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Bottle Carbonating

Oddball

Master Brewer
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Hey guys,

Just finished brewing my first beer this weekend, and my wife and I were pretty astounded at how well the flavour turned out. However, i primed the bottling bucket before bottling, and when we tried one later that day the beer was still flat. How long does it usually take for carbonation to build in a bottle. Thanks
 
Did you give the beer any time in the fermenter?  If you brewed and bottled the same batch in the same day you will not really have beer.
 
RickS said:
Did you give the beer any time in the fermenter?  If you brewed and bottled the same batch in the same day you will not really have beer.

That's a good point.  I assumed he had added yeast and let it ferment out.  However, he did say he bottled it right after brewing, so ......  I'm not sure what he did.
 
Scott Ickes said:
RickS said:
Did you give the beer any time in the fermenter?  If you brewed and bottled the same batch in the same day you will not really have beer.

That's a good point.  I assumed he had added yeast and let it ferment out.  However, he did say he bottled it right after brewing, so ......  I'm not sure what he did.

Sorry for the lack of details. It was finished fermenting, i had primed it in the bottling bucket, bottled it, and then taste tested one of the bottles later that day.

2 weeks is probably the answer i was looking for. Although i thought the yeast would start eating the sugar faster then that....

Thanks for the help
 
Even if the yeast rip through the sugar in the beer in a day, it won't carbonate immediately.

How it works is the yeast consume the bottling sugar and turn it into mostly alcohol and carbon dioxide.  The carbon dioxide doesn't go straight into solution in the beer.  It goes to the head space first.  Then as more CO2 is generated by the yeast, the CO2 in the headspace starts to slowly diffuse into the beer.  The process takes a minimum of two weeks to create the bubbles we want in our carbonated beer.  If you give it even more time, the bubbles eventually become a nice silky head.  If you drink it too early, it's more fizzy with larger bubbles that dissipate quickly. 

The key is patience!
 
Ok! Thanks Scott!

Also, i didn't realize that time would affect the head as well, but that makes sense. So hard to be patient with it sitting there...
 
If lack of patience is an issue, consider kegging.  I did not want to get into big Kegging op so I went the mini Keg (5L) route.  I keg 1-2 kegs or have a batch and then bottle the rest in litres and pints growlers.  The CO2 bottle on my kegerator (Avanti) has the keg ready next day.  If I used little CO2 cartridges (and I don't) it would require bottling sugar in kegs as well.
 
Bluemax36 said:
If lack of patience is an issue, consider kegging.  I did not want to get into big Kegging op so I went the mini Keg (5L) route.  I keg 1-2 kegs or have a batch and then bottle the rest in litres and pints growlers.  The CO2 bottle on my kegerator (Avanti) has the keg ready next day.  If I used little CO2 cartridges (and I don't) it would require bottling sugar in kegs as well.

Ya, I was just looking into corny kegs actually earlier today. I would like to definetly go that route at some point. Is there any advantage between regular and corny kegs?
 
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