed at bottlin'time to achieve the same level of carb when bottling at a cooler temperature. Bottles take longer to fully carb at cooler temperatures (< 70°F) than warmer temperatures (> 70°F). High ABV beer will benefit from re-yeasting at bottlin'time. If so ... possibly a problem with process.
If your beer tastes sweet, then there is a chance that your yeast crapped out on you and that the fermentation was not complete. Possibly you under-pitched or used old yeast. What was the intended Original Gravity reading? You haven't mentioned any gravity readings yet in your posts above, so do you have a hydrometer so that you can take a reading when you open another bottle and then compare it to your recipe's target final gravity reading? Or, is your newly-brewed beer a style that is supposed to have some malty sweetness? What is the intended style, and what malt ingredients did you use? If the above suspicion proves to be incorrect, then my next guess is that your sugar has not been adequately mixed into your beer, thus you have inconsistent carbonation among your bottles, and you've opened two duds so far. Did you stir the sugar solution into the beer, and possibly several times during the bottling process?
I kind of sounds like your yeast didn't have enough oxygen to get going. The first 12 hours the yeast is figuring out how much food it has, then it goes to town. If the oxygen is low, it will stall out and not consume all the sugar. Sorry if this has already been said, and hope it helps. When I first started brewing I had a batch do that to me, I shook the carboy like crazy and added more yeast and the sucker took off and the beer turned out good.
