I recently made a Russian Imperial Stout extract kit. Fermentation went fine. I added the priming sugar and bottled. It is 8 days later now and there is no carbonation. Usually after a week I have some carbonation. I will give it another week and see what happens but if I get no carbonation what can I do? Is there a fix?
Most of my beers take 2-3 weeks to show signs of carbonation. I store a large majority of them in the basement which is cooler and those take 4 weeks or more due to the lower temp. And those are regular gravity beers. A big beer like a RIS could easily take 3-4 weeks to be fully carbed.
What temp are you storing them at? Are you rousing the yeast at all? Rousing the yeast every couple of days seems to speed things up for me a little.
Patience. 3-4 weeks sounds about right. And it might continue to carbonate for 3-4 months or longer. Big beers develop more slowly. They age well, too. You might enjoy your beer more after 8 months than after 8 days.
OK, thanks for settling me. This is my first big beer. They are in my basement where the temp is around the low to mid 70’s. In the past I have tried one after 7 days just to see how it’s all going and usually they have some carbonation. So I will just tuck this one away for a couple months and let it sleep til September. So when you say to rouse the yeast, do you mean I should gently shake the bottles?
Yeah but this isn’t necessary if you plan on just cellaring them and forgetting about them for a couple months. It’s just if you want a quicker turn around carbonation. I’ve been able to get a beer fully carbed in under 2 weeks doing this. The down side to this is you still have to wait a few days for the yeast to resettle or else you will have a cloudy beer with an overly “yeasty” flavor.
OK, cool then. They sleep til October in the dark cool basement.
