Is It Too Late? 1st Stuffed Brew.

[matchtheclown]

Hi, I've had 4 sucessful std. kit brews. Havn't tried anything exciting.

This one (A stockmans draught I think) I put in an extra 500g of some brew enhancer (on top of the std. 1kg) I was recommended I just wanted a little extra kick that's all.

Anyhow I have just been priming the bottles with sugar after my drops ran out. Not a big deal but batch priming seemed so much easier I have a 2nd vessel etc. So it should be all good right?


WRONG! :angry:


How i was told to batch prime:
Secondary fermentation is the carbonation and cleaning out of the beer that the yeast does in the bottle, so you are correct, the best and most effective way of bottling, is to have a second vessel to transfer your beer into after primary fermentation is complete (ie, same gravity for about 3 day's) add around 7g's of Light dry malt extract per liter of beer, (steer clear of dex or sugar) to about half a liter of water, and boil it, let it cool to room temp, pour it in your sanitized second vessel, and trasnfer the beer, leaving as much of the sediment in the first vessel as possible, try to angle the hose to the side, creating a gentle whirlpool to mix all the added malt in, leave to mix in for about half an hour, then bottle, leave for two weeks, given am a week in the fridge, and drink away.


I did that to the letter I thought anyhow... I didnt test for stable SG on the primary fermentation but saw no bubbles out of the airlock for 2 days and my air lock normally cracks away.

So I have tested some bottles after abit over a week in the bottle (i know it's aerly)... but the beer is almost flat. So little carbonation im shocked. My others have tasted green at a week but still been bubbly....

Can I save it? I thought maybe dumping a teaspoon of sugar in each and re-capping might work?

Thing is it tastes pretty good, and is definately potent..... but no dice on bubbles.

 

[InCider]

Hi, I've had 4 sucessful std. kit brews. Havn't tried anything exciting.

This one (A stockmans draught I think) I put in an extra 500g of some brew enhancer (on top of the std. 1kg) I was recommended I just wanted a little extra kick that's all.

Anyhow I have just been priming the bottles with sugar after my drops ran out. Not a big deal but batch priming seemed so much easier I have a 2nd vessel etc. So it should be all good right?
WRONG! :angry:
How i was told to batch prime:
Secondary fermentation is the carbonation and cleaning out of the beer that the yeast does in the bottle, so you are correct, the best and most effective way of bottling, is to have a second vessel to transfer your beer into after primary fermentation is complete (ie, same gravity for about 3 day's) add around 7g's of Light dry malt extract per liter of beer, (steer clear of dex or sugar) to about half a liter of water, and boil it, let it cool to room temp, pour it in your sanitized second vessel, and trasnfer the beer, leaving as much of the sediment in the first vessel as possible, try to angle the hose to the side, creating a gentle whirlpool to mix all the added malt in, leave to mix in for about half an hour, then bottle, leave for two weeks, given am a week in the fridge, and drink away.
I did that to the letter I thought anyhow... I didnt test for stable SG on the primary fermentation but saw no bubbles out of the airlock for 2 days and my air lock normally cracks away.

So I have tested some bottles after abit over a week in the bottle (i know it's aerly)... but the beer is almost flat. So little carbonation im shocked. My others have tasted green at a week but still been bubbly....

Can I save it? I thought maybe dumping a teaspoon of sugar in each and re-capping might work?

Thing is it tastes pretty good, and is definately potent..... but no dice on bubbles.

Hey MTC,

How warm are the bottles? They need a bit of heat -22deg or so for a couple of weeks to do their stuff...

Cheers,

InCider.

 

[Screwtop]

Rack to secondary, leave for a week, rack again to bottling bucket or fermenter, bulk prime with your sugar/dex/DME solution then bottle. Use a corbonation calculator (search, plenty available) to work out how much sugar/dex/DME solution you need given the carbonation level required in Volumes, the FG and temp the beer will be stored at. Bottle and wait FOUR OR MAYBE EVEN EIGHT WEEKS OR LONGER UNTIL IT REACHES OPTIMUM CARBONATION. If you want instant beer go buy a carton of megaswill. Ooohh I am a canky old shit tonight.

