Flat beer after bottled!!!

[gav_k]

Am new to home brew and have only done about a dozen kits. My problem is this. I recently did a coopers lager kit with a munton enhancer, left it to ferment, bottled with half a t-spoon of priming sugar, left in a warm room for a week then put in the garage for 3 weeks. Have since had a cheeky sifter and its real flat!! BTW this was my first attempt using a immersion heater ( because of the weather ) and a beer enhancer. All my other beers/cider kits have primed really well.

My question is.. what has gone wrong? and how can i save the batch? pls help!!!!
thanx in advance

Gav

[trucker5774]

Assuming that you had a normal fermentation (did you take original and final gravity readings ?), then the rest of what you have described sounds like normal practice. Have you only tried one bottle? it could be a bad seal. What type of bottles are they? Have you used a different type? If they are the screw cap type, have they been used beyond "their service limit" ? Are you sure the temperature stayed above 18C when they were priming for a week.

If you have considered all the above and done nothing different to your previous brews then stick 2 pencils up your nose say, "wibble" and sit in a corner and cry

[gav_k]

used hyrometer and was defo fermented, using brown ale bottle with crown caps and have tried 2 bottles within a week of each other. am unsure about constant temp of room used for secondary fermentation but its usually pretty warm. if it was the room temp at secondary can the beer be saved?

[trucker5774]

You could try moving the bottles back to a warm place for another week, give them a bit of a swirl and get the yeast back into suspension. Don't give up yet, these things have a habit of working out

[gav_k]

ok thanx m8. will give that a go otherwise ! WIBBLE !

[mickhew]

I've had the same problem mate, with a Coopers Stout. Exact same processed used, variety of bottles used, flat beer. I reprimed a few bottles, made no difference. The only thing I noticed, that the initial fermentation wasn't as ferocious as before, so I blamed the yeast, no more could be done at that stage.

[floydmeddler]

I've had the same problem mate, with a Coopers Stout. Exact same processed used, variety of bottles used, flat beer. I reprimed a few bottles, made no difference. The only thing I noticed, that the initial fermentation wasn't as ferocious as before, so I blamed the yeast, no more could be done at that stage.

Perhaps you could make a yeast starter with something reliable like s04, swirl it up and add some to each bottle using a pipette or syringe then recapping? Bit of a hassle yes but it beats drinking it flat and is much better than ditching it surely.

Never give up!

[gav_k]

am gonna try and shake 'em up then back in a warm place i think thats the easiest. if that fails was thinking of dumping it all back in a bin warm it up and add some yeast, leave for for a week and see what happens

[EoinMag]

am gonna try and shake 'em up then back in a warm place i think thats the easiest. if that fails was thinking of dumping it all back in a bin warm it up and add some yeast, leave for for a week and see what happens

How will putting it back in a bin help with carbonation? That needs to be done under pressure, with a cap on or in a barrrel....I don't get what you are trying to achieve with that idea.

[gav_k]

I read a post in one of these forums where something similar happened. A suggetion was to dump all the beer back in to a bin, remove and heat 500ml add a bit of yeast and pitch back into FV leave for a week and then rebottle. I have no idea if this would work but it sounded better than ditching the entire batch.

[Swiller]

A friend of mine had a similar expeience and found his immersion heater thermostat was telling porkies, when he checked with a thermometer the actual temperature was 29c instead of 21 which the heater was set at, his brew turned out with very little carbonation.

J

[trucker5774]

I guess the idea of restarting the whole brew is to give it a chance as a bulk item and spread out the technique. If trying that it may be an idea to make up a starter (plenty of info if you search) Pitch the starter once it is fermenting and has some alcohol in it. If i have it right this is less likely to be a shock to the yeast rather than introducing it to an alcohol environment rather than a sugary wort. No guarantee....just a thought!

[EoinMag]

The danger of tipping the lot back into a bucket is that if one bottle is infected you will ruin the whole lot. Personally I'd move them to the hot press and keep an eye on them for a few days.

[thedeckking]

Get it back in a warm room for a week then into the cold after that. I've held a brew for a few weeks in the fridge to prevent 2nd fermentation in the past (I was going on hols and it was 30 degrees+ in my shed so didn't want to risk exploding bottles). I put it in the warm when i got back and it came out fine.
Def worth a try before you start messing with yeast, etc.

[gav_k]

been in the warm nearly five days now. just chilled a bottle and tried it, no change unfortunately. its still very flat and and cloudy. gonna keep it in the warm a while longer and keep trying it a later date. ( dont have the heart to ditch 35 pints! )

will keep you informed