I have recently brewed my first all-grain batch of beer. It was a basic hoppy APA. All the readings hit within the target range for the beer style. The first gravity reading was a little in the heavy side for the beer style but within limits. The alcohol content was high though at about 7% BV. Now when it came time to bottle the beer, I did everything like I usually do when I bottle beer made with extract. I used the same amount of priming sugar and took all the same precautions as usual. However, two weeks later my beer seems to still be flat. Should there be any difference in all-grain beer and extract beer when bottling? I have researched extensively brewing all-grain vs extract, but not the bottling aspect. Should I just give it more time? Would adding more priming sugars help? Does the high alcohol content have anything to do with it? ( This is the highest content I have had.) Any suggestion about boosting the carbonation when bottling would be good.
There aren’t any differences between bottling extract and bottling all-grain. What yeast did you use? What were the original and final gravities? How long was the beer in the fermenter?
Neil . . I assume you’re talking about the “Leaky Kettle” APA. I opened the 1st of the sixer you gave me this past weekend. It had moderate carbonation but seemed just ever so slightly sweet. I figured the carbonating sugar just hadn’t been eaten up fully. After I saw your post, I popped the top on another bottle. I slowly poured it into my hydrometer sample tube so I could take a reading. Surprisingly, it took awhile because there was significant carbonation. Finally got it to settle enough to drop the hydrometer in and then shook it up to knock out the carbonation. Let it stand for about two hours and most of the bubbles finally stopped rising. I got a reading of 1.006 which means it would have started about 1.060 to get a 7% ABV. The beer needs a little aging, but in my opinion is pretty well balanced now and the last bottle was nicely carbed. I might mention they’ve been stored at room temperature since you gave them to me.
That was what my readings were. I guess I will have to pop a few more tops. (You know for research purposes.) You are the only one who got a six pack so I have plenty to sample.
I used Wyeast 1764 Pacman yeast from Rogue. It worked nice on my last beer. Had a few foamers in the last batch I used that yeast so I was confident in the yeast building up carbonation. As far as my notes go, I can not see where I did anything different than usual when bottling. I guess in retrospect, it could have been that I did not mix the priming sugar adequately. I did not think there was a difference in the bottling of all-grain versus extract, but I did not want to rule it out as an option. Trying to be thorough in my research. Thank you, everyone.
Although if your thermometer is reading 220 degrees at boil, it’s at least 8°F high (unless you boil under pressure). Which means you were most likely mashing in the 140s. Doesn’t have anything to do with bottle conditioning, but it certainly explains the 90% AA.
Does a heavy sugar solution only boil at 212F? I’ve always assumed it affected the boiling point since I’ve had reads as high as 220 with an accurate thermometer.
I’m only a few hundred feet above sea level and the highest I think I’ve ever seen mine is 220. BTW, this kinda goes with the discussion of caramelization in another thread. You need temps above 360 for caramelization and you can’t get those in your kettle.
Upon reflection it was when I was doing extract partial boils so the solution could easily have been that concentrated. Really it’s not something I pay attention to.
And Denny makes a good point. Where could it happen then? I’m thinking one can get some scorching at the bottom of the kettle and maybe that’s where caramelization can occur?
