Timing and schedule

[Scoper50]

So I have a little over a dozen batches under my belt. Mostly one gallon batches, but I have started to branch out into 2 gallon and 5 gallon batches recently. I am brewing mostly from recipe kits from Northern Brewer and I've been having a problem with getting consistent carbonation from batch to batch.

The northern brewer kits come with fizz drops. At least the 1 gallon batches do. I used them twice and both beers came out severely under carbonated. So now I don't use fizz drops and have opted for regular table sugar boiled up in a little water. 1oz of sugar per gallon into the bottling bucket

Back in April this year I tried brewing an Orange Gose. I was on vacation in mexico when the bottling day was supposed to happen, so it sat in the primary fermenter for about 4 extra days. So a total of 18 days. When I got home I bottled the 1 gallon batch with 1oz of sugar, waited two weeks, and there was zero carbonation to speak of. I let the bottles sit in the closet for another 2 weeks, and still zero carbonation. What happened? My original suspicion was that it sat in the fermenter too long and there wasn't enough live yeast to eat the priming sugar.

But after reading a lot of stuff around here, it looks like the yeast should survive much longer times in a fermenter if desired. So what do you think could have gone wrong with this batch? I ended up dumping the beer since it was flat as a board.

[Dawg LB Steve]

Check out our own Screwy Brewer's website, lots of great calculators for brewing from start to finish. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... n94d8T2x2E

Sent from my XT830C using Tapatalk

[Dawg LB Steve]

I keg and it has been almost 4 years since I have bottled conditioned beer. There are quite a few here that can help out more than directing you to a website, I can tell you for sure that you didn't run out of viable yeast at 18 days. Before I started to keg I was leaving my beers in the fermenter up to 22-24 days and had good carbonation.

Sent from my XT830C using Tapatalk

[mashani]

It might have been the fact that it was a goze, depending on how sour it got and what yeast you used. It is possible the PH got low enough that the yeast just were not happy. Also salt can suppress yeast, so I don't know how much you added, but that could have "helped" make it not work so well.

[FedoraDave]

It's not a question of the timing; I usually let my beers go three weeks before bottling, and I don't have any problems with carbonation. Plenty of viable yeast after 21 days. So it has to be the amount of priming sugar. As Dawg noted, Screwy Brewer has calculators for all sorts of things on his website, and there are others out there that are also helpful. Just Google "priming sugar calculator" and you can play around with them until you find one that works best for you.

[MadBrewer]

Just my opinion, but when first starting out nothing was more simple than dropping 1 Domino Dot sugar cube in each 12 oz bottle for carbonation. (Kind of like the fizz drops but the Domino Dots have never let me down). Really, for such a small batch sizes I wouldn't even bother transferring to a bottling bucket, it could be one less thing to worry about and you can bottle right from the fermenter with an autosiphon with a bottling wand on the end. Or if you have a spigot on your fermenter, bottle right from there with tubing.

As far as a schedule, there has always been this saying of 2-2-2...2 weeks in the fermenter, 2 weeks at room temp for carbonation after bottling and 2 weeks in the fridge before you drink the beer, but if you are not getting any carbonation, than something is up. It's pretty simple, you need yeast, sugar for them to eat, time and temperature for them to do their thing. But what kind of bottles and caps are you using, maybe you aren't sealing the caps well enough?

Try a more straight forward batch on the next one, try the Domino Dots, make sure to cap well, store at room temp for 2 weeks and see what you get.

[Scoper50]

I was at my local northern brewer store last weekend and I ended up purchasing a 1lb bag of corn sugar. I've never used corn sugar before but I think I read or heard somewhere that it produces finer bubbles? I don't know. Anyway, I'm getting ready to bottle my first 5 gallon batch of Northern Brewers Bavarian Hefeweizen in about a week. I'll use the corn sugar in my bottling bucket and see what happens.

[Scoper50]

I guess one other question that I have, is if a beer comes out under carbonated after bottle conditioning for 2 weeks, will letting the bottles condition for another 1, 2, or 3+ weeks increase the carbonation? Or at that point is the beer just clearing and what not? I actually have a 2 gallon batch of Northern Brewers Zombie Dirt that has been conditioning in the bottle for 3 weeks now. It has carbonation but I feel like it could use a little more. I'm letting it sit in the closet longer hoping that it changes. But I don't have high hopes for it and I'm not sure what I did wrong.

[mashani]

I was at my local northern brewer store last weekend and I ended up purchasing a 1lb bag of corn sugar. I've never used corn sugar before but I think I read or heard somewhere that it produces finer bubbles?.

Corn sugar may produce less acetaldehyde (green apple flavor) because the yeast can directly digest it, where cane sugar they have to split into two other types of sugar using an enzyme that they produce before they can eat those sugars.

As far as finer carb, in my experience finer carb happens when you age the beer long enough that the CO2 dissolves more fully into the solution. I can't say that I notice any difference regardless of sugar type given proper conditioning time. It is possible that you might get finer bubbles sooner from corn sugar since the yeast can metabolize it a little bit faster, so maybe it carbs a tad faster and everything dissolves into solution a tad faster, but it's not going to be something that matters if you let it sit 3-4 weeks... but maybe you notice it if you try to drink it sooner and that's where that idea comes from. I would bet that if I tried to drink your beer at 2 weeks I'd probably taste acetaldehyde and wouldn't want to drink it until it sat another 2 weeks. Because I'm a super taster of such things.

I guess one other question that I have, is if a beer comes out under carbonated after bottle conditioning for 2 weeks, will letting the bottles condition for another 1, 2, or 3+ weeks increase the carbonation?

Leave it sit at room temperature for at least 3-4 weeks before you even mess with them and you should get better/finer carbonation. Do not throw them all in the fridge after 2 weeks or even 3 or 4 weeks. Just leave them in your basement in a box. Only put them in the fridge when you are sure they taste how you want them to taste, or you notice that time has not changed anything for the better.

I would strongly suggest you just ignore them for 4 full weeks after bottling them, especially at first until you have everything nailed down.

If you are bottle priming, then I second the Dominos Dots that was mentioned, it comes in 2.5 gram cubes (198 to a box) and 1 cube per 12oz will give you plenty of (American levels) of carb. 1 cube per 24oz/740ml bottle will give you English carb.

If you are batch priming, as long as you get the sugar solution fully integrated and you use the right amount you should get good carb in every bottle.

Measuring with a spoon and pouring into the bottle - that leads to more random outcomes.

[Scoper50]

Thanks for the advice. It's very helpful!

[Kealia]

Leave it sit at room temperature for at least 3-4 weeks before you even mess with them and you should get better/finer carbonation. Do not throw them all in the fridge after 2 weeks or even 3 or 4 weeks. Just leave them in your basement in a box. Only put them in the fridge when you are sure they taste how you want them to taste, or you notice that time has not changed anything for the better.

I would strongly suggest you just ignore them for 4 full weeks after bottling them, especially at first until you have everything nailed down.

^This^