What went right...so far? What about that low FG?

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

I hate to say it but was born in the early 60's so I've seen it all lol
and I've been brewing since I was 19

 

[Toddsgate]

I have concert t-shirts older than you. At least Def Leppard, Van Halen from '91(?) at Merriwether.
'80s had the best hair.

Alice in Chains opened for VH in Hampton, VA in 91....I got the merch

 

[Donoroto]

I literally also have concert shirts from the 70s & 80s.

 

[west1m]

Tee shirts from the 70's?
I was into desert racing dirt bikes in those days...

 

[Donoroto]

Hm. My 1976 ELP shirt from the Works tour show at Madison Square Garden must not have survived. This is the oldest shirt I have now, from a college dorm party. I designed the image.

 

[west1m]

Pic?

 

[Donoroto]

Oh damn, here we go

 

[Toddsgate]

if it is diastaticus, it will continue to drop down. since you bottled it i would be VERY VERY careful of bottle bombs. I have seen diastatics drive FG down into negative numbers. Also the only real way to tell if it had the staticus is if it drops really low or doing genetic testing in a lab. it doesnt really have much off flavor.

you didnt ferment a saison or belgian or anything in that fermenter previously did you? if it continues dropping, i would consider getting rid of that carboy if it is plastic and boil all your hoses if possible. if you have diastaticus, it will slowly ferment even down at fridge temps.

i have seen cans pop from being touched or the 6 pack/case being picked up.

just be careful. maybe wear leather gloves/eyepro when you handle the bottles until you are confident they are not gonna blow on you.

I chilled a bottle over the weekend, for 48 hours. Upon popping off the cap, there was a noticeable lack of "pop" of air escaping. I poured into a well cleaned and chilled pint glass. Nearly 0 carbonation and absolutely no foamy head. It tasted sweet at this point. I let a sample warm up to 64* F and stuck my hydrometer into the test jar. It appears we are reading around 1.006, which I guess would make sense with the bottling day addition of the priming corn sugar, without a yeast conversion. I'm wondering if anyone has any other thoughts on the matter? I brewed a blonde ale on Saturday and I'm hoping not to have a repeat performance.

Todd

 

[Bigbre04]

may not have been enough yeast in there to do the job?

 

[Toddsgate]

may not have been enough yeast in there to do the job?

I'm going to wait another week before chilling another. Would it be unthinkable to uncap and add a bit of yeast to each of the remaining bottles if in fact there were not any viable yeast at the time of original bottling? If that is possible, how much dry yeast should be added?

Todd

 

[Bigbre04]

I'm going to wait another week before chilling another. Would it be unthinkable to uncap and add a bit of yeast to each of the remaining bottles if in fact there were not any viable yeast at the time of original bottling? If that is possible, how much dry yeast should be added?

Todd

Honestly I have no idea

 

[Dave Y]

I'd say if you go that far to get this batch going, probably the amount of yeast you could pinch between 2 fingers? Not a lot.

Would it be unthinkable to uncap and add a bit of yeast to each of the remaining bottles if in fact there were not any viable yeast at the time of original bottling? If that is possible, how much dry yeast should be added?

Well, I'd say no, because you thought it with your out loud keystrokes.
Or you could get a fresh packet, hydrate, mix and use an eye dropper and add 1-2 drops per bottle?

I'd say 2-4 weeks would tell the tale if you need to go further and 1 week is in the bag. I've had inconsistent bottling carbonation once or twice but not no carbonation. But then, your yeast already exceeded expectations, so you're in some pretty unusual territory.

I'd wait another week and reassess. If you do pop them open to add yeast, try to minimize the time the cap is off.

 

[Zambi]

What I do when bottling is to use at least 1 PET bottle (soft drink bottle, like coke or sprite or so).
Treat the same as the glass bottles, and you can "check" carbonation by squeezing the bottle.

 

[Bigbre04]

the better option might be to add a drop or 2 of active yeast from a fermenting batch into each bottle. thats a very very harsh environment for new yeast.

 

[J A]

It's pretty hard to completely drop all the yeast out unless you cold crash for a long time before bottling. It's definitely not carbing up but that process can be a little quirky sometimes.
First, be sure you keep it at a warm room temp for carbing. Don't be afraid to get it up to 80 degrees. I've had stubborn batches respond to a good warm-up and turn out fine. If you give it a warm bath and keep it at 72 for a week or more and you still find no evidence of carbonation, try the yeast thing. Literally a few "grains" of dry yeast will do the job or, as @Bigbre04 suggests, some actively fermenting yeast.