 

[Barge]

I always taste a bottle after a week just to see how it turned out and with dextrose it is carbonated enough. The last couple of brews I bottled with DME and after a week they were flat as. Another week later, no dramas! Have patience...they'll come good!

 

[wee stu]

I thought maybe dumping a teaspoon of sugar in each and re-capping might work?

ka-boom

Though maybe not if you intend to drink within a week of assisting fermentation B) .

Not related to boozy, by any chance??

awrabest, an equally canky stu

 

[shawnheiderich]

Mate the more you rack and the colder it is the less active the yeast will be.. I am sure that there are other factors as well. Wait a few more days or weeks and it will be ok.. Brew more than you can drink and then you will have a good stock of bottles to drink whilst waiting.

Shawn

 

[discoloop]

7 grams per litre of malt extract doesn't sound like it will carb up much. I bulk prime with good old fashioned table sugar no probs and average out at about 7 or 8 grams per litre. I would have thought you'd need a fair bit more malt extract for the same level of carbonation. (20-30% more? DON'T quote me on that. Never used it for priming!)

I would follow Incider's advice and leave your beers for another week or two to let the sugars already in the bottles ferment out. Taste again - if they're intolerably flat, just add a LITTLE bit more sugar per bottle - half a teaspoon per longneck or less. Reseal, and leave a few more weeks to carbonate. Be careful, though. Especially if you're bottling in glass. You don't want bombs.

 

[simpletotoro]

hi..how much sugar did you use to bulk prime with?...and the volume you primed...also as stated are the bottlessitting over 20/c ?

i use this table when bulk priming...i wouldn't stress to much...give it a few more weeks and she'll probably be apples..
Final Gravity Grams
1006-1008 180
1008-1010 160
1010-1014 140
1014-1018 120
1019-1025 100

also what did you use to sanatize your bottles and bulkpriming bucket?
cheers simpletotoro

 

[simpletotoro]

sorry just reread post 7 g /litre...sounds ok for me but the bit about not using sugar or dextrose sounds like crap to me..i always just use normal table sugar and i think it carbs fine...
cheers ST

 

[chovain]

The advantage of table sugar is that is will carbonate really quickly - a week may well do it if the temperature is right. The disadvantage is that it might give it a slight cidery taste. I've never had that problem myself. DME is going to take ages to ferment out, and just isn't as easy to work with.

DME has less fermentables than sugar/dex, so your 7g per litre is about half what you want (according to the ProMash CO2 calculator). I'd let it ferment out another few weeks, and be happy with your beer as it is - it won't be completely flat. You could try fixing it by adding another 7g DME (or about 3-4g sugar), but the risk of infection or over-carbonation at this stage just isn't worth it IMO.

Next time, go for ~7g/L sugar, or ~14g/L DME + patience.

 

[matchtheclown]

Cheers fellas.

I'll leave it for a couple of weeks and see if it picks up. Don't like my chances though as there is a fair bit of sediment in the bottles already.

The bottles would be sitting at around 20degrees i'd say mebe a little more should be pretty stable.

I havn't had any trouble with the lat 4 batches, although I have noticed the 'cidery' taste using sugar to bottle... compared with carbonation drops anyhow.

I was just getting rolling with having a batch ready and one to bottle..... but I was down at Phillip Island for the motoGP for a week and we went through 2 full batches (23L each) pretty fast.

Time will tell and ill do a bit more research before I batch prime next time... or maybe I should just bite the bullet and keg.... im pretty over bottling only 5 batches in.. I have a blue mountain larger which has been stable for a week or so now and Im trying to work up the commitment to bottle it.

 

[Keifer]

Yeah kegging is the way to go, i do 1 keg + 4-6 longnecks per single batch and that works well for me. If you think your beer goes quick in bottles, wait till you start kegging lol it just vanishes!

