carbonation issue

i've been brewing for a while now and have been having issues with carbonation recently that i can't really explain and was hoping that you guys could help.

i recently brewed two different ipa's and an english pale ale. i hit og and fg gravity fine and the yeast attenuated fine in all three cases (notty for the ipa's and windsor for the pale). i verified that fermentation was finished before bottling and, as i like my beers fizzy, added table sugar to carbonate to 2.5. all three were dry hopped in secondary for 72hrs before bottling.

my issue is that the ipa's (both 5.3% abv) were under-carbonated, even after 2 months in the bottles, and the pale (3.9% abv) was seriously over-carbonated.

is there any reason why the carbonation would be so off in all three? something to do with the different yeast strains or do the abv differences have an effect on carbonation ?

thanks in advance for your help!

jon

Just for clarification.  You added the table sugar for priming then dry hopped, or added the table sugar dissolved in water to the bottling bucket just before bottling?

Are all the IPA's under carbonated and all the pale ales over carbonated?  Sometimes the over/under carbonation problems come from poor distribution of priming sugar in the bottling bucket.  The first bottles filled may get too much sugar and the last bottles filled not enough.  I number the first six bottles filled and the last six.  Helps identify the probable cause for differences in carbonation.  Higher ABV beers will also take longer to carbonate than the lower ABV beers at the same temperature.

Do you use a priming sugar calculator and measure the sugar by weight rather than by volume?

hi flars,
to clarify, the beers were transferred to secondary and dry-hopped for 72hrs then dissolved the priming sugar was added to the bottling bucket just prior to bottling. stirred to ensure even distribution.
all bottles were carbonated to the same extent which is why i can't explain what happened. sugar quantity was as per the recommendation from beersmith v.2 but i also verified the amount using the brewer's friend priming calculator.
i also understand that high alcohol beers need more time to carbonate but i wouldn't put 5.3% in the 'high alcohol' bracket and would have thought that 2 months at 21°C would have been enough time ??? prior to that, i had no issues with carbonation and most beers in this range carbonated within 3 weeks.
the only other variable i can think of is that i started to use a small bronze ball instead of a glass marble to weigh down the hops for the dry-hopping process. would the metal in some was affect the yeast ?
thanks again for your reply!
jon

I don't think the bronze would have any effect on the yeast or the beer.  I would suspect leaking bottle caps as more suspect since neither beer is high ABV and bottle conditioning was at 21°C.  Are all the bottles the same type or a collection of brewery empties?  Some bottles are difficult to cap with a wing capper because of the size of the lip on the bottle neck.  Leaking caps are less likely if a bench capper had been used.

I have found that heavier body plays more of a factor into how carbonated the beer gets,rather than alcohol content. I found Ipa's and quads, and other heavy body beer needs more sugar to carbonate to 2 volumes than lighter bodied beers. Very few have agreed with me as there is no science to back it up, other than my conclusion that a heavier liquid requires more c02 to reach the same carb volume as a lighter bodied liquid. CHEERS

thanks for the replies guys.

flars - it's definitely not the caps as i used all new caps and bottles and the same process on all three beers and on beers since without issue.

twhitaker - an interesting idea but i can't help but think that the correlation between sugar and co2 production must be direct and work independent of the liquid in which it is produced...but as i have no idea myself i am sure your experience is entirely valid and don't doubt that this works for you.

one additional issue that might explain it is to do with the brewing method and yeast used. for the ipa's i was influenced by the excellent brulosopher exbeeriment article (http://brulosophy.com/2014/06/02/the-great-trub-exbeeriment-results-are-in/) and fermented both ipa's with a large amount of trub in the fermenter.

do you think it's possible that the mix of a highly flocculating yeast strain (nottingham) along with a large amount of hot break in the fermenter might have led to greater amounts of yeast falling out of suspension after fermentation had finished? and that this in turn might have led to lower amounts of yeast in suspension when transferring to secondary for the dry hopping ???

this would not have been a problem for the windsor which is a low flocculating yeast strain. it would also explain why all of my saison beers (fermented with belle saison, another low flocculating yeast strain) all carbonate within a week, no problem.

or perhaps i am completely misunderstanding how yeast work in the fermentation and carbonation processes ... interested in your thoughts ...

cheers,
jon

jonnym_ch said:

thanks for the replies guys.

flars - it's definitely not the caps as i used all new caps and bottles and the same process on all three beers and on beers since without issue.

twhitaker - an interesting idea but i can't help but think that the correlation between sugar and co2 production must be direct and work independent of the liquid in which it is produced...but as i have no idea myself i am sure your experience is entirely valid and don't doubt that this works for you.

one additional issue that might explain it is to do with the brewing method and yeast used. for the ipa's i was influenced by the excellent brulosopher exbeeriment article (http://brulosophy.com/2014/06/02/the-great-trub-exbeeriment-results-are-in/) and fermented both ipa's with a large amount of trub in the fermenter.

do you think it's possible that the mix of a highly flocculating yeast strain (nottingham) along with a large amount of hot break in the fermenter might have led to greater amounts of yeast falling out of suspension after fermentation had finished? and that this in turn might have led to lower amounts of yeast in suspension when transferring to secondary for the dry hopping ???

this would not have been a problem for the windsor which is a low flocculating yeast strain. it would also explain why all of my saison beers (fermented with belle saison, another low flocculating yeast strain) all carbonate within a week, no problem.

or perhaps i am completely misunderstanding how yeast work in the fermentation and carbonation processes ... interested in your thoughts ...

cheers,
jon

Click to expand...

Interesting that you followed the Exbeeriment.  I've read that article in the past.  It caused me to think of something.

Beersmith and other carbonation programs rely on an estimate of the CO2 still in suspension after fermentation.  Michael Tonsmeire talks about this in his book, Amercian Sour Beers.  He states that with sour beers that have aged for long periods of time (sometimes years) in the fermenter, they are dead flat.  This can cause sour beers to be undercarbonated in the bottles, because Beersmith and similar carbonation calculators rely on some residual CO2 to still be in suspension after fementation.

The fact that you had a lot of hot break and cold break, could have caused some of the CO2 created during your fermentation to be locked up in some of the trub (not in the yeast, as you suggested).  This may have caused you to have more residual carbonation left over after fermentation than your normal brewing processes don't have.  What I'm suggesting is that you may have carbonated with the same amount of sugar that you usually use, but since you had more carbonation in your beer before bottling, it would have caused you to be overcarbonated after the bottles conditioned.

Also, when and how you rack the beer off of the trub, etc. may make a difference in how much of that carbonation is able to stay in the beer.  If you let it settle long enough and rack carefully, you may not bring much of the trub out of primary and into secondary or into the bottling bucket.  If your a little careless or rack early, the trub may carry along through to the bottling bucket and keep more CO2 with the beer.

Just some random thoughts to consider.

I hope you figure this out.  Bottle bombs are no fun, and undercarbed beer is always a little bit of a let down.