Flat Bottled Beer
I bottled my beer and 15 days later it is still flat. What happened and is it fixable?
1) Yeast and temperature can play a major role on how the bottles will carbonate. If you fermented an ale, your bottles should remain at room temperature ( 68-72 degrees ) for 10 -14 days before chilling and shutting down the yeast.
2) Many Yeast will drop out of suspension quickly after fermentation has completed. If you have let your beer sit in primary or the secondary for 4-5 days after the fermentation has completed. Your yeast may have settled to the bottom of the fermenter. The beer looks great but you have a very low yeast count to re-carbonate in the bottle.
Before dumping that great beer, try a few steps.
1) Turn over the bottles and give the beer a good swirl to put the yeast back in suspension. Make sure your room temperature is warm enough to re-ferment in the bottle. ( Ale 70-74 degrees)
2) After swirling the bottles,
Take One bottle and add 4-5 grains of a fresh Dry yeast. (Nottingham is a good choice) Recap.
Take a second bottle and add 4-5 grains of yeast and 1/4 teaspoon of dextrose ( corn sugar) Recap.
Take a third bottle and add 1/4 teaspoon of dextrose ( corn sugar) Recap.
Take a forth bottle leave as is. Each bottle should be marked as to what was done. Place all four bottles in the same area to react for 5 days. After the five days chill all the bottles and test. If all the bottles carbonated, then you know it just took a little warmth and extra time. If only the Yeast bottles fermented, then you had a yeast problem. You can pinpoint the problem by what carbonated and what did not. If none of the bottle carbonated, it is possible you may have an infection killing the yeast.
Some of my beers are carbonated more than others.
This is a common problem that happens when the priming sugar or dry malt is not mixed well with the beer.
Always blend the primer sugar or dry malt with One cup of the finished beer and One cup of water. Blend well and bring the mix to a quick boil then cool to room temperature. Pour in the liquid priming mix as you are transferring the finished beer for bottling. Blend ( fold) the beer gently two or three times during bottling to prevent the priming mix from settling to the bottom.
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