No carbonation, not sure at which step I messed up

General Homebrew Discussion
1

I am a new homebrewer, and I am at a loss on what went wrong with my second brewing attempt.

I originally purchased a morebeer.com deluxe brewing kit that came with an American ale kit. That first brew went fine. The boil went fine. The original gravity and final gravity readings were both in the expected range. It fermented in a primary fermenter for two weeks, then bottle conditioned for two weeks, and looked and tasted as expected. It had a little more sediment than I expected, but I attributed that to only using a primary fermenter for the process.

The second brew has not gone like I would have expected. It was a Brewers Best Grapefruit IPA kit purchased from a local brewing supply. This recipe called for dry hopping for the final 5-6 days, and I purchased a secondary fermenter in an attempt to get a clearer beer.

The boil was uneventful. I boiled three gallons of wort for an hour, used a wort chiller to bring the temperature down, then added the wort and two gallons of refrigerated water to the fermenter (a 6 gallon Fermonster). The temp at that point was 66 degrees. Here’s where things went a little off course. The recipe said the original gravity should be 1.054-1.056. My reading was just a little under 1.050. I was furiously researching how to increase the OG, saw a formula on how much table sugar to add, and I actually added about a half cup of sugar before deciding that I absolutely had no idea what I was doing, and I decided to just let it ride. I pitched the yeast (I used a White Labs WLP001 instead of the delivered dry yeast) and sealed it up with the airlock. Within 24 hours, I had a healthy churn in the wort and the airlock was bubbling nicely. Room temperature during the fermentation process was 68-70 degrees.

At 7 days, the airlock was bubbling about once every 45 seconds, and the sediment had mostly settled. I transferred the liquid to the secondary fermenter (another 6 gallon Fermonster), added two ounces of hops pellets for the dry hop, and sealed it up with an airlock.

At 13 days, I took a gravity reading, and it was down to 1.003. The expected final gravity was 1.010. I couldn’t find any definitive postings that I was ruined. I tested again at day 14, and it was 1.002. I got 1.002 again on day 15, so I went to bottling. I boiled 5 ounces of priming sugar in two cups of water, cooled it, then added that and the grapefruit extract to the bottling bucket, followed by the beer from the fermenter. Bottling was uneventful, and I filled 23 22-ounce bombers. I stored the bottles at around 68 degrees.

After 14 days of bottle conditioning, I put three bottles in the fridge. Once they were cold, I opened one bottle. There wasn’t a sound of air escaping when I uncapped it, and there was zero carbonation in the beer. It tasted fine, but was absolutely flat. I didn’t open any additional bottles, just put the two remaining in the fridge back into storage. It’s possible I just had a bad seal on that bottle, but there was nothing evident about that.

Now, I’m giving it more time for carbonation to happen, but I don’t know if it’s futile. My original gravity was a little low and my final gravity was WAY low. Was that my problem? Did that decimate the yeast so that it couldn’t carbonate? I look forward to feedback, and am hoping that time will fix this.

2

I did calibrate my hydrometer to ensure it was accurate, and I got a 1.000 reading with plain water.

3

Nothing sounds wrong with your process.  The gravity being off is weird but doesn’t necessarily explain why you don’t have carb.  When I was a new brewer and bottling this same way, I would use a secondary and have pretty clear beer before sending the beer to a bottling bucket.  Even with the beer that clear, there was still yeast left behind for natural carb to be produced.  At this point I guess I would make sure your bombers are in a warmish spot (70s or so) and wait another week or two and then try another one.  Good luck and keep us posted.

4

I don’t see any errors in your process.  I’m thinking the sugar you added contributed to the lower than expected FG as sugar is highly fermentable. 
I had a similar issue once when bottling where some of my bottles were flat and others were highly carbonated.  I wrote it off to the priming sugar solution not mixing well with the beer in the bottling bucket.
Keeping them in the 70 degree range for another week or so should help, maybe a gentle agitation too…  Good luck!

5

I agree that the table sugar contributed to the lower FG. Belgian beers often use sugar to achieve a nice dry finish and a fully attenuated beer. Warm em up and wait a little longer. You can warm a couple of bottles up  into the 80s to speed carbonation and put your mind at ease. Again, some Belgian bottled beers bottle condition in much warmer environments without ill effect. When I bottled I would do a few in small Coke or Coronita bottles that I would keep near my furnace vent or in a very warm spot to quickly carbonate. It’s nice to only waste 5-6oz of flat beer vs 22 if they aren’t quite done! And keeping the rest of the little bottles at the same room temp as the rest of the batch helped to gauge where things are in the bottle conditioning process.

6

I always found that 4-6 weeks after bottling was a good time to check the beer.  I assume the carb formed quicker than that but the flavor was usually not where I wanted it earlier than that.  As a result I just put the beer somewhere warm enough and forgot about it for at least a month.  In all the batches I bottled, I don’t think I ever had one that would not carb.  Ever.

7

Another way to check for carbonation without opening bottles is to mark the fill level with a sharpie on the neck of the bottles at bottling.  Carbonated beer will have a higher level than when flat.  Of course this doesn’t help right now, but next time it might.
I also agree that swirling the bottles and keeping them warm will help with conditioning.

8

Thanks to everyone for the encouraging responses! I’m relieved to find out that additional time will resolve the problem. I will give them a little swirl and bring them upstairs where it’s a couple of degrees warmer. Thanks again!

9

here’s a funny story for you, a few years ago i was getting ready to bottle so i cleaned/sanitized all my bottles, boiled up my priming sugar and proceeded to bottle. when i was finished i realized the priming solution was just sitting there, i forgot to add it to the bottling bucket  :o, i had to order coopers drops and reopen every bottle and dose one by one lol, at least you did not do that. you are gonna be good

10

I just learned something

11

The sharpie line trick is new to me too.  Would have been good to know when I was bottling everything.

My first thought was the table sugar may have done some to drive your FG down too.  Hopefully, time and a warmer environment fixes your carb issue.

Paul

12

You touched an issue that has bitten me recently. I had been using an antique bench capper that my morther-in-law used years ago for her root beer. I got a new fancy bench capper recently. It looks a whole lot better than it works - maybe operator error. With the new capper, it feels like the caps have seated correctly but - not so much. The caps don’t give much resistance when I open the bottles and the beer is flat-ish. I’ve gone back to the old antique capper. After all that, check that your caps give some resistance when opening the bottle. It may be a capper issue.

13

One other common issue is putting the bottles directly on a concrete floor.

The concrete sucks all the heat out of the bottles and it makes them carbonate WAY slower than if they were off the floor in the same ambient temperature.

14

Yeah, me too!  I love this forum!

15

Came here wondering why mine didn’t carb in the usual two weeks and even 3 weeks.  Had moved from 3000 meters altitude down to sea level so wanted to blame that.  Now wondering if putting it in the bathtub has the effect described when putting it on cement?  Had worried that it would carb more here and explode so put it in the spare bathtub.  Now it’s over a month and when I went to add sugar drops (thought  I had forgotten to add bottling  sugar) it is carbed.  Also going to try the marker thing on the next batch.  Thanks folks

16

Hey, are these beers carbed now?  I’m getting thirsty!  :D  No bubbles, no beer.