Flat beers

[adrianstanton]

Hi all have been brewing on and off for a couple of years Some really good, some not so good. That I can live with my question is I will often have some beers any up about a quarter of my bottles with little or no carbonation. I have been bulk priming my brew most of the time so it's not as simple as just missing the sugar for those bottles. I use the swing top type bottles and change the rubbers regularly. Should I change to crown seal bottles?

 

[burrster]

Could you describe your bulk priming method. Mine is as follows. Boil an amount of water(Approximately 250- 500ml) with measured amount of priming sugar. Allow to cool. Add priming solution to empty sanitized fermenter (bottling fermenter). Rack primary fermenter into bottling fermenter, allowing whirl pool motion to mix priming solution into beer. Bottling Half, then stir again to ensure solution remains dissolved.

The point is that if your priming sugar is not properly dissolved, it will settle out of suspension while bottling. This will cause uneven carbonation across your batch, some bottling will have too much Carbonation, some not enough.
Try Numbering your bottle for a few batches and see if it's consistently the same bottles ( first, middle or last in numerical order)

It could be your seals, but you said you replace them regularly. you could try marking the bottles to see if its the same physical bottles too.
You could try other bottle types. but I guess We need to know your bulk priming method is ok before offering other solutions!

Hope this helps

 

[manticle]

Either your bottles aren't sealing or your sugar solution isn't properly mixed.

 

[adrianstanton]

Thanks bud for the feed back. My priming method sounds much the same as your reply. Sugar solution goes into empty sterile container fermented solution on top of sugar solution whirlpool action. Then back into brewing container after cleaning so I would think it was mixed through.
Ill try numbering the bottles and marking the ones that turn out flat that's again. Ads

 

[damoninja]

I get the odd "flat" batch when I brew something I want a low carb on like a stout or porter, in that case I just pop all the lids off and drop in some fresh dex and give them a little more time.

Replace caps with new sanitised ones, while they're wet so you sanitise the lip of the bottle at the same time.

 

[pcmfisher]

Are you using the brown swing top bottles that places like Brewcraft sell?

If so, there's your problem.

 

[damoninja]

Are you using the brown swing top bottles that places like Brewcraft sell?

If so, there's your problem.

Personally I don't buy anything from brewcraft.

Expensive products and **** advice..

 

[mr_wibble]

Are you using the brown swing top bottles that places like Brewcraft sell?

If so, there's your problem.

I've been using swingtops since the beginning. ****, 7 years.

I have a bunch of european 500ml swingtops, and a couple of boxes of locally purchased 750ml ones.

If you're having problems with swingtops not sealing correctly, and you have the original thick-orange seals, it would be worthwhile to buy a pack of the red rubber ones. These are a little thinner than the orange ones, but they seal much better. Since swapping out the original seals I have had zero carbonation issues.

Also make sure that when capping, that the swingtop seal is seated correctly. Other posts on this forum have also advocated a light lubrication of the seal, but I have not tried that.