 

[Donoroto]

I suggest trying exactly that in one bottle to see what happens. A pinch is plenty.

 

[Toddsgate]

I suggest trying exactly that in one bottle to see what happens. A pinch is plenty.

I chilled another bottle, beginning Friday 27 Feb and opened it on Sunday 01 Mar, and still 0 carbonation. I went with a small pinch of dry S-04 into 6 bottles, one bottle at a time, sanitizing each step of the way. Upon opening these six bottles for the new yeast addition, they exhibited a very slight "pssht" as if a very little carbonation had occurred. These bottles are now contained in a covered cardboard box which is inside of a plastic tub. I'm going to give it 2 weeks with those and report back. At the same time, I will chill another bottle from the original bottling day for comparison.

Side note: The blonde ale I just bottled clocked in at 1.007 with an OG of 1.050, lower than the 1.012 I was expecting, once again using S-04 Safale. I may start a new thread on that....

Todd

 

[Bigbre04]

I chilled another bottle, beginning Friday 27 Feb and opened it on Sunday 01 Mar, and still 0 carbonation. I went with a small pinch of dry S-04 into 6 bottles, one bottle at a time, sanitizing each step of the way. Upon opening, these six bottles exhibited a very slight "pssht" as if a very little carbonation had occurred. These bottles are now contained in a covered cardboard box which is inside of a plastic tub. I'm going to give it 2 weeks with those and report back. At the same time, I will chill another bottle from the original bottling day for comparison.

Side note: The blonde ale I just bottled clocked in at 1.007 with an OG of 1.050, lower than the 1.012 I was expecting, once again using S-04 Safale. I may start a new thread on that....

Todd

finished beer is a very harsh environment! im very surprised that you were able to get any activity with dry yeast!

I have run into larger batches that have had stuck ferments before, but the bottle conditioning thing isnt something that we really do. The handful of times that i have done actual bottle conditioning it was the opposite of your problem. ended up having to dump(distilled a few cases) roughly a full pallet of belgian tripel bombers that were significantly over-carbed.

im interested to see how this turns out. also curious on your "control" bottles.

 

[J A]

I chilled another bottle, beginning Friday 27 Feb and opened it on Sunday 01 Mar, and still 0 carbonation. I went with a small pinch of dry S-04 into 6 bottles, one bottle at a time, sanitizing each step of the way. Upon opening, these six bottles exhibited a very slight "pssht" as if a very little carbonation had occurred. These bottles are now contained in a covered cardboard box which is inside of a plastic tub. I'm going to give it 2 weeks with those and report back. At the same time, I will chill another bottle from the original bottling day for comparison.

Side note: The blonde ale I just bottled clocked in at 1.007 with an OG of 1.050, lower than the 1.012 I was expecting, once again using S-04 Safale. I may start a new thread on that....

Todd

What temp are you holding for carbonation? Either you don't have enough sugar, you've killed all the yeast, the temp is too low or you have bad seals. There just aren't any other factors to consider.

Regarding your lower FG on another batch...I'd stop trusting your hydrometer and get another one to check it against. S-04 will hit 1.010 pretty routinely but going below 1.009 is unusual. It could be that you've just got unusually fermentable wort and there are worst problems to have but it warrants some investigation as to the accuracy of your measurement equipment.

 

[Toddsgate]

What temp are you holding for carbonation? Either you don't have enough sugar, you've killed all the yeast, the temp is too low or you have bad seals. There just aren't any other factors to consider.

Regarding your lower FG on another batch...I'd stop trusting your hydrometer and get another one to check it against. S-04 will hit 1.010 pretty routinely but going below 1.009 is unusual. It could be that you've just got unusually fermentable wort and there are worst problems to have but it warrants some investigation as to the accuracy of your measurement equipment.

Carbonation is hald at 72* F. I'm going with the yeast kill off for the batch in question (red ale), as a guess. I actually have 2 hydrometers of differing manufacturers, both of which read identically. In the red ale batch, prior to priming, the FG was 1.004 I then primed with corn sugar/water mixture which had been boiled for a couple minutes, then cooled prior to integrating into the wort. The gravity reading I took after 2 weeks of conditioning was 1.006, which to me shows 0 yeast activity during that period.
I'm still open to suggestions, and may even order a 3rd hydrometer.

Todd