My Beer Has A Reasonable Head ... But Then Is Flat

[Hardii]

Hi,

My beer (basically malt-extract + hops) has now been bottle conditioning for 10 days.

I tried one tonight ... it was nice and clear, and initially had a good head.
But after a few seconds, the head fizzled away, and my beer was mostly flat.
There was a bit of carbonation, but now a whole lot.

Is this because I didn't put enough priming sugar in?
I used 1.25 teaspoons of light malt extract powder to charge the bottles (500ml swing tops).

I must admit to being a bit depressed by this, I don't know what I expected for my first ever brew, but usually my ginger beers are very far from under-carbonated. "Proper" beer must be a whole lot different I guess.

cheers,
-Hardii

 

[kelbygreen]

dont stress 10 days is way to early to be cracking bottled beer. leave at least 20 days but 4 weeks is recommended and if you can last longer it will only taste better. the head will hold longer as well

 

[Hardii]

Just as a note: I used malt extract for carbination sugar since this was reccomended in "The Complete Joy of Homebrewing" ... only on re-reading it, I was supposed to dissolve the malt into boiled water, and then add that to the beer after it had been siphoned into a 2nd fermenter. I don't have a 2nd fermenter anyway.

 

[Hardii]

Ah cool, thanks for that info Kelby.

Should I move it to the fridge? Currently it's sitting under a blanket in my office.

thanks,
-Hardii

 

[kelbygreen]

did you just put it into the bottles or just dump it into the fermenter? I think you should be fine I rarely had bottles carb in 10 days at all. In winter expect at least a month before there carbonated. just leave it at least another week 2 if you can at least try one a week till you like it and keep a few aside and try at 1 month, 2 month and 3 month and see what the difference is

 

[kelbygreen]

nop dont put in the fridge till its fully carbed will take 3 weeks this time of year maybe less but best to leave them to be sure

 

[manticle]

If it's still carbing then moving it to the fridge is a bad idea. The brew is carbing because yeast is eating the malt you added for priming. Being cold will render it dormant and unable to carry out that task.

Is there a sweeter than expected taste to the brew? If so the priming sugar (malt) is still being consumed by the yeast.

Additionally malt is less fermentable than sugar so to get the same carb level as sugar would give you may need to add higher weight.

How did you calculate how much you need?

 

[Hardii]

To calculate how much dry malt extract I needed for priming, I followed the recipe and divided that up per bottle.
I was making a 1/2 batch (on account of using 2x 5 litre demijohns for fermenting) - so this meant 1.25 cups / 2 ~= 0.6 cups
This was divided amongst 10x 500ml bottles ... which we somehow worked out to be 1.25 tea spoons.

So each 500ml bottle got 1.25 teaspoons of light malt extract before the beer was siphoned in.

 

[kelbygreen]

yeah sounds about right. it should be 6.22g per bottle to get 2.5 volume of CO2 which I thinks good. If you have fine scales you could weigh what you put in and see what it comes at. thats how I used to work it out when bottling found it quicker then trying to stuff around bulk priming

 

[mh971]

I wouldn't rule out glass cleanliness either. Not hygeine, but detergent residues. I find when we buy cheap dishwasher powder, or the thing is running low on rinse aid then what you've described can even happen to commercial store bought beer due to the glass.

With 2.5 volumes of CO2 aimed for, I would have expected that by 10 days this time of year I'd be expecting a pleasnt level of carbonation.

I always keep a few bottles seperate as 'tasters' just to check on the progress of the babies throughout the conditioning process, plus i drink every sample taken from the fermenter for gravity checks, this gives you a full appreciation of teh change in your beer along the way.

 

[going down a hill]

I always keep a few bottles seperate as 'tasters' just to check on the progress of the babies throughout the conditioning process, plus i drink every sample taken from the fermenter for gravity checks, this gives you a full appreciation of teh change in your beer along the way.

+1. They grow up so fast these days......

 

[Strange Brew]

Add about 4% carapils to the fermentables. They only need to be steeped in a bag for 30mins in a resonable volume of water at about 68*C. Works magic for head retention. Most home brew shops will sell a small bag (200g) for a couple of dollars.

 

[mwd]

I noticed in an earlier post you did not dissolve the malt extract in water before priming. It will take some time for the yeast to work on it so I would reasonably suspect that the carbonation time will be a good deal longer even in summer.

I would think 3 weeks to a month should be allowed to reach full carbonation at a rough guesstimate.

+1 for using Crystal steeping grains and Caramalts for all extract brews.

 

[Hardii]

Add about 4% carapils to the fermentables. They only need to be steeped in a bag for 30mins in a resonable volume of water at about 68*C. Works magic for head retention. Most home brew shops will sell a small bag (200g) for a couple of dollars.

So on a 3kg of malt-extract brew, does that mean I need 120 grams? That would be 4% by weight. (0.04 * 3000 ~= 120)

 

[Strange Brew]

So on a 3kg of malt-extract brew, does that mean I need 120 grams? That would be 4% by weight. (0.04 * 3000 ~= 120)

Sorry Hardii I need to elaborate a bit. See [topic="2221"]here[/topic] for a good topic on explaining the different potency of fermentables. Dry Malt Extract is more fermentable than carapils so this has to be taken into account. Once you've read the linked topic this will make sense to you but a rough estimate would be:

384(DME)*3kg = 1152 (i.e. the SG of your DME (3kg) in 1 litre of water would be 1.152 + 1 = 2.152)
0.04*1152 = 46 (4% of that SG is 1.046 in 1 litre of water which has to be carapils)
46/309(carapils) = 0.15kg (0.15kg of carapils has an SG of 1.046 in 1 litre of water)

So you would need more carapils (150g) because it is less fermentable than DME. Of course 4% is just a rough figure anyway which you can play with.

Cheers.