I tried my first ever (ever ever!) home brew today and it was what I wanted except almost completely flat. I believe I used the priming sugar correctly, it was all from a kit with 5oz sugar for a 5gl batch. I bottled 2 weeks ago and now after investigating realized I should not have put the bottles in the fridge. So yesterday I moved the bottles to the garage. I'm in Texas and the temperature is moderate, this week, mid 50s at night upper 70s during the day. I'm considering one other suggestion, to store the bottles upside down for a while, to get the yeast that may have settled more active. I am really hoping I don't have to "re-yeast" the bottles. Should I move the bottles inside the house, we dont have a basement, where the temp is more consistent 68 at night and 75 during the day? That's where I did my Carboy time. Should I set them upside down for a while? How long should I wait? Are there any other suggestions besides re-yeasting? I'm planning to wait at least another 2 weeks, maybe 4, to see how much the carbonation improves. If it's really minimal I will try the re-yeasting. I had not heard of re-yeasting until investigating my carbonation problem. Any thoughts on trying a different type of yeast? One last thing i should mention is I did filter the beer at bottling. It was a pretty course filter with the idea being to have really clear beer. I guess that if the carbonation fails with several weeks at room temp then the filter got too much yeast out. Maybe you should always add yeast at bottling if you filter? To summarize I'm looking for suggestions to help carbonation, suggestions about temperature and how long to wait before my next test or should i just go ahead and re-yeast? And if I do re-yeast what options to go with? Thanks in advance! Kerry
Welcome to the obsession! Glad you have a tasty first beer. You've done a lot of things right if your first beer is enjoyable. What temperature were the bottles for the first two weeks after bottling? Ideally, you want the bottles to be hanging out around 68 or 70F for 2 or 3 weeks. Inside your house sounds like the best place for that temperature. I'm not familiar with filters. There's no need. Clear beer comes from a careful pour from the bottle after you let the carbonated beer sit in the fridge for a few days. The yeast and protein floc to the bottom of the bottle and stay put pretty well. I typically pour the beer past a light, and into a glass, until I see the the beer change color and stop pouring immediately. I like a touch of sediment in most styles, but not all of the sediment in any style. Reyeasting should only happen if you think you hurt your yeast or removed your yeast with the filtration. More information on your filter setup would help others chime in on if you need more yeast. I'd hold off until we can see what temp your beer were right after bottling.
Yea, I'm with bringing them inside the house and give them another couple weeks. 5oz sugar should give you roughly 2.7 vol of co2 carbonation, but you may have filtered out some of the yeast? You could just put a couple bottles in the fridge after a couple weeks, chill for a couple days and try them again.
I've never heard of filtering your beer before, seems like it'd be too much work and probably won't do much good in the end. Like @inchrisin said there's really no need to go through a filtering process if you have a yeast that's flocculant and you keep the bottles upright in a fridge for a week or so (that is, after the beer is carbonated). How long did you wait between brew day and bottling? No need to re-yeast, unless you've been bulk aging a big beer for 4+ months, then a lot of the yeast may have fallen out of suspension. If you did the normal 2-3 week primary then there is plenty of viable yeast still in suspension. Did you use 5 oz of corn sugar, or table sugar?
Welcome to our hobby/obsession. Have a beer. In addition to the very good advice above, it is helpful to measure priming sugar by weight and not volume. Use your gram scale. You are going to need one for weighing hops too so get one. And they are useful to have around the house. Cheap. Use an online priming calculator too. Real simple software that will let you dial in the precise amount of priming sugar based on volume and temperature. A few grams either way can make a difference. Once you do it a few times you will get a good feel for what works for the beer you are making. Cheers.
Thanks for everyone's responses. I will update this after a few weeks pass at proper temperature. Hopefully my only real mistake was putting them in the fridge.
I'm also not sure about filtering the beer, since I've never done that before. You need some, but not a lot, of yeast to get into the bottles to ferment the priming sugar to get secondary carbonation. Maybe you filtered out too much? I doubt so, since I've bottle carbed lagers with very little yeast sediment after secondary with no issues before. Only way to know if to let the bottles sit at room temperature for a couple weeks and sample again. In the future I wouldn't worry about sediment in the bottle so much. Most beer styles clarify just fine with time and don't need filtering.
I am going to add one more bit of free advice. Filtering homebrew is an exceedingly rare practice. Even among the most experienced of us it is not usually done. For a newbie, you are certainly asking for more trouble than you need or want. You are asking for an infection and the upside is... well there probably is no upside. I have completed well over 100 brews and have filtered exactly zero. So there is that. Be careful with your racking/bottle filling procedure. Be patient and allow the bottles to sit quietly. Pour carefully. Your beer will be clear. Guaranteed. Cheers.
