Bottle refermentation issue

[jb1986]

Hello,

I had issues with my last beer. Beers were flat (no CO2) 4 weeks after bottling.

Here is what I did:
-Yeast starter with WLP001
-Brew a beer ant let it ferment during 10 days
-5 days cold crash (5°C)
-Bottled directly from the fermenter (no bottling bucket), using carbonation drops (1.5 drops per bottle =~ 2.25gr) and added co2 in the headspace to minimize oxydation.
-Put bottles at ~18-20°C and tested after 2 weeks. They were flat.
-After 4 weeks, tested 2 bottles. They were good so I put all of them in my fridge. Bubbles almost completely disappeared.
-Noticed few days later that in fact lots of them were still flat.

Some beers were perfect but the majority were flat and some had bubbles (bacteria?) on top (see picture).

All of them are perfectly clean and there is almost no trub in the bottles. Taste is good. Also those with bubbles.


I'm now wondering what the issue could be:
- Temperature?
- Not enough yeast?
- Yeast not active after cold crash?
- Bacteria?
- All of them?

And what should I do next?
- Wait? Noticed in the past that some of my beers kept fermenting even at low temp
- Put them at 20°C again? Or even more?

Thank you

 

[Zambi]

Yeah, put them a bit warmer, but keep them in a closed box, just in case.

Personally, I don't cold crash. I bottle and leave them for maybe 10-14 days, then move to the fridge.
Easy little trick, use at least 1 carbonated drinks pet bottle and treat it the same as the glass ones.
By squeezing this bottle, you can assess carbonation

 

[Sandy Feet]

Ferment 14 days. DON'T cold crash. Bottle and carbonate at fermentation temps for 10-14 days. THEN cold crash.
I always used the bottling bucket. 5oz of corn sugar mixed with two cups of water boiled for 5 minutes. Cool slightly. Pour simple syrup in bottling bucket, rack beer on top without splashing. Bottle with a wand and some tubing from the bucket spigot.

 

[Minbari]

Ferment 14 days. DON'T cold crash. Bottle and carbonate at fermentation temps for 10-14 days. THEN cold crash.
I always used the bottling bucket. 5oz of corn sugar mixed with two cups of water boiled for 5 minutes. Cool slightly. Pour simple syrup in bottling bucket, rack beer on top without splashing. Bottle with a wand and some tubing from the bucket spigot.

Why would you cold crash in the bottles? The idea is to get clear beer before you package it. I bottled for 7+years and always cold crashed (once I had the equipment to do it. ) before bottling.

 

[Minbari]

Hello,

I had issues with my last beer. Beers were flat (no CO2) 4 weeks after bottling.

Here is what I did:
-Yeast starter with WLP001
-Brew a beer ant let it ferment during 10 days
-5 days cold crash (5°C)
-Bottled directly from the fermenter (no bottling bucket), using carbonation drops (1.5 drops per bottle =~ 2.25gr) and added co2 in the headspace to minimize oxydation.
-Put bottles at ~18-20°C and tested after 2 weeks. They were flat.
-After 4 weeks, tested 2 bottles. They were good so I put all of them in my fridge. Bubbles almost completely disappeared.
-Noticed few days later that in fact lots of them were still flat.

Some beers were perfect but the majority were flat and some had bubbles (bacteria?) on top (see picture).
View attachment 27204
All of them are perfectly clean and there is almost no trub in the bottles. Taste is good. Also those with bubbles.


I'm now wondering what the issue could be:
- Temperature?
- Not enough yeast?
- Yeast not active after cold crash?
- Bacteria?
- All of them?

And what should I do next?
- Wait? Noticed in the past that some of my beers kept fermenting even at low temp
- Put them at 20°C again? Or even more?

Thank you

I have had bottles take 8 weeks to really carb up. Depends on how much and how healthy your yeast was. Of course cold crashing removed more yeast, but I never had a batch that didn't carb with enough time.
Remember that once you chill the bottles, the carb will go down a bit, but should still be there.

That picture looks like infection to me, but hard to tell from picture. Was that shaken to make foam or was it just sitting with that white bubbly foam in it?

 

[BarbarianBrewer]

That picture looks like infection to me, but hard to tell from picture. Was that shaken to make foam or was it just sitting with that white bubbly foam in it?

I was thinking the same thing. If that is the case then the bacteria probably ate up most of the priming sugar, leaving only a little for the yeast to consume and provide carbonation.

