So I brewed the winter warmer extract kit back on September 30th. I Followed all the instructions, and I just opened a bottle of it after letting it bottle condition for 2 weeks. There was the sound of CO2 escaping slightly when I opened it, but the beer wasn’t carbonated. Will it get better with time or am I stuck with an flat beer? I let it bottle condition in a spare room as I thought my cellar would be too cold and there is some gas escaping when I pop the lid.
Some beers take a little longer to carbonate.
Keep it as warm as possible (without killing your heating bill) and give the bottles a shake each day.
Also, give this beer some time for flavor, too. I’ve been having one a week for a month now, and it’s just now coming together as a drinkable beer.
Are you shaking the bottles a bit to keep the yeast in suspension. This makes a huge difference. I try to do this every day or two
I will give it more time, as the reviews did say it would get better with time. I plan on giving most of it away on Christmas day as gifts. I had not been shaking the bottles at all, perhaps this is what I’m missing. I’ll try shaking them and will wait another week before I pop one open to check it out. Thanks for the advice.
Also give it at least 24hrs in the refrigerator. That gives the beer time to absorb the CO2 in the head space.
Almost a week and I tried shaking the bottles several times. I put one in the fridge 24 hours ago and tried it. I still get a hiss when I open the bottle, but there’s no carbonation in the beer.
I’m assuming you used priming sugar, what were the volumes of the beer & sugar? What kind of sugar? How did you mix the beer & sugar before bottling?
I ordered the kit with the priming sugar, so I used the 5 oz of priming sugar. I boiled 2 cups of water and stirred the sugar into that. I then put that mix in the bottom of a plastic bucket and I racked my beer from secondary on top of that priming solution. I then stirred a little with the racking equipment and bottled. As for the volume, I had 2 cups of water and I had 5 gallons of beer. I know the yeast must have still been in suspension as I do have some level of CO2 in the bottles. Should I pop every bottle and try carbonation pills at this point?
How warm were they during the first two weeks? I know when I use to bottle that during the winter it would take awhile to carb up in my basement. Once I realized that, I would keep them upstairs were it was warmer and that seemed to help alot.
I had them in a guest room upstairs, just for that reason. I was worried that it would be way too cold down on my lower level. Anyone see any issues with using carbonation pills at this point? I don’t think I’ll get bottle bombs, because I’ll have to break the seal and recap.
Did you have any problems with a very aggressive fermentation? My air lock just blew off sky high this morning after only 12 hours. Ceiling high. Kruzan and yeast all over the wall. Had to improvise a blow off tube with my racking cane. Only thing I could think of at the time. Hope it holds up while I’m at work.
Mine fermented pretty actively, but not that wild.
So I opened at 12oz bottle tonight to add some carb tabs and it was perfectly carbonated… Not sure why the one I opened a few days ago wasn’t. This one was at room temp so I’ll cool some down in the fridge until the weekend and try again to confirm that it’s all good. I’ll post an update then.
That’s some good news to hear. I was asking about the sugar guessing you didn’t use enough or it didn’t get mixed in well enough & you’d have some under, some over… but hopefully the rest are as good as that last one.
2 days could be the difference.
Also, try as hard as we do, mixing the bottling sugar in the bucket is not a precise operation. Even if the next beer you open is under carbonated, the next one could be perfect.
One thing you can do at bottling time is to give the beer a stir after ever 6 or 12 pack.
