New to Forum

Hi, I visited the forum a few months ago. Back now, because I just ordered BeerSmith 2 Home Brewing to see if I can take my hobby a bit further with more confidence. An immediate slight problem with under carbonation brought me to the forum. Just opened a bottle of English IPA that seems to have not carbonated fully. It's been two weeks since I bottled and I thought it was ready to drink. Any ideas/hints as to what may be going on?

Thanks for any replies.

Give it more time.  Most of my beer has a light carbonation after two weeks.  I'll get a good hiss, indicating there is enough CO2, but it hasn't been dissolved into the beer entirely yet.  The CO2 is still in the headspace. 

Once the CO2 has dissolved into the beer the pressure will equalize between the beer solution and the headspace.  At this point, it is fully carbonated. 

I've also found that some of my higher gravity beers take longer to carbonate, compared to lower gravity beers. I attribute this to the yeast being stressed due to the higher alcohol content.  They're sluggish and it takes them longer to do the job.  They'll usually get it done, just slower, the same as a drunk person who doesn't finish a task as efficiently as a sober person (lol).

So, you probably only need more time.  Patience will be rewarded.

How did you carbonate?  I'm assuming corn sugar, but how did you add it to the beer?  Did you add it per bottle, or blend it into the entire batch and then bottle it?

Scott, thanks for your reply. In this batch, as in others, I used corn sugar (2/3 cup in a 5 gal batch) blended into the whole batch. One thing more, is I added raw sugar at the end of the boil (on the recommendation of my brewing supply house) to kick up the alcohol content. It may be that these things are contributing to the slow carbonation (two weeks after bottling).

Any other thoughts?

Thanks, again...,
Roland

The only suggestion is to dial in your bottling sugar.  I don't use volume measurements.  I go by ounces.  I use the carbonation calculator on beersmith to decide how much sugar.  I also base it on the exact amount of beer that I'm bottling.  Once my beer is in my bottling bucket, I know exactly how much I'm going to bottle.

For example, my last bottled batch was my Gingerbread Cookie Ale.

My bottling volume was 5.5 gallons.  I aimed for 1.9 volumes of CO2.  Beersmith calculated 3.14 ounces of corn sugar to achieve 1.9 volumes of CO2.

I based my carbonation on a Robust Porter, since my malt bill and hop schedule were similar to a Robust Porter.  The carbonation range for a Robust Porter is 1.8 - 2.5 volumes of CO2.  I chose to go low, since the ginger in this beer was 3 ounces.  I didn't want to go to the higher end.  With more carbonation, the ginger aroma might have been too dominant for me.  It worked out well.  With the lower carbonation for the style the ginger isn't too dominant in the aroma, but it comes out in the flavor.  I also mashed higher than usual for the style, to leave some extra residual sweetness to bring out the bready, cookie flavors.  I'm pretty happy with this.  I brewed it as a lager last year and bottled at 2.5 volumes of CO2, and the ginger on the nose was overpowering and the beer was kind of spritzy.