I always ferment ales for 2.5 weeks and cold crash for the last 2-3 days. Then I let the bottles sit at room temperature for a couple of weeks before putting them in the fridge. So four weeks at room temperature (unless it's in a cold basement) should be more than enough time to fully carbonate.

What are your sanitation procedures like? Do you use a bottle brush and sanitize your bottles shortly before filling them? Same for your fermentor? Do you take gravity readings during fermentation? If so, are the utensils properly cleaned and sanitized beforehand? These are all just guesses.

 

[Donoroto]

I agree, that big white bubble looks like an infection from bacteria. Proceed with caution if drinking one.

 

[jb1986]

I have had bottles take 8 weeks to really carb up. Depends on how much and how healthy your yeast was. Of course cold crashing removed more yeast, but I never had a batch that didn't carb with enough time.
Remember that once you chill the bottles, the carb will go down a bit, but should still be there.

That picture looks like infection to me, but hard to tell from picture. Was that shaken to make foam or was it just sitting with that white bubbly foam in it?

Hello,
No it wasn't shaken. I also think that it looks like an infection but the taste is not different. I forgot to say that I also had a bottle with bubble and a manometer on top. After 2 weeks it was at 0.5b and I put it in the fridge 2 weeks later when it was at 3.8b. IMHO taste was very similar to a sierra nevada pale ale (it's a clone) I bought in shop to compare but this one had too much carb.

In the fermenter there was no sign of infection. I use a tilt and fermentation went as usual.
I clean the bottles with hot water using that:

and then sanitized with star san few minutes before bottling. Next time I will use OXI before that as well.
That could explain the potential infection but not why I have some bottles with carb and some not.

The thing I used to do differently is that I was using a bottling bucket in the past. Maybe the amount of yeast on top of my fermenter was not the same than at the bottom. Using a bottling bucket and mixing might have made it more homogeneous?

Using carb drops with no movement of the fermenter after a long cold crash might have result in beers with really small amounts of yeast? That and the fact that I removed oxygen (used by yeast to multiply) from the head space could explain why it takes so long?

Potential infection might also result from the fact that refermentation didn't happen and that sugar were available for bacteria? Which is not the case if yeast eat all the sugar within 2-3 days...

 

[jb1986]

I agree, that big white bubble looks like an infection from bacteria. Proceed with caution if drinking one.

10 of them were drunk already. No issue except carb.

 

[Sandy Feet]

Why would you cold crash in the bottles? The idea is to get clear beer before you package it. I bottled for 7+years and always cold crashed (once I had the equipment to do it. ) before bottling.

It was the way I always did it. The only time it did not work correctly is when dumb ass me could not read a scale and measured the sugar wrong. In bottles, the beer is going to have some sediment anyway. At fermentation temps, the yeast should be healthier to carbonate.
I always crashed one bottle all day about 11 days later to see the result. If I liked it, I crashed the rest. I always kept the bottles upright so the sediment would settle to the bottom.
10 brewers, 11 different ways LOL.

 

[Zambi]

10 brewers, 11 different ways LOL

No!!!
More like 15
You got to find your own way.
I used a bottling bucket once because everyone told me it was better.
I got uneven carbonation, so I'm back to table sugar per bottle.
I'm wondering about possible infection as said above,
But also thinking it might be a fluke thing.

Starsan should be good & strong enough, if no solids attached to inside of bottles
If you re-use bottles, then clean/rinse straing after drinking.
Brew a new batch, bottle half with carbonation drops, half via bottling bucket. Maybe?

 

[Sandy Feet]

No!!!
More like 15
You got to find your own way.
I used a bottling bucket once because everyone told me it was better.
I got uneven carbonation, so I'm back to table sugar per bottle.
I'm wondering about possible infection as said above,
But also thinking it might be a fluke thing.

Starsan should be good & strong enough, if no solids attached to inside of bottles
If you re-use bottles, then clean/rinse straing after drinking.
Brew a new batch, bottle half with carbonation drops, half via bottling bucket. Maybe?

I'm pretty patient, but not that patient
I thought the bucket did a pretty good job if you poured the sugar in first and racked on top of it. I didn't mind bottling a little, but I didn't want to spend lots of time on it, so I used 22 oz bombers. It usually came to about 26 bombers for 5 gallons.
If you are going to do mixed bottling, make sure the sugar is right for the volume being bottled.
Others on here, don't like my idea, but I used the dishwasher to help clean bottles. You just make sure you inspect all of them carefully for residue and rewash if needed. It works good as an additional layer of sanitation too.