Totally flat brew....

[beattun]

Hi guys,

Just wondering if anyone has any ideas to where i went wrong with this one,

ive had a tin of canadian blonde and a packet of BE1 sitting in the kitchen for about 8 months and pitched it about 2 months ago, did everything as normal, sanitised all the gear, the bottles (CPA stubbies), put carb drops into the bottles, filled, capped and stored.

Its been about a month since i bottled and ive tried 3 of them so far, and each one totally flat, no carbonation. I the carbo drops i used were fresh from the packet, bought the day before.

The fermenter was stable at about 14 degrees for the whole time, for almost 3 weeks.

The beer tastes alright to be honest, but no fizz!

[BigPete56]

I'd give em another month at least, maybe two. looks like you did everything correctly so I reckon they just need time. I had a similar issue with my second ever brew (CPA), flat @ one month, but after two months they were pretty good and three months perfect. I regretted chucking the few that were flat, as had I waited I would had a few more to enjoy. Rule of thumb seems to be three months minimum for maximum effect.

Have you had this problem with previous brews?

[beattun]

thanks for the comments, no, i only ever do basic kit brews (im lazy), ive done maybe 4 or 5 brews before this one and never had that problem, i was always able to sample them after a few weeks, but thats encouraging to know that all is not lost!

[tazman67]

Winter time fellas...an Ale needs roughly 18d to carb up. Wont carb up this time of the year in the shed. You need to put them somewhere warm.

[Bizier]

Yeah, the heat is the thing.

I have a discreet stack of crates in the bedroom at the moment because I don't want to wait three months to drink the beers.

[Bum]

I've recently had a similar problem but mine have been sitting in 18/19C so I was left confused. The advice I'm getting is that the extended time in the fermenter I had (not as long as yours but I finned as well) dropped too much yeast out of suspension. It'll just take longer is the word on the street.

In future, I'll be reconsidering leaving simple kits in the fermenter longer than a week.

[svyturys]

Yeah, the heat is the thing.

Quite right, Bizier.

The summer brews that I am drinking at the moment tend to be gushers when opened. Too much heat over summer.
My autumn beers carbonated perfectly.
The current stock, 1 week since bottling, while carbonated slightly, still need a heat boost...which I do up to about 22C.

In the past I have done the bottle rotate method and that seems to work as well, but heat seems to be the thing.

Cheers

[skurvy84]

i had a similar thing happen recently with my "brewcraft favorite kit" (it was a grolsch clone) i put them some bottles aside for myself to check how things went at each interval. 1 week after bottling it was still flat, 2 weeks after bottling it was basically flat, 3rd week was same as the 2nd. i became worried because each and every other brew was fully carb'd and drinkable by 3 weeks. i was worried i hadn't washed all the detergent out of the bottle when i did the washing of the bottle, or i left some sanitizer in the bottle when i bottled. i pulled 2 bottles out cracked them and they showed slight signs of carb i decided i would add another 1 drop of carb drop to each bottle (a total of 3 carb drops to a bottle) and see how they go.

i cracked another bottled at 4 weeks and was perfectly carb'd and each and every bottled after that was exactly the same, the other 2 bottles i added another drop to were slighty more carbonated than the others.

give it time i say, if the temps are low it will slow the process which i now suspect is what happended to mine. it just so damn hard waiting for them

[beattun]

UPDATE!

I had left two of them sitting in the back of my beer fridge when I started this topic, and just opened one about 20 mins ago, its carbonated, not a fantastic head on it, but not too bad, but plenty of bubbles and life in it, and surprisingly it doesnt taste much unlike coopers pale ale, even though its a canadian blonde, this might be on track to be my best tasting brew yet....

[Bum]

Are you doing your secondary in a normally operating fridge?

[beattun]

no i have a little beer fridge i got from kmart last year (Homemaker brand), holds 24 stubbies, i have the batch of brew sitting in crates in my computer room and i just chucked 2 in the fridge a few weeks ago with the intention of trying them, but now i know the brew has turned out alright i'll leave them in the computer room for a few months and get making some more beer...