Maybe the extra alcohol % has slowed the yeast up, kit yeast arnt the best performers out there... whatever the case, i reckon it'll carb up with time as suggested.

 

[Screwtop]

hi..how much sugar did you use to bulk prime with?...and the volume you primed...also as stated are the bottlessitting over 20/c ?

i use this table when bulk priming...i wouldn't stress to much...give it a few more weeks and she'll probably be apples..
Final Gravity Grams
1006-1008 180
1008-1010 160
1010-1014 140
1014-1018 120
1019-1025 100

also what did you use to sanatize your bottles and bulkpriming bucket?
cheers simpletotoro

For what volume of beer ST?

 

[mfdes]

Pretty much all commercial breweries that still make bottle conditioned beer use a fully fermentable sugar, either dextrose, sucrose or invert syrup. It will give you a far more consistent result and will certainly not affect the falvour of the beer compared to malt extract.

MFS

 

[petesbrew]

The advantage of table sugar is that is will carbonate really quickly - a week may well do it if the temperature is right. The disadvantage is that it might give it a slight cidery taste. I've never had that problem myself. DME is going to take ages to ferment out, and just isn't as easy to work with.

DME has less fermentables than sugar/dex, so your 7g per litre is about half what you want (according to the ProMash CO2 calculator). I'd let it ferment out another few weeks, and be happy with your beer as it is - it won't be completely flat. You could try fixing it by adding another 7g DME (or about 3-4g sugar), but the risk of infection or over-carbonation at this stage just isn't worth it IMO.

Next time, go for ~7g/L sugar, or ~14g/L DME + patience.

Mark, I put approx that ratio of DME in a recent IPA, after reading it in Papazian's book.
The result was a 6-inch thick head per pint.
I'll be sticking to dextrose, sugar or the carb drops in future...

 

[chovain]

Mark, I put approx that ratio of DME in a recent IPA, after reading it in Papazian's book.
The result was a 6-inch thick head per pint.
I'll be sticking to dextrose, sugar or the carb drops in future...

Yeah, I should point out I only ever use dex or white sugar myself, and that I just stole those numbers from ProMash.

 

[Adamt]

Why steer clear of dextrose/sugar when priming, if you use 1.5kg of brew enhancer? Sorry, this advice you were given does not make any sense

But yes, 1 week is not enough for carbonation, especially with DME.

Also, you should take SG readings no matter how confident you are it is finished. I've seen the result of an un-checked-SG beer, and the sound was a lot louder than stu's kaboom... not to mention the sounds emanating from his wife. :mellow:

 

[mfdes]

I had shards of glass embedded an inch into hardwood when a bottle explosion caused a chain reaction and almost the whole overcarbonated batch exploded. These were in 20-year-old THICK returnable bottles.

MFS

 

[brettprevans]

Slightly off topic (sort off). But in regards to priming if you do use carb drops I have noticed that the Coopers brand do not carb up as much as brewcraft brand carb drops.

I dont really buy anything from brewcraft anymore (better and cheaper stock elsewehere) but when I had used brewcraft drops I got a better results.

My point is that is you used brewcraft drops you certainly wouldnt want to over carb the bottles or bottle an unfinshed brew as you will have bottle bombs. you'll probably get away with it if you used coopers. then again if you bulk prime you dont have those worries.

And Adamt has a point. although im not sure who said they dont use dex/sugar

 

[simpletotoro]

For what volume of beer ST?

sorry i always forget to put in the batch size..its for 23 litres...it's not my work from grumpys....and its for normal table sugar i think... at least thats what i use and it carbs up alright IMO
cheers simpletotoro

edit...maybe this attachment will help...bugger knows where i got it but...maybe it'll help those that want to prime with gear apart from sugar,dex?...like i said i use grumpys table ..but its got a few conversion rates for LDM. HONEY etc...
View attachment Essential_Guide_to_Bulk_Priming